humorous drole, furveying the füperb decorations of emblematic fculpture,

furrounding the commemoration of the Doctor's vast exploits in Parian marble, may add, with a homely pencil of char

coal :

HERE LYES THE GRAND EXEMPLAR OF

LITERARY PROSTITVTION.

And here we fhould have ended our ftrictures on the new narrative, did not the candor of a worthy friend call upon us to temper the feverity (as he calls it) of this monumental infcription.

We are not deaf to the feasonable admonitions of our friends; but unwilling to deprive our hero of his blufhing honours, fo hardily carned, and fo richly deferved,

deferved, we rather choose to add a fhort explanation, than to expunge a characteristic which contributes fo much to the brilliancy of his reputation.

Prostitution hath, generally speaking, two principal motives, filthy lucre, and inordinate appetite. Thefe motives are frequently compounded, particularly when indigence, and a warmth of bodily conftitution, happen to meet in the fame individual.

Which of thefe motives had the predominant ftimulus in the habit of the great critic in his connections with Lauder, or of the great politician, when, FILMER before, SACHEVERELL in his rear*,

*See an Effay on the King's Friends, printed for Almon, 776. p. 19.

he fpeculated upon virtual reprefentation, tyranny, taxation, &c. in favour of a government de facto, which, till a certain period, he is faid to have held to be de jure an ufurpation, we fhall not pofitively determine. This we know in common with the reft of mankind, that fuch fervices have not been without confiderable emolument; and that, on the other hand, the performance of them hath afforded to the author an opportu nity of affwaging his itch of defaming certain friends of public liberty, with whom he could have no quarrel, but on account of their political principles and attachments.

We could add fome remarkable inftances from the Life of Savage. The

em

embellishment of a character fo replete

2

with infolence, ingratitude, and crimi

nal diffipation, can hardly be afcribed to motives of greater purity than the fale of the copy, unless we should take into the account the delicacies of friendShip, and the congenial talents of the man and his orator.

Savage was a poet, and in his biographer's opinion, a poet above medi ocrity, and not inferior in the poetical fcale of Dr. Johnson to some of those whom he hath honoured with his prefalory narratives.

May we not then prefume, that the Doctor's Life of Savage will be added to those elogies of eminent bards which have been received by the public with L. 4

fo

fo much applanufe, and read with fo

much avidity?..

We would not anticipate the pleasure of his readers in obferving the Doctor's improvements in political wisdom fince the year 1744; we fhall only give one instance of it, taken from pages 120, 121, 122, of the edition of Savage's Life that year, where there are fome juft, and indeed beautiful, contemplations, on the rife and fettlement of colonies, both in a poetical and political view.

Savage compofed a poem on the subject, where, as the biographer informs us, he has laudably "afferted the natural equality of mankind, and endea"voured to fupprefs that pride which "" inclines