mended; and was so accurate as to relate that he owed
three words in "The Wanderer" to the advice of his friends. His veracity
was questioned, but with little reason; his accounts, though not indeed
always the same, were generally consistent. When he loved any man,
he suppressed all his faults; and when he had been offended by him,
concealed all his virtues; but his characters were generally true, so
far as he proceeded; though it cannot be denied that his partiality
might have sometimes the effect of falsehood.

In cases indifferent he was zealous for virtue, truth, and justice:
he knew very well the necessity of goodness to the present and future
happiness of mankind; nor is there perhaps any writer who has less
endeavoured to please by flattering the appetites, or perverting the
judgment.

As an author, therefore, and he now ceases to influence mankind in
any other character, if one piece which he had resolved to suppress
be excepted, he has very little to fear from the strictest moral or
religious censure. And though he may not be altogether secure against
the objections of the critic, it must however be acknowledged that his
works are the productions of a genius truly poetical; and, what many
writers who have been more lavishly applauded cannot boast, that they
have an original air, which has no resemblance of any foregoing
writer, that the versification and sentiments have a cast peculiar to
themselves, which no man can imitate with success, because what was
nature in Savage would in another be affectation. It must be confessed
that his descriptions are striking, his images animated, his fictions
justly imagined, and his allegories artfully pursued; that his diction
is elevated, though sometimes forced, and his numbers sonorous and
majestic, though frequently sluggish and encumbered. Of his style the
general fault is harshness, and its general excellence is dignity; of
his sentiments, the prevailing beauty is simplicity, and uniformity the
prevailing defect.

For his life, or for his writings, none who candidly consider his
fortune will think an apology either necessary or difficult. If he was
not always sufficiently instructed in his subject, his knowledge was at
least greater than could have been attained by others in the same state.
If his works were sometimes unfinished, accuracy cannot reasonably
be expected from a man oppressed with want, which he has no hope of
relieving but by a speedy publication. The