it is invested with the glitter of affluence! Men willingly
pay to fortune that regard which they owe to merit, and are pleased
when they have an opportunity at once of gratifying their vanity and
practising their duty.

This interval of prosperity furnished him with opportunities of
enlarging his knowledge of human nature, by contemplating life from
its highest gradations to its lowest; and, had he afterwards applied to
dramatic poetry, he would perhaps not have had many superiors, for, as
he never suffered any scene to pass before his eyes without notice, he
had treasured in his mind all the different combinations of passions,
and the innumerable mixtures of vice and virtue, which distinguished
one character from another; and, as his conception was strong, his
expressions were clear, he easily received impressions from objects, and
very forcibly transmitted them to others. Of his exact observations on
human life he has left a proof, which would do honour to the greatest
names, in a small pamphlet, called "The Author to be Let," where he
introduces Iscariot Hackney, a prostitute scribbler, giving an account
of his birth, his education, his disposition and morals, habits of
life, and maxims of conduct. In the introduction are related many secret
histories of the petty writers of that time, but sometimes mixed with
ungenerous reflections on their birth, their circumstances, or those
of their relations; nor can it be denied that some passages are such as
Iscariot Hackney might himself have produced. He was accused likewise of
living in an appearance of friendship with some whom he satirised, and
of making use of the confidence which he gained by a seeming kindness,
to discover failings and expose them. It must be confessed that Mr.
Savage's esteem was no very certain possession, and that he would
lampoon at one time those whom he had praised at another.

It may be alleged that the same man may change his principles, and that
he who was once deservedly commended may be afterwards satirised with
equal justice, or that the poet was dazzled with the appearance of
virtue, and found the man whom he had celebrated, when he had an
opportunity of examining him more narrowly, unworthy of the panegyric
which he had too hastily bestowed; and that, as a false satire ought to
be recanted, for the sake of him whose reputation may be injured, false
praise ought likewise to be obviated, lest the distinction between vice
and virtue shoul