ication is addressed to the Lady Mary Wortley Montagu,
whom he flatters without reserve, and, to confess the truth, with very
little art. The same observation may be extended to all his dedications:
his compliments are constrained and violent, heaped together without the
grace of order, or the decency of introduction. He seems to have written
his panegyrics for the perusal only of his patrons, and to imagine that
he had no other task than to pamper them with praises, however
gross, and that flattery would make its way to the heart, without the
assistance of elegance or invention.

Soon afterwards the death of the king furnished a general subject for
a poetical contest, in which Mr. Savage engaged, and is allowed to have
carried the prize of honour from his competitors: but I know not whether
he gained by his performance any other advantage than the increase of
his reputation, though it must certainly have been with farther views
that he prevailed upon himself to attempt a species of writing, of which
all the topics had been long before exhausted, and which was made at
once difficult by the multitudes that had failed in it, and those that
had succeeded.

He was now advancing in reputation, and though frequently involved in
very distressful perplexities, appeared, however, to be gaining upon
mankind, when both his fame and his life were endangered by an event,
of which it is not yet determined whether it ought to be mentioned as a
crime or a calamity.

On the 20th of November, 1727, Mr. Savage came from Richmond, where he
then lodged that he might pursue his studies with less interruption,
with an intent to discharge another lodging which he had in Westminster;
and accidentally meeting two gentlemen, his acquaintances, whose names
were Merchant and Gregory, he went in with them to a neighbouring
coffee-house, and sat drinking till it was late, it being in no time
of Mr. Savage's life any part of his character to be the first of the
company that desired to separate. He would willingly have gone to bed
in the same house, but there was not room for the whole company, and
therefore they agreed to ramble about the streets, and divert themselves
with such amusements as should offer themselves till morning. In
this walk they happened unluckily to discover a light in Robinson's
Coffee-house, near Charing Cross, and therefore went in. Merchant with
some rudeness demanded a room, and was told that there was a good fire
in the ne