ng the only guinea that he had,
divided it equally between her and himself. This is an action which in
some ages would have made a saint, and perhaps in others a hero, and
which, without any hyperbolical encomiums, must be allowed to be an
instance of uncommon generosity, an act of complicated virtue, by which
he at once relieved the poor, corrected the vicious, and forgave an
enemy; by which he at once remitted the strongest provocations,
and exercised the most ardent charity. Compassion was indeed the
distinguishing quality of Savage: he never appeared inclined to take
advantage of weakness, to attack the defenceless, or to press upon the
falling. Whoever was distressed was certain at least of his good wishes;
and when he could give no assistance to extricate them from misfortunes,
he endeavoured to soothe them by sympathy and tenderness. But when
his heart was not softened by the sight of misery, he was sometimes
obstinate in his resentment, and did not quickly lose the remembrance of
an injury. He always continued to speak with anger of the insolence and
partiality of Page, and a short time before his death revenged it by a
satire.

It is natural to inquire in what terms Mr. Savage spoke of this fatal
action when the danger was over, and he was under no necessity of using
any art to set his conduct in the fairest light. He was not willing to
dwell upon it; and, if he transiently mentioned it, appeared neither to
consider himself as a murderer, nor as a man wholly free from the guilt
of blood. How much and how long he regretted it appeared in a poem which
he published many years afterwards. On occasion of a copy of verses, in
which the failings of good men are recounted, and in which the author
had endeavoured to illustrate his position, that "the best may sometimes
deviate from virtue," by an instance of murder committed by Savage
in the heat of wine, Savage remarked that it was no very just
representation of a good man, to suppose him liable to drunkenness, and
disposed in his riots to cut throats.

He was now indeed at liberty, but was, as before, without any other
support than accidental favours and uncertain patronage afforded him;
sources by which he was sometimes very liberally supplied, and which
at other times were suddenly stopped; so that he spent his life
between want and plenty, or, what was yet worse, between beggary and
extravagance, for, as whatever he received was the gift of chance,
which might as