The Life of Mr. Richard Savage

With some very remarkable Circumstances, relating to the Birth and Education, of that Gentleman, which were never yet made publick.

--------Quis talia fando, Temperet a Lachrymis?

LONDON:

Printed for, and Sold by J. Roberts, at the Oxford-Arms in Warwick-Lane; and by the Booksellers of London and Westminster. 1727.

(Price Six Pence.)

THE

LIFE

OF

Mr. RICHARD SAVAGE.

Perhaps no History in the World, either ancient or modern, can produce an Instance of any one Man's Life fill'd with so many calamitous Circumstances, as That of the unhappy young Gentleman, who is the melancholy Subject of the following Sheets; his Misfortunes may be said to be begun, if not strictly before he had a Being, yet, before his Birth; for when his Mother, the late Countess of M----d, was big with Child of him, she publickly declared, That the Infant then in her Womb, did not in the least appertain to her Husband, but to another noble Earl, upon which a Trial was commenced in the House of Lords, and my Lord M----d, obtained a Divorce, his Lady had her Fortune, which was very considerable, paid back to her again, with full Liberty of marrying whom she pleased, which Liberty she made use of in a very short Time, and my Lord M----d meeting her new Husband, Colonel B----t, in the Court of Request soon after, wish'd him Joy upon it, and said, he hoped my Lady M----d would make the Colonel a better Wife than she had done to him. It is very probable that this Divorce gave the Lady a great deal of Satisfaction: But her Son, being thus bastardized, could not be born, as otherwise he would have been, a Lord by Courtesy, and Heir to the Title of an English Earl, with one of the finest Estates in the Kingdom, which was afterwards, for want of Male-Issue, the Occasion of engaging two eminent Peers[1] in a Duel, in which they had the Misfortune to kill each other. Happy we may say it had been, as well for these Noblemen, as Mr. Savage himself, if he had either not been illegitimately begotten, or if that Illegitimacy had been prudently concealed: The being cut off from the certain Inheritance of that great Wealth and Honour, which, nothing, but his Mother's resentful Confession, could have hindered him of, would have given any other Person, when he came to Years of Maturity and Reflection, Sentiments of a quite different Nature from those which he always, with a Generosity of Temper peculiar to himself, expressed when that Affair has been mentioned to him; constantly excusing his Mother for taking any Methods, how injurious soever they may have been to himself, to be disengaged from an Husband, whose ill Treatment of her could not suffer her to live much to her Content with him.

[1] D. Hamilton and Lord Mohun.