SAVAGE, Richard (1697-1743), a mediocre poet and notorious literary character of the time of Pope, associated with Pope in the publication of the Dunciad. He had nearly reached the end of his career when Johnson went up to London, made his acquaintance, and was fascinated by his vivacity and knowledge of the world. After his death, Johnson gave his romantic history of himself in one of the most elaborate and best of the Lives of the Poets— a fine example of the great moralist’s searching analysis and tolerant judgment of eccentric character. Johnson apparently accepted Savage’s account of himself and his strange persecution by his alleged mother, the countess of Macclesfield, without hesitation, describing her as a “wretch who had, without scruple, proclaimed herself an adulteress, and who had first endeavoured to starve her son, then to transport him, and afterwards to hang him.” Boswell was less credulous, made inquiries after his cautious manner in various quarters, and indicated pretty clearly that he considered Savage an impostor, although he could not explain why, if the unnatural story were not true, the countess could have allowed it to be put three times in print unchallenged during her lifetime (see Boswell’s Life, chap. v.). After Boswell, Malone and Bindley nibbled at the paradox, but it was not subjected to thorough examination till 1858, when Mr Moy Thomas discovered the original manuscript depositions in the earl of Macclesfield’s divorce suit at Doctors’ Commons, and also the proceedings in the House of Lords. The results of Mr Thomas’s researches, prosecuted with rare acuteness and industry, appeared in Notes and Queries, November and December 1858. To Johnson’s Life and these papers the reader may be referred for the strange story ...