d to them, that he had "lost the profits of his
play, which had been finished three years:" and in another letter
declares his resolution to publish a pamphlet, that the world might know
how "he had been used."

This pamphlet was never written; for he, in a very short time,
recovered his usual tranquillity, and cheerfully applied himself to more
inoffensive studies. He, indeed, steadily declared, that he was promised
a yearly allowance of fifty pounds, and never received half the sum; but
he seemed to resign himself to that as well as to other misfortunes, and
lose the remembrance of it in his amusements and employments.

The cheerfulness with which he bore his confinement appears from the
following letter, which he wrote, January the 30th, to one of his
friends in London.

"I now write to you from my confinement in Newgate, where I have been
ever since Monday last was se'nnight, and where I enjoy myself with much
more tranquillity than I have known for upwards of a twelve-month past;
having a room entirely to myself, and pursuing the amusement of my
poetical studies, uninterrupted, and agreeable to my mind. I thank the
Almighty, I am now all collected in myself; and, though my person is in
confinement, my mind can expatiate on ample and useful subjects with all
the freedom imaginable. I am now more conversant with the Nine than
ever, and if, instead of a Newgate-bird, I may be allowed to be a bird
of the muses, I assure you, sir, I sing very freely in my cage;
sometimes, indeed, in the plaintive notes of the nightingale; but at
others in the cheerful strains of the lark."

In another letter he observes, that he ranges from one subject to
another, without confining himself to any particular task; and that he
was employed one week upon one attempt, and the next upon another.

Surely the fortitude of this man deserves, at least, to be mentioned
with applause; and, whatever faults may be imputed to him, the virtue of
suffering well cannot be denied him. The two powers which, in the
opinion of Epictetus, constituted a wise man, are those of bearing and
forbearing; which cannot indeed be affirmed to have been equally
possessed by Savage; and, indeed, the want of one obliged him very
frequently to practise the other.

He was treated by Mr. Dagge, the keeper of the prison, with great
humanity; was supported by him at his own table, without any certainty
of recompense; had a room to himself, to which he could at any time