RICHARD, one of the most remarkable characters that is to be met with perhaps in all the records of biography, was the son of Anne countess of Macclesfield by the earl of Rivers, according to her own confession; and was born in 1698. This confession of adultery was made in order to procure a separation from her husband the earl of Macclesfield: yet, having obtained this desired end, no sooner was her frivolous offspring brought into the world, than, without the dread of shame or poverty to excuse her, she discovered the resolution of disowning him; and, as long as he lived, treated him with the most unnatural cruelty. She delivered him over to a poor woman to educate as her own; prevented the earl of Rivers from leaving him a legacy of £600l. by declaring him dead; and in effect deprived him of another legacy which his godmother Mrs Lloyd had left him, by concealing from him his birth, and thereby rendering it impossible for him to prosecute his claim. She endeavoured to send him secretly to the plantations; but this plan being either laid aside or frustrated, she placed him apprentice with a shoemaker. In this situation, however, he did not long continue; for his nurse dying, he went to take care of the effects of his supposed mother; and found in her boxes some letters which discovered to young Savage his birth, and the cause of its concealment.

From the moment of this discovery it was natural for him to become dissatisfied with his situation as a shoemaker. He now conceived that he had a right to share... in the affluence of his real mother; and therefore he directly, and perhaps indirectly, applied to her, and made use of every art to awaken her tenderness and attract her regard. But in vain did he solicit this unnatural parent; she avoided him with the utmost precaution, and took measures to prevent his ever entering her house on any pretence whatever.

Savage was at this time so touched with the discovery of his birth, that he frequently made it his practice to walk before his mother's door in hopes of seeing her by accident; and often did he warmly solicit her to admit him to see her; but all to no purpose: he could neither soften her heart nor open her hand.

Mean time, while he was assiduously endeavouring to rouse the affections of a mother in whom all natural affection was extinct, he was destitute of the means of support, and reduced to the miseries of want. We are not told by what means he got rid of his obligation to the shoemaker, or whether he ever was actually bound to him; but we now find him very differently employed in order to procure a subsistence. In short, the youth had parts, and a strong inclination towards literary pursuits, especially poetry. He wrote a poem; and afterwards two plays, Woman's a Riddle, and Love in a Veil: but the author was allowed no part of the profits from the first; and from the second he received no other advantage than the acquaintance of Sir Richard Steele and Mr Wilks, by whom he was pitied, cared for, and relieved. However, the kindness of his friends not affording him a constant supply, he wrote the tragedy of Sir Thomas Overbury; which not only procured him the esteem of many persons of wit, but brought him in £200. The celebrated Aaron Hill, Esq., was of great service to him in correcting and fitting this piece for the stage and the press; and extended his patronage still farther. But Savage was, like many other wits, a bad manager, and was ever in distress. As fast as his friends raised him out of one difficulty, he sunk into another; and, when he found himself greatly involved, he would ramble about like a vagabond, with scarce a shilling on his back. He was in one of these situations during the time that he wrote his tragedy above mentioned; without a lodging, and often without a dinner: so that he used to scribble on scraps of paper picked up by accident, or begged in the shops, which he occasionally stepped into, as thoughts occurred to him, craving the favour of pen and ink, as it were just to take a memorandum.

Mr Hill also earnestly promoted a subscription to a volume of Miscellanies, by Savage; and likewise furnished part of the poems of which the volume was composed. To this miscellany Savage wrote a preface, in which he gives an account of his mother's cruelty, in a very uncommon strain of humour.

The profits of his Tragedy and his Miscellanies together, had now, for a time, somewhat raised poor Savage both in circumstances and credit; so that the world just began to behold him with a more favourable eye than formerly, when both his fame and life were endangered by a most unhappy event. A drunken frolic in which he one night engaged, ended in a fray, and Savage unfortunately killed a man, for which he was condemned to be hanged; his friends earnestly solicited the mercy of the crown, while his mother as earnestly exerted herself to prevent his receiving it. The coun-

tefs of Hertford at length laid his whole case before Queen Caroline, and Savage obtained a pardon.

Savage had now lost that tenderness for his mother which the whole series of her cruelty had not been able wholly to repress; and considering her as an implacable enemy, whom nothing but his blood could satisfy, threatened to harass her with lampoons, and to publish a copious narrative of her conduct, unless she consented to allow him a pension. This expedient proved successful; and the lord Tyrconnel, upon his promise of laying aside his design of exposing his mother's cruelty, took him into his family, treated him as an equal, and engaged to allow him a pension of £200. a-year. This was the golden part of Savage's life. He was courted by all who endeavoured to be thought men of genius, and cared for by all who valued themselves upon a refined taste. In this gay period of his life he published the Temple of Health and Mirth, on the recovery of Lady Tyrconnel from a languishing illness; and The Wanderer, a moral poem, which he dedicated to Lord Tyrconnel; in strains of the highest panegyric; but these praises he in a short time found himself inclined to retract, being discarded by the man on whom they were bestowed. Of this quarrel Lord Tyrconnel and Mr Savage assigned very different reasons. Our author's known character pleads too strongly against him; for his conduct was ever such as made all his friends, sooner or later, grow weary of him, and even forced most of them to become his enemies.

Being thus once more turned adrift upon the world, Savage, whose passions were very strong, and whose gratitude was very small, became extremely diligent in exposing the faults of Lord Tyrconnel. He, moreover, now thought himself at liberty to take revenge upon his mother.—Accordingly he wrote The Bastard, a poem, remarkable for the vivacity of its beginning (where he finely enumerates the imaginary advantages of base birth), and for the pathetic conclusion, wherein he recounts the real calamities which he suffered by the crime of his parents.—The reader will not be disappointed with a transcript of some of the lines in the opening of the poem, as a specimen of this writer's spirit and manner of versification.

Blest be the bastard's birth! thro' wondrous ways, He shines eccentric like a comet's blaze. No sickly fruit of faint compliance he; He! stamp'd in nature's mint with ecstasy! He lives to build, not boast, a generous race; No tenth transmitter of a foolish face. He, kindling from within, requires no flame, He glories in a bastard's glowing name. —Nature's unbounded son, he stands alone, His heart unbias'd, and his mind his own. —O mother! yet no mother!—his to you My thanks for such distinguished claims are due.

This poem had an extraordinary sale; and its appearance happening at the time when his mother was at Bath, many persons there took frequent opportunities of repeating passages from the Bastard in her hearing. This was perhaps the first time that ever she discovered a sense of shame, and on this occasion the power of wit was very conspicuous: the wretch who had, without scruple, proclaimed herself an adulteress, and who had first endeavoured to starve her son, then to transport him him, and afterwards to hang him, was not able to bear the representation of her own conduct; but fled from reproach, though she felt no pain from guilt; and left Bath with the utmost haste, to shelter herself among the crowds of London (A).

Some time after this, Savage formed the resolution of applying to the queen; who having once given him life, he hoped she might farther extend her goodness to him, by enabling him to support it.—With this view, he published a poem on her birth-day, which he entitled The Volunteer-Laureate; for which she was pleased to send him £50, with an intimation that he might annually expect the same bounty. But this annual allowance was nothing to a man of his strange and singular extravagance. His usual custom was, as soon as he had received his pension, to disappear with it, and secrete himself from his most intimate friends, till every shilling of the £50 was spent; which done, he again appeared, penniless as before: But he would never inform any person where he had been, or in what manner his money had been dissipated.—From the reports, however, of some, who found means to penetrate his haunts,

(A) Mr Bofwell, in his life of Dr Johnson, has called in question the story of Savage's birth, and grounded his suspicion on two mistakes, or, as he calls them, fallacies, which he thinks he has discovered in his friend's memoirs of that extraordinary man. Johnson has said, that the earl of Rivers was Savage's godfather, and gave him his own name; which, by his direction, was inserted in the register of the parish of St Andrew's, Holborn. Part of this, it seems, is not true; for Mr Bofwell carefully inspected that register, but no such entry is to be found. But does this omission amount to a proof, that the person who called himself Richard Savage was an impostor, and not the son of the earl of Rivers and the countess of Macclesfield? Mr Bofwell thinks it does; and, in behalf of his opinion, appeals to the maxim, falsum in uno, falsum in omnibus. The solidity of this maxim may be allowed by others; but it was not without surprise that, on such an occasion, we found it adopted by the biographer of Johnson. To all who have compared his view of a celebrated cause, with Stuart's letters on the same subject addressed to Lord Mansfield, it must be apparent, that, at one period of his life, he would not have deemed a thousand such mistakes sufficient to invalidate a narrative otherwise so well authenticated as that which relates to the birth of Savage. The truth is, that the omission of the name in the register of St Andrew's may be easily accounted for, without bringing against the wretched Savage an accusation of imposture, which neither his mother nor her friends dared to urge when provoked to it by every possible motive that can influence human conduct. The earl of Rivers would undoubtedly give the direction about registering the child's name to the same person whom he entrusted with the care of his education; but that person, it is well known, was the countess of Macclesfield, who, as she had resolved from his birth to disown her son, would take care that the direction should not be obeyed.

That which, in Johnson's life of Savage, Mr Bofwell calls a second fallacy, seems not to amount even to a mistake. It is there stated, that "Lady Macclesfield having lived for some time upon very uneasy terms with her husband, thought a public confession of adultery the most obvious and expeditious method of obtaining her liberty." This Mr Bofwell thinks cannot be true; because, having perused the journals of both houses of parliament at the period of her divorce, he there found it authentically ascertained, that so far from voluntarily submitting to the ignominious charge of adultery, she made a strenuous defence by her counsel. But what is this to the purpose? Johnson has nowhere said, that she confessed her adultery at the bar of either house of parliament, but only that her confession was public; and as he has taught us in his Dictionary, that whatever is notorious or generally known is public; public, in his sense of the word, that confession certainly was, if made to different individuals, in such a manner as showed that she was not anxious to conceal it from her husband, or to prevent its notoriety. She might, however, have very cogent reasons for denying her guilt before parliament, and for making a strenuous defence by her counsel; as indeed, had she acted otherwise, it is very little probable that her great fortune would have been restored to her, or that she could have obtained a second husband.

But Mr Bofwell is of opinion, that the person who assumed the name of Richard Savage was the son of the shoemaker under whose care Lady Macclesfield's child was placed; because "his not being able to obtain payment of Mrs Lloyd's legacy must be imputed to his consciousness that he was not the real person to whom that legacy was left." He must have a willing mind who can admit this argument as a proof of imposture. Mrs Lloyd died when Savage was in his tenth year, when he certainly did not know or suspect that he was the person for whom the legacy was intended, when he had none to prosecute his claim, to shelter him from oppression, or to call in law to the assistance of justice. In such circumstances he could not have obtained payment of the money, unless the executors of the will had been inspired from heaven with the knowledge of the person to whom it was due.

To these and a thousand such idle cavils it is a sufficient answer, that Savage was acknowledged and patronized as Lady Macclesfield's son by Lord Tyrconnel, who was that lady's nephew; by Sir Richard Steele, the intimate friend of Colonel Brett, who was that lady's second husband; by the queen, who, upon the authority of that lady and her creatures, once thought Savage capable of entering his mother's house in the night with an intent to murder her; and in effect by the lady herself, who at one time was prevailed upon to give him £50, and who fled before the satire of the Baffard, without offering, either by herself or her friends, to deny that the author of that poem was the person whom he called himself, or to insinuate so much as that he might possibly be the son of a shoemaker. To Mr Bofwell all this seems strange: to others, who look not with so keen an eye for supposititious births, we think it must appear convincing.

Vol. XVIII, Part II. it would seem that he expended both his time and his cash in the most forlorn and despicable sensuality; parti- cularly in eating and drinking, in which he would in- dulge in the most unseemly manner, fitting whole days and nights by himself, in obscure houses of entertain- ment, over his bottle and trencher, immersed in filth and filth, with scarce decent apparel; generally wrapped up in a horseman's great coat; and, on the whole, with his very homely countenance, altogether, exhibiting an ob- ject the most disgusting to the sight, if not to some other of the senses.

His wit and parts, however, still raised him new friends as fast as his behaviour lost him his old ones. Yet such was his conduct, that occasional relief only fur- nished the means of occasional excess; and he defeated all attempts made by his friends to fix him in a decent way. He was even reduced so low as to be destitute of a lodging; insomuch that he often passed his nights in those mean houses that are set open for casual wander- ers; sometimes in cellars amidst the riot and filth of the most profligate of the rabble; and not seldom would he walk the streets till he was weary, and then lie down in summer on a bulk, or in winter with his associates among the ashes of a glas-house.

Yet, amidst all his penury and wretchedness, had this man so much pride, and so high an opinion of his own merit, that he ever kept up his spirits, and was always ready to repulse, with scorn and contempt, the least ap- pearance of any slight or indignity towards himself, in the behaviour of his acquaintance; among whom he looked upon none as his superior. He would be treat- ed as an equal, even by persons of the highest rank. We have an instance of this preposterous and inconstit- ent pride, in his refusing to wait upon a gentleman who was desirous of relieving him when at the lowest ebb of distress, only because the message signified the gentle- man's desire to see him at nine in the morning. Savage could not bear that any one should presume to prefer the hour of his attendance, and therefore he absolutely re- jected the proffered kindness. This life, unhappy as it may be already imagined, was yet rendered more un- happy, by the death of the queen, in 1738; which stroke deprived him of all hopes from the court. His pension was discontinued, and the insolent manner in which he demanded of Sir Robert Walpole to have it restored, for ever cut off this considerable supply; which possibly had been only delayed, and might have been recovered by proper application.

His distress became now so great, and so notorious, that a scheme was at length concerted for procuring him a permanent relief. It was proposed that he should retire into Wales, with an allowance of £50 per annum, on which he was to live privately in a cheap place, for ever quitting his town-haunts, and resigning all farther pretensions to fame. This offer he seemed gladly to ac- cept; but his intentions were only to deceive his friends, by retiring for a while, to write another tragedy, and then to return with it to London in order to bring it upon the stage.

In 1739, he set out in the Bristol stage-coach for Swansea, and was furnished with 15 guineas to bear the expense of his journey. But, on the 14th day after his departure, his friends and benefactors, the principal of whom was no other than the great Mr Pope, who expected to hear of his arrival in Wales, were surprised with a letter from Savage, informing them that he was yet upon the road, and could not proceed for want of money. There was no other method than a remittance; which was sent him, and by the help of which he was enabled to reach Bristol, from whence he was to pro- ceed to Swansea by water. At Bristol, however, he found an embargo laid upon the shipping; so that he could not immediately obtain a passage. Here, there- fore, being obliged to stay for some time, he, with his usual facility, so ingratiated himself with the principal inhabitants, that he was frequently invited to their houses, distinguished at their public entertainments, and treated with a regard that highly flattered his vanity, and therefore easily engaged his affections. At length, with great reluctance, he proceeded to Swansea; where he lived about a year, very much dissatisfied with the diminution of his salary; for he had, in his letters, treated his contributors so insolently, that most of them withdrew their subscriptions. Here he finished his tragi- edy, and resolved to return with it to London; which was strenuously opposed by his great and constant friend Mr Pope; who proposed that Savage should put this play into the hands of Mr Thomson and Mr Mallet, in order that they might fit it for the stage, that his friends should receive the profits it might bring in, and that the author should receive the produce by way of annuity. This kind and prudent scheme was rejected by Savage with the utmost contempt.—He declared he would not submit his works to any one's correction; and that he should no longer be kept in leading strings. Accordingly he soon returned to Bri- stol in his way to London; but at Bristol, meeting with a repetition of the same kind treatment he had before found there, he was tempted to make a second stay in that opulent city for some time. Here he was again not only caressed and treated, but the sum of £50 was raised for him, with which it had been happy if he had immediately departed for London: But he never considered that a frequent repetition of such kindness was not to be expected, and that it was possible to tire out the generosity of his Bristol friends, as he had be- fore tired his friends everywhere else. In short, he remained here till his company was no longer welcome. His visits in every family were too often repeated; his wit had lost its novelty, and his irregular behaviour grew troublesome. Necessity came upon him before he was aware; his money was spent, his clothes were worn out, his appearance was shabby; and his presence was disgusting at every table. He now began to find every man from home at whose house he called; and he found it difficult to obtain a dinner. Thus reduced, it would have been prudent in him to have withdrawn from the place; but prudence and Savage were never acquainted. He said, in the midst of poverty, hunger, and contempt, till the mistress of a coffee-house, to whom he owed about eight pounds, arrested him for the debt. He remained for some time, at a great ex- pense, in the house of the sheriff's officer, in hopes of procuring bail; which expense he was enabled to de- fray, by a present of five guineas from Mr Nash at Bath. No bail, however, was to be found; so that poor Savage was at last lodged in Newgate, a prison so named in Bristol. But it was the fortune of this extraordinary mortal always to find more friends than he deserved. The keeper of the prison took compassion on him, and greatly softened the rigours of his confinement by every kind of indulgence; he supported him at his own table, gave him commodious room to himself, allowed him to stand at the door of the gaol, and even frequently took him into the fields for the benefit of the air and exercise; so that, in reality, Savage endured fewer hardships in this place than he had usually suffered during the greatest part of his life.

While he remained in this not intolerable prison, his ingratitude again broke out, in a bitter satire on the city of Bristol; to which he certainly owed great obligations, notwithstanding the circumstances of his arrest; which was but the act of an individual, and that attended with no circumstances of injustice or cruelty. This satire he entitled London and Bristol delineated; and in it he abused the inhabitants of the latter, with such a spirit of resentment, that the reader would imagine he had never received any other than the most injurious treatment in that city.

When Savage had remained about six months in this hospitable prison, he received a letter from Mr Pope, (who still continued to allow him 2l. a-year) containing a charge of very atrocious ingratitude. What were the particulars of this charge we are not informed; but, from the notorious character of the man, there's reason to fear that Savage was but too justly accused. He, however, solemnly protested his innocence; but he was very unusually affected on this occasion. In a few days after, he was seized with a disorder, which at first was not suspected to be dangerous; but growing daily more languid and dejected, at last a fever seized him; and he expired on the 1st of August 1743, in the 46th year of his age.

Thus lived, and thus died, Richard Savage, Esq., leaving behind him a character strangely chequered with vices and good qualities. Of the former we have seen a variety of instances in this abstract of his life; of the latter, his peculiar situation in the world gave him but few opportunities of making any considerable display. He was, however, undoubtedly a man of excellent parts; and had he received the full benefits of a liberal education, and had his natural talents been cultivated to the best advantage, he might have made a respectable figure in life. He was happy in a quick discernment, a retentive memory, and a lively flow of wit, which made his company much coveted; nor was his judgment both of writings and of men inferior to his wit; but he was too much a slave to his passions, and his passions were too easily excited. He was warm in his friendships, but implacable in his enmity; and his greatest fault, which is indeed the greatest of all faults, was ingratitude. He seemed to think every thing due to his merit, and that he was little obliged to any one for those favours which he thought it their duty to confer on him: it is therefore the less to be wondered at, that he never rightly estimated the kindness of his many friends and benefactors, or preferred a grateful and due sense of their generosity towards him.

The works of this original writer, after having long lain dispersed in magazines and fugitive publications, have been collected and published in an elegant edition, in 2 vols 8vo; to which are prefixed the admirable memoirs of Savage, written by Dr Samuel Johnson.

Savage is a word so well understood as scarcely to require explanation. When applied to inferior animals, it denotes that they are wild, untamed, and cruel; when applied to man, it is of much the same import with barbarian, and means a person who is untaught and uncivilized, or who is in the rude state of uncultivated nature. That such men exist at present, and have existed in most ages of the world, is undeniable; but a question naturally occurs respecting the origin of this savage state, the determination of which is of considerable importance in developing the nature of man, and ascertaining the qualities and powers of the human mind. Upon this subject, as upon most others, opinions are very various, and the systems built upon them are consequently very contradictory. A large sect of ancient philosophers maintained that man sprung at first from the earth like his brother vegetables; that he was without ideas and without speech; and that many ages elapsed before the race acquired the use of language, or attained to greater knowledge than the beasts of the forest. Other sects again, with the vulgar, and almost all the poets, maintained that the first mortals were wiser and happier, and more powerful, than any of their offspring; that mankind, instead of being originally savages, and rising to the state of civilization by their own gradual and progressive exertions, were created in a high degree of perfection; that, however, they degenerated from that state, and that all nature degenerated with them. Hence the various ages of the world have almost everywhere been compared to gold, silver, brass, and iron, the golden having been always supposed to be the first age.

Since the revival of letters in Europe, and especially during the present century, the same question has been much agitated both in France and England, and by far the greater part of the most fashionable names in modern science have declared for the original savagery of men. Such of the ancients as held that opinion were countenanced by the atheistic cosmogony of the Phoenicians, and by the early history of their own nations; the moderns build their system upon what they suppose to be the constitution of the human mind, and upon the late improvements in arts and sciences. As the question must finally be decided by historical evidence, before we make our appeal to facts, we shall consider the force of the modern reasonings from the supposed innate powers of the human mind; for that reasoning is totally different from the other, and to blend them together would only prevent the reader from having an adequate conception of either.

Upon the supposition that all mankind were originally savages, destitute of the use of speech, and, in the strictest sense of the words, mutum et turpe pecus, the great difficulty is to conceive how they could emerge from that state, and become at last enlightened and civilized. The modern advocates for the universality of the savage state remove this difficulty by a number of instincts or internal senses, with which they suppose the human mind endowed, and by which the savage is without reflection, not only enabled to distinguish between right and wrong, and prompted to do everything necessary to the preservation of his existence, and the continuance of the species, but also led to the discovery of what will contribute, in the first instance, to the ease and accommodations of life. These instincts, they think, brought mankind together, when the reasoning faculty, which had hitherto been dormant, being now roused by the collisions of society, made its observations upon the consequences of their different actions, taught them to avoid such experience showed to be pernicious, and to improve upon those which they found beneficial; and thus was the progress of civilization begun. But this theory is opposed by objections which we know not how to obviate. The bundle of instincts with which modern idleness, under the denomination of philosophy, has so amply furnished the human mind is a mere chimera. (See Instinct.) But granting its reality, it is by no means sufficient to produce the consequences which are derived from it. That it is not the parent of language, we have shown at large in another place (see Language, No. 1—7); and we have the confession of some of the ablest advocates for the original savageism of man, that large societies must have been formed before language could have been invented. How societies, at least large societies, could be formed and kept together without language, we have not indeed been told; but we are assured by every historian and every traveller of credit, that in such societies only have mankind been found civilized. Among known savages the social flange is very much confined; and therefore, had it been in the first race of men of an enlarged nature, and as safe a guide, as the instinctive philosophers contend that it was, it is plain that those men could not have been savages. Such an appetite for society, and such a director of conduct, instead of enabling mankind to have emerged from savageism, would have effectually prevented them from ever becoming savage; it would have knit them together from the very first, and furnished opportunities for the progenitors of the human race to have begun the process of civilization from the moment that they dropped from the hands of their Creator. Indeed, were the modern theories of internal senses and social affections well founded, and were these senses and affections sufficient to have impelled the first men into society, it is not easy to be conceived how there could be at this day a savage tribe on the face of the earth. Natural causes, operating in the same direction and with the same force, must in every age produce the same effects; and if the social affections of the first mortals impelled them to society, and their reasoning faculties immediately commenced the process of civilization, surely the same affections and the same faculties would in a greater or less degree have had the same effect in every age and on every tribe of their numerous offspring; and we should everywhere observe mankind advancing in civilization, instead of standing still as they often do, and sometimes retreating by a retrograde motion. This, however, is far from being the case. Hordes of savages exist in almost every quarter of the globe; and the Chinese, who have undoubtedly been in a state of civilization for at least 2000 years, having during the whole of that long period been absolutely stationary, if they have not lost some of their ancient arts. (See Porcelain). The origin of civilization, therefore, is not to be looked for in human instincts or human propensities, carrying men forward by a natural progress; for the supposition of such propensities is contrary to fact; and by fact and historical evidence, in conjunction with what we know of the nature of man, must this great question be at last decided.

In the article Religion, No. 7, it has been shown that the first men, if left to themselves without any instruction, instead of living the life of savages, and in process of time advancing towards civilization, must have perished before they acquired even the use of some of their senses. In the same article it has been shown (No. 14—17), that Moses, as he is undoubtedly the oldest historian extant, wrote likewise by immediate inspiration; and that therefore, as he represents our first parents and their immediate descendants as in a state far removed from that of savages, it is vain to attempt to deduce the originality of such a state from hypothetical theories of human nature. We have, indeed, heard it observed by some of the advocates for the antiquity and universality of the savage state, that to appeal to revelation they have no objection, provided we take the Mosaic account as it stands, and draw not from it conclusions which it will not support.

They contend, at the same time, that there is no argument fairly deducible from the book of Genesis which militates against their position. Now we beg leave to remark, that besides the reasoning which we have already used in the article just referred to, we have as much positive evidence against their position as the nature of the Mosaic history could be supposed to afford.

We are there told that God created man after his own image; that he gave him dominion over every thing in the sea, in the air, and over all the earth; that he appointed for his food various kinds of vegetables; that he ordained the Sabbath to be observed by him, in commemoration of the works of creation; that he prepared for him a garden to till and to dress; and that, as a test of his religion and submission to his Creator, he forbade him, under severe penalties, to eat of a certain tree in that garden. We are then told that God brought to him every animal which had been created; and we find that Adam was so well acquainted with their several natures as to give them names. When, too, an helpmate was provided for him, he immediately acknowledged her as bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh, and called her woman, because she was taken out of man.

How these facts can be reconciled to a state of ignorant savageism is to us absolutely inconceivable; and it is indeed strange, that men who profess Christianity should appeal to reason, and stick by its decision on a question which revelation has thus plainly decided against them. But it is agreeable to their theory to believe that man rose by slow steps to the full use of his reasoning powers. To us, on the other hand, it appears equally plausible to suppose that our first parents were created, not in full maturity, but mere infants, and that they went through the tedious process of childhood and youth, &c., as to suppose that their minds were created weak, uninformed, and uncivilized, as are those of savages.

But if it be granted that Adam had a tolerable share of knowledge, and some civilization, nothing can be more natural than to suppose that he would teach his descendants what he knew himself; and if the Scriptures are to be believed, we are certain that some of them possessed more than savage knowledge, and better than savage manners. But instead of going on to further perfection, as the theory of modern philosophers would lead us to suppose, we find that mankind degenerated in a most astonishing degree; the causes of which we have already in part developed in the article Polytheism, No 4, &c.

This early degeneracy of the human race, or their sudden progress towards ignorance and savagery, appears to lead to an important consequence. If men so very soon after their creation, possessing, as we have seen they did, a considerable share of knowledge and of civilization, instead of improving in either, degenerated in both respects, it would not appear that human nature has that strong propensity to refinement which many philosophers imagine; or that had all men been originally savage, they would have civilized themselves by their own exertions.

Of the ages before the flood we have no certain account anywhere but in Scripture; where, though we find mankind represented as very wicked, we have no reason to suppose them to have been absolute savages. On the contrary, we have much reason, from the short account of Moses, to conclude that they were far advanced in the arts of civil life. Cain, we are told, built a city; and two of his early descendants invented the harp and organ, and were artificers in brass and iron. Cities are not built, nor musical instruments invented, by savages, but by men highly cultivated: and surely we have no reason to suppose that the righteous posterity of Seth were behind the apostate descendants of Cain in any branch of knowledge that was really useful. That Noah and his family were far removed from savagery, no one will controvert who believes that with them was made a new covenant of religion; and it was unquestionably their duty, as it must otherwise have been their wish, to communicate what knowledge they possessed to their posterity. Thus far then every consistent Christian, we think, must determine against original and universal savagery.

In the preliminary discourse to Sketches of the History of Man, Lord Kames would infer, from some facts which he states, that many pairs of the human race were at first created, of very different forms and natures, but all depending entirely on their own natural talents. But to this statement he rightly observes, that the Mosaic account of the Creation opposes insuperable objections. "Whence then (says His Lordship) the degeneracy of all men into the savage state? To account for that dismal catastrophe, mankind must have suffered some dreadful convulsion." Now, if we mistake not, this is taking for granted the very thing to be proved. We deny that at any period since the creation of the world, all men were sunk into the state of savages; and that they were, no proof has yet been brought, nor do we know of any that can be brought, unless our fashionable philosophers choose to prop their theories by the buttress of Sanchoniatho's Phoenician cosmogony. (See Sanchoniatho.) His Lordship, however, goes on to say, or rather to suppose, that the confusion at Babel, &c. was this dreadful convulsion: For, says he, "by confounding the language of men, and scattering them abroad upon the face of all the earth, they were rendered savages." Here again we have a positive assertion, without the least shadow of proof; for it does not at all appear that the confusion of language, and the scattering abroad of the people, was a circumstance such as could induce universal savagery. There is no reason to think that all the men then alive were engaged in building the tower of Babel; nor does it appear from the Hebrew original that the language of those who were engaged in it was so much changed as the reader is apt to infer from our English version. (See Philology, No 8—16.) That the builders were scattered, is indeed certain; and if any of them were driven, in very small tribes, to a great distance from their brethren, they would in process of time inevitably become savages. (See Polytheism, No 4—6, and Language, No 7;) but it is evident, from the Scripture account of the peopling of the earth, that the descendants of Shem and Japheth were not scattered over the face of all the earth, and that therefore they could not be rendered savage by the catastrophe at Babel. In the chapter which relates that wonderful event, the generations of Shem are given in order down to Abram; but there is no indication that they had suffered with the builders of the tower, or that any of them had degenerated into the state of savages. On the contrary, they appear to have possessed a considerable degree of knowledge; and if any credit be due to the tradition which represents the father of Abraham as a statuary, and himself as skilled in the science of astronomy, they must have been far advanced in the arts of refinement. Even such of the posterity of Ham as either emigrated or were driven from the plain of Shinar in large bodies, so far from sinking into savagery, retained all the accomplishments of their antediluvian ancestors, and became afterwards the instructors of the Greeks and Romans. This is evident from the history of the Egyptians and other eastern nations, who in the days of Abraham were powerful and highly civilized. And that for many ages they did not degenerate into barbarism, is apparent from its having been thought to exalt the character of Moses, that he was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and from the wisdom of Solomon having been said to excel all the wisdom of the east country and of Egypt.

Thus decided are the Scriptures of the Old Testament against the universal prevalence of savagery in that period of the world; nor are the most authentic Pagan writers of antiquity of a different opinion. Molochus the Phoenician *, Democritus, and Epicurus, appear to be * Strabo, the first champions of the savage state, and they are lib. xvii. followed by a numerous body of poets and rhapsodists, among the Greeks and Romans, who were unquestionably devoted to fable and fiction. The account which they have given of the origin of man, the reader will find in another place (see Theology, Part I, sect. i.). But we hardly think that he will employ it in support of the fashionable doctrine of original savagery. Against the wild reveries of this school are posted all the leaders of the other sects, Greeks and barbarians; the philosophers of both Academies, the sages of the Italian and Alexandrian schools; the Magi of Persia; the Brahmans of India, and the Druids of Gaul, &c. The testimony of the early historians among all the ancient nations, indeed, who are avowedly fabulists, is very little to be depended on, and has been called in question by the most judicious writers of Pagan antiquity. (See Plutarch Vita Thes. sub init.; Thucyd. l. i. cap. i.; Strabo, l. ii. p. 597.; Livy Pref., and Varro ap. August. de Civ. Dei). The more populous and extensive kingdoms and societies were civilized at a period prior to the records of profane history: the presumption, therefore, without taking revelation into the account, certainly is, that they were civilized from the beginning. This is rendered further probable from other circumstances. To account for their system, the advocates of savagism are obliged, as we have seen, to have recourse to numerous suppositions. They imagine that since the creation dreadful convulsions have happened which have spread ruin and devastation over the earth, which have destroyed learning and the arts, and brought on savagism by one sudden blow. But this is reasoning at random, and without a vestige of probability: for the only convulsion that can be mentioned is that at Babel, which we have already shown to be inadequate.

Further it does not appear that any people who were once civilized, and in process of time had degenerated into the savage or barbarous state, have ever recovered their pristine condition without foreign aid. From whence we conclude, that man, once a savage, would never have raised himself from that hopeless state. This appears evident from the history of the world; for that it requires strong incitements to keep man in a very high state of knowledge and civilization, is evident from what we know of the numerous nations which were famed in antiquity, but which are now degenerated in an astonishing degree. That man cannot, or, which is the same thing, has not risen from barbarism to civilization and science by his own efforts and natural talents, appears further from the following facts. The rudiments of all the learning, religion, laws, arts, and sciences, and other improvements that have enlightened Europe, a great part of Asia, and the northern coast of Africa, were so many rays diverging from two points, on the banks of the Euphrates and the Nile. In proportion as nations receded from these two sources of humanity and civilization, in the same proportion were they more and more immersed in ignorance and barbarism. The Greeks had made no progress towards civilization when the Titans first, and afterwards colonies from Egypt and Phoenicia, taught them the very elements of science and urbanity*. The aborigines of Italy were in the same state prior to the arrival of the Pelasgi, and the colonies from Arcadia and other parts of Greece. Spain was indebted for the first seeds of improvement to the commercial spirit of the Phenicians. The Gauls, the Britons, and the Germans, derived from the Romans all that in the early periods of their history they knew of science, or the arts of civil life, and so on of other nations in antiquity. The same appears to be the case in modern times. The countries which have been discovered by the restless and inquisitive spirit of Europeans have been generally found in the lowest state of savagism; from which, if they have emerged at all, it has been exactly in proportion to their connection with the inhabitants of Europe. Even western Europe itself, when sunk in ignorance, during the reign of monarchy, did not recover by the efforts of its own inhabitants. Had not the Greeks, who in the 15th century took refuge in Italy from the cruelty of the Turks, brought with them their ancient books, and taught the Italians to read them, we who are disputing about the origin of the savage state, and the innate powers of the human mind, had at this day been gross and ignorant savages ourselves, incapable of reasoning with accuracy upon any subject. That we have now advanced far before our masters is readily admitted; for the human mind, when put on the right track, and spurred on by emulation and other incitements, is capable of making great improvements: but between improving science, and emerging from savagism, every one perceives there is an immense difference.

Lord Kames observes, that the people who inhabit a grateful soil, where the necessaries of life are easily procured, are the first who invent useful and ingenious arts, and the first who figure in the exercises of the mind. But the Egyptians and Chaldeans, who are thought to support this remark, appear from what we have seen to have derived their knowledge from their antediluvian progenitors, and not from any advantages of situation or strength of genius. Besides, the inhabitants of a great part of Africa, of North and South America, and of many of the islands lately discovered, live in regions equally fertile, and equally productive of the necessaries of life, with the regions of Chaldea and Egypt; yet these people have been savages from time immemorial, and continue still in the same state. The Athenians, on the other hand, inhabited the most barren and ungrateful region of Greece, while their perfection in the arts and sciences has never been equalled. The Norwegian colony which settled in Iceland about the beginning of the 8th century, inhabited a most bleak and barren soil, and yet the fine arts were eagerly cultivated in that dreary region when the rest of Europe was sunk in ignorance and barbarism. Again, there are many parts of Africa, and of North and South America, where the soil is neither so luxuriant as to beget indolence, nor so barren and ungrateful as to depress the spirits by labour and poverty; where, notwithstanding the inhabitants still continue in an uncultivated state. From all which, and from numerous other instances which our limits permit us not to bring forward, we infer that some external influence is necessary to impel savages towards civilization; and that in the history of the world, or the nature of the thing, we find no influence of any people emerging from barbarism by the progressive efforts of their own genius. On the contrary, as we find in societies highly cultivated and luxurious a strong tendency to degenerate, so in savages we not only find no mark of tendency to improvement, but rather a rooted aversion to it. Among them, indeed, the social appetite never reached beyond their own horde. It is, therefore, too weak and too confined to dispose them to unite in large communities; and of course, had all mankind been once in the savage state, they never could have arrived at any considerable degree of civilization.

Instead of trusting to any such natural progress, as is contended for, the Providence of Heaven, in pity to the human race, appears at different times, and in different countries, to have raised up some persons endowed with superior talents, or, in the language of poetry, some heroes, demi-gods, or god-like men, who having themselves acquired some knowledge in nations already civilized, by useful inventions, legislation, religious institutions, and moral arrangements, sowed the first seeds of civilization among the hordes of wandering disunited barbarians. Thus we find the Chinese look up to their Fohee, the Indians to Brahma, the Persians to Zoroaster, the Chaldeans to Oannes, the Egyptians to Thoth, the Phenicians to Melicerta, the Scandinavians to Odin, the Italians to Janus, Saturn, and Picus, and the Peruvians to Mancio. In later times, and almost within our own view, we find the barbarous nations of Russia reduced to some order and civilization by the astonishing powers and exertions of Peter the Great. The endeavours of succeeding monarchs, and especially of Catharine II., have powerfully contributed to the improvement of this mighty empire. In many parts of it, however, we still find the inhabitants in a state very little superior to savagism; and through the most of it, the lower, and perhaps the middling orders, appear to retain an almost invincible aversion to all further progress*. A fact which, when added to numerous others of a similar nature which occur in the history of the world, seems to prove indisputably that there is no such natural propensity to improvement in the human mind as we are taught by some authors to believe. The origin of savagism, if we allow mankind to have been at first civilized, is easily accounted for by natural means: The origin of civilization, if at any period the whole race were savages, cannot, we think, be accounted for otherwise than by a miracle, or repeated miracles.

To many persons in the present day, especially, the doctrine we have now attempted to establish will appear very humiliating; and perhaps it is this alone that has prevented many from giving the subject so patient a hearing as its importance seems to require. It is a fashionable kind of philosophy to attribute to the human mind very pre-eminent powers; which so flatter our pride, as in a great measure, perhaps, to pervert our reason, and blind our judgment. The history of the world, and of the dispensations of God to man, are certainly at variance with the popular doctrine respecting the origin of civilization: for if the human mind be possessed of that innate vigour which that doctrine attributes to it, it will be extremely difficult to account for those numerous facts which seem with irresistible evidence to proclaim the contrary; for that unceasing care with which the Deity appears to have watched over us; and for those various and important revelations He was vouchsafed to us. Let us rejoice and be thankful that we are men, and that we are Christians; but let not a vain philosophy tempt us to imagine that we are angels or gods.