ter 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 it 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 a recompense; had a room to himself,
to which he could at any time retire from all disturbance; was allowed
to stand at the door of the prison, and sometimes taken out into the
fields; so that he suffered fewer hardships in prison than he had been
accustomed to undergo in the greatest part of his life.

The keeper did not confine his benevolence to a gentle execution of his
office, but made some overtures to the creditor for his release,
though without effect; and continued, during the whole time of his
imprisonment, to treat him with the utmost tenderness and civility.

Virtue is undoubtedly most laudable in that state which makes it most
difficult; and therefore the humanity of a gaoler certainly deserves
this public attestation; and the man whose heart has not been
hardened by such an employment may be justly proposed as a pattern
of benevolence. If an inscription was once engraved "to the honest
toll-gatherer," less honours ought not to be paid "to the tender
gaoler."

Mr. Savage very frequently received visits, and sometimes presents, from
his acquaintances: but they did not amount to a subsistence, for the
greater part of which he was indebted to the generosity of this keeper;
but these favours, however they might endear to him the particular
persons from whom he received them, were very far from impressing upon
his mind any advantageous ideas of the people of Bristol, and therefore
he thought he could not more properly employ himself in prison than in
writing a poem called "London and Bristol Delineated."

When he had brought this poem to its present state, which, without
considering the chasm, is not perfect, he wrote to London an account of
his