une like
this. And though it is not to be imagined but that the separation must,
for some time, have been preceded by coldness, peevishness, or neglect,
though it was undoubtedly the consequence of accumulated provocations on
both sides; yet every one that knew Savage will readily believe, that to
him it was sudden as a stroke of thunder; that, though he might have
transiently suspected it, he had never suffered any thought so
unpleasing to sink into his mind, but that he had driven it away by
amusements, or dreams of future felicity and affluence, and had never
taken any measures by which he might prevent a precipitation from plenty
to indigence.

This quarrel and separation, and the difficulties to which Mr. Savage
was exposed by them, were soon known both to his friends and enemies;
nor was it long before he perceived, from the behaviour of both, how
much is added to the lustre of genius by the ornaments of wealth.

His condition did not appear to excite much compassion; for he had not
always been careful to use the advantages he enjoyed with that
moderation which ought to have been with more than usual caution
preserved by him, who knew, if he had reflected, that he was only a
dependant on the bounty of another, whom he could expect to support him
no longer than he endeavoured to preserve his favour by complying with
his inclinations, and whom he, nevertheless, set at defiance, and was
continually irritating by negligence or encroachments.

Examples need not be sought at any great distance to prove, that
superiority of fortune has a natural tendency to kindle pride, and that
pride seldom fails to exert itself in contempt and insult; and if this
is often the effect of hereditary wealth, and of honours enjoyed only by
the merit of others, it is some extenuation of any indecent triumphs to
which this unhappy man may have been betrayed, that his prosperity was
heightened by the force of novelty, and made more intoxicating by a
sense of the misery in which he had so long languished, and, perhaps, of
the insults which he had formerly borne, and which he might now think
himself entitled to revenge. It is too common for those who have
unjustly suffered pain, to inflict it, likewise, in their turn, with the
same injustice, and to imagine that they have a right to treat others as
they have themselves been treated.

That Mr. Savage was too much elevated by any good fortune, is generally
known; and some passages of his intr