the N. by Bundelcund and the British districts of Banda, Allahabad, and Mirzapore; E. by Mirzapore and the native state of Korea; S. by the dominions of the Rajah of Berar, and of the Nizam; and W. by those of the Rajah of Bhopal and of the Scindia family. Length from E. to W. 380 miles, breadth 190, area 27,632 square miles. The greater part of these extensive territories is governed directly by the British; but there are also comprised within their limits the independent allied state of Rewah, and the petty states of Kotee, Myhir, Docheena, and Sohawul, feudatory to the British government. The territories are subdivided as follows:

| British Districts | Area in Sq. Miles | Pop. (1855) | |-------------------|------------------|------------| | Saugor | 1857 | 305,594 | | Jubbulpore | 6267 | 442,771 | | Hooghly | 1016 | 224,411 | | Seonee | 1459 | 227,670 | | Dumoh | 2438 | 363,684 | | Nursingore | 501 | 254,486 | | Baltool | 990 | 93,441 | | Total of British districts | 15,338 | 1,929,687 | | Native states | 12,244 | 1,500,000 | | Total | 27,632 | 3,429,687 |

The country is elevated and mountainous. Its eastern portion is occupied by a tableland, which rises in the summit of Amarakantak, at the extreme S.E., to the height of 3463 feet above the sea, but gradually slopes westwards to the valley of the Nerbudda, which flows through the middle of the territories from E. to W. This valley is inclosed on the N. by the Vindhya range, which is not very high, few summits exceeding the height of 2000 feet; and on the S. by the Mahadeo mountains, which have an average height of 2000 feet, and in some places are believed to attain to 2500 feet, or even higher. These ranges separate the waters of the Nerbudda from the affluents of the Ganges and Jamna on the one side, as well as from those of the Godavry on the other. Among the mineral productions of the land, iron and coal are the most important, and they are found in great abundance in various places. Good sandstone and limestone are also quarried in different parts of the territories. As to the soil, it is in the greater part of Saugor and Nerbudda productive of cotton; but some portions of the surface are covered with dense and gloomy forests, occupied by savage Indians of the Ghond tribes. There are few important events connected with the history of these territories. Ruled originally by Ghond princes, they were conquered by Akbar about 1599, and thus annexed to the empire of Delhi. On the fall of that empire, the peishwa obtained a nominal supremacy over these lands; but they were afterwards conquered by the Rajah of Berar, and finally ceded to the British in 1818.

SAUGOR, the capital of the British district of the same name, in a hilly region, 185 miles N. of Nagpore, 223 S.W. of Allahabad, and 500 N.E. of Bombay. It is built on three sides of a small lake, lying in a valley near the river Besi or Bes, which is crossed by a fine suspension bridge 200 feet in span. The military cantonments are extensive, but occupy a low, swampy, and unhealthy situation. There is a large fort, used as an ordnance depot; and the mint, which formerly occupied a very handsome building, has been removed to Calcutta. Saugor has a Gothic church, recently erected; and a collegiate school, where both English and the vernacular languages are taught. It is the seat of the civil establishment, and has several hundred European inhabitants. The whole population, chiefly Mahattas, is estimated at 50,000.

SAUL, the son of Kish, of the tribe of Benjamin, was the first king of the Israelites; and, on account of his disobedient conduct, the kingdom was taken from his family and given to David.

SAUMAREZ, JAMES, BARON DE, Admiral, was born at St Peter Port, in the island of Guernsey, on the 11th of March 1757. He was descended from an old family which had originally come from France, and which had held a prominent place for centuries among the gentry of the Channel Islands. The family name, originally Saumarez, was changed about 1700 to Saumarez. Not a few of his kin had already distinguished themselves in the naval service, and this circumstance probably fired the lad's ambition early to run the career peculiar to his house. At the age of thirteen, he accordingly entered the navy as midshipman, and served successively in the Montreal, Wincelsea, and Levant frigates. He distinguished himself at the attack on Charleston, in America, in 1776, on board the Bristol, for which he was raised to the rank of lieutenant. He rose successively under Lord Cornwallis, and Admiral Sir Hyde Parker, until he was promoted to the rank of commander for his gallant services off the Dogger Bank, on the 5th of August 1781. Captain Saumarez now placed himself under Admiral Kempenfeldt, and he subsequently, while commanding the Russell, a ship of the line, gained great distinction by his conduct at the battle of the 12th of August 1782. A lull of peace succeeded, and for the next ten years he enjoyed the society of his friends in the Channel Isles. On the breaking out of the war with France in January 1793, Saumarez captured La Reunion, a French frigate, for which he received the honour of knighthood. In the month of November following, Sir James received the command of a small squadron, which, on the 5th of June 1794, was attacked by a very superior French force on the way from Plymouth to Guernsey. But so great was the commander's knowledge of the soundings of the Guernsey coast, and so cool was his intrepidity, that he succeeded in gaining a safe anchorage in the harbour of that island, to the great chagrin of the French fleet.

Sir James Saumarez was promoted in 1795 to the Orion, of 74 guns, and engaged in a series of memorable victories under Lord Bridport, Sir John Jervis, and Sir Horatio Nelson. On his return from the battle of the Nile, where he was severely wounded, he received the command of the Cassar, 84 guns, with orders to watch the French fleet in Brest, during the winters of 1799 and 1800. In 1801 he was raised to the rank of rear-admiral of the blue, was created a baronet, and received the command of a small squadron which was destined to watch the movements of the Spanish fleet at Cadiz. In the month of July, Admiral Saumarez had the satisfaction of preserving a fleet of British merchantmen from falling into the hands of the French. To effect this object he had to engage in two sharp contests with the French and Spanish fleets off Algiers, which caused the enemy a loss of 3000 men in blown up, killed, and taken prisoners. This Saumarez effected with a small squadron, not half equal in size to the enemy's fleet. Of this contest Lord Nelson remarked that "a greater action was never fought." The admiral was rewarded by the Order of the Bath, and the freedom of the city of London was voted to him, together with a magnificent sword. In 1803 Sir James received a pension of £1200 a year, and on the breaking out of hostilities with Russia, he was intrusted with the command of the Baltic fleet, where he had to bring into play all his diplomatic talent. Charles XIII., of Sweden bestowed upon him the Grand Cross of the Military Order of the Sword, as an expression of gratitude for his services. At the peace of 1814 he was made full admiral, in 1819 rear-admiral, and in 1821 vice-admiral of Great Britain. He struck his flag for the last time on the 10th of May 1827. He was raised to the peerage as Baron de Saumarez in 1831. The remainder of his life was spent in peaceful retirement on his estate at Guernsey, where he died on the 9th of October 1836. (See Memoirs, &c., of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, by Sir John Ross, 2 vols., 1838.)

SAUMUR, a town of France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Maine-et-Loire, on the left bank of the Loire, 25 miles S.S.E. of Angers. It is a picturesque, cheerful, white town, occupying the side and foot of a hill by the river's side. The upper portion, called the high town, is very irregular, overhung by the old castle, with its tall donjon and terraced bastions, looking out on the rich flat country through which the Loire flows. The low town is more imposing in its architecture, and contains a good quay, and a quaint old town-hall, with high sloping roof and embattled walls. On the other side of the river stands a suburb, to which access is gained by a very fine stone bridge of twelve arches. The streets of Saumur are in general crooked, and many of them steep. Besides those already mentioned, the principal buildings are two churches, that of St Pierre, in the pointed style, but disfigured by a modern Italian front; and that of Notre Dame de Nantilly, which has some portions as old as the eleventh century, and is hung with curious antique tapestry from the Flemish looms. There are here a public library, museum, theatre, baths, courts of law, a college, riding-school, &c. Linen, cambric, glass, enamelled articles, leather, and saltpetre, are produced here; and there is some trade in corn, flour, wine, hemp, &c. During the reign of Henri IV., Saumur was a flourishing town of 25,000 inhabitants, and a stronghold of the Protestant interest; but after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, its population dwindled to one-fourth of its previous amount, by the loss of its most industrious inhabitants. During the revolutionary war, it was the scene of one of the most brilliant exploits of the Vendéans, under Larochejaquelin. With a very small force he stormed the heights, which were defended by a republican army of 15,000 men with 100 guns, and afterwards drove the enemy from the town, and compelled the castle to surrender. This took place in June 1793. Pop. (1856) 13,073.

SAUNDERSON, Dr Nicholas, was born at Thurlstone, in Yorkshire, in 1682, and may be considered as a prodigy for his application and success in mathematical literature, in circumstances apparently the most unfavourable. He lost his sight by the small-pox before he was a year old. But this disaster did not prevent him from searching after that knowledge for which nature had given him so ardent a desire. He was initiated into the Greek and Roman authors at a free school at Penniston. After spending some years in the study of the languages, his father, who had a place in the excise, began to teach him the common rules of arithmetic. But he soon surpassed his father, and could make long and difficult calculations without having any sensible marks to assist his memory. At eighteen he was taught the principles of algebra and of geometry by Mr Richard West of Underbosk, who, though a gentleman of fortune, yet, being strongly attached to mathematical learning, readily undertook the education of so uncommon a genius. Saunderson was also assisted in his mathematical studies by Dr Nettleton. These two gentlemen read books to him, and explained them. He was next sent to a private academy at Attercliffe, near Shef- Saunderson field, where logic and metaphysics were chiefly taught.

But these sciences not suiting his turn of mind, he soon left the academy. He lived for some time in the country without any instructor; but such was the vigour of his own mind, that few instructions were necessary. He only required books and a reader.

His father, besides the place he had in the excise, possessed also a small estate; but having a numerous family to support, he was unable to give him a liberal education at one of the universities. Some of his friends, who had remarked his perspicuous and interesting manner of communicating his ideas, proposed that he should attend the university of Cambridge as a teacher of mathematics. This proposal was immediately put in execution, and he was accordingly conducted to Cambridge in his twenty-fifth year by Mr Joshua Dunn, a fellow-commoner of Christ's College. Though he was not received as a member of the college, he was treated with great attention and respect. He was allowed a chamber, and had free access to the library. Whiston was at that time professor of mathematics, and as he read lectures in the way that Saunderson intended, it was naturally to be supposed he would view his project as an invasion of his office. But, instead of meditating any opposition, the plan was no sooner mentioned to him than he gave his consent to it. Saunderson's reputation was soon spread throughout the university. When his lectures were announced, a general curiosity was excited to hear such intricate mathematical subjects explained by a man who had been blind from his infancy. The subject of his lectures was the Principia Mathematica, the Optics, and the Arithmetica Universalis, of Sir Isaac Newton. He was accordingly attended by a very numerous audience. It will appear at first incredible to many that a blind man should be capable of explaining optics, which requires an accurate knowledge of the nature of light and colours; but we must recollect that the theory of vision is taught entirely by lines, and is subject to the rules of geometry.

While thus employed in explaining the principles of the Newtonian philosophy, he became known to its illustrious author. He was also intimately acquainted with Halley, Cotes, Demoivre, and other eminent mathematicians. When Whiston was removed from his professorship, Saunderson was universally allowed to be the man best qualified to succeed him. But to enjoy this office it was necessary, as the statutes direct, that he should be promoted to a degree. To obtain this privilege, the heads of the university applied to their chancellor, the Duke of Somerset, who procured the royal mandate to confer upon him the degree of master of arts. He was then elected Lucasian professor of mathematics in November 1711. His inauguration speech was composed in classical Latin, and in the style of Cicero, with whose works he had been much conversant. He now devoted his whole time to his lectures and the instruction of his pupils. In 1728, when George II visited the university of Cambridge, he expressed a desire to see Professor Saunderson. In compliance with this desire, he waited upon his majesty in the senate-house, and was there, by the king's command, created doctor of laws. He was admitted a member of the Royal Society in 1736.

Saunderson was naturally of a vigorous constitution, but having confined himself to a sedentary life, he at length became scorbutic. For several years he felt a numbness in his limbs, which, in the spring of 1739, brought on a mortification in his foot; and, unfortunately, his blood was so vitiated by the scurvy, that assistance from medicine was not to be expected. When he was informed that his death was near, he remained for a little space calm and silent; but he soon recovered his former vivacity, and conversed with his usual ease. He died on the 19th of April 1739, in the fifty-seventh year of his age, and was buried, at his own request, in the chancel at Boxworth. He married the daughter of Mr Dickens, rector of Boxworth, in Cambridgeshire, and by her had a son and a daughter.

Dr Saunderson was rather to be admired as a man of wonderful genius and assiduity, than to be loved for his amiable qualities. He spoke his sentiments freely of characters, and praised or condemned his friends as well as his enemies without reserve. This has been ascribed by some to a love of defamation; but it has with more propriety been attributed by others to an inflexible love of truth, which urged him upon all occasions to speak the sentiments of his mind without disguise, and without considering whether this conduct would please, or the reverse. His sentiments were supposed to be unfavourable to revealed religion. It is said that he alleged he could not know God, because he was blind, and could not see his works; and that upon this Dr Holmes replied, "Lay your hand upon yourself, and the organization which you will feel in your own body will dissipate so gross an error." On the other hand, we are informed that he had desired the sacrament to be given him on the evening before his death. He was, however, seized with a delirium, which rendered this impossible.

He wrote a system of algebra, which was published in two volumes 4to, at London, after his death, in the year 1740, at the expense of the university of Cambridge.

Dr Saunderson had invented for his own use a palpable Arithmetic; that is, a method of performing operations in arithmetic solely by the sense of touch. It consisted of a table raised upon a small frame, so that he could apply his hands with equal ease above and below. On this table were drawn a great number of parallel lines, which were crossed by others at right angles; the edges of the table were divided by notches half an inch distant from one another, and between each notch there were five parallels, so that every square inch was divided into a hundred little squares. At each angle of the squares where the parallels intersected one another, a hole was made quite through the table; and in each hole were placed two pins, a large and a small one. It was by the various arrangements of the pins that Saunderson performed his operations.

His sense of touch was so perfect, that he could discover with the greatest exactness the slightest inequality of surface, and could distinguish in the most finished works the smallest oversight in the polish. In the cabinet of medals at Cambridge he could single out the Roman medals with the utmost correctness; and he could also perceive the slightest variation in the atmosphere. One day, while some gentlemen were making observations on the sun, he took notice of every little cloud that passed over his disk, and served to interrupt their labours. When any object passed before his face, even though at some distance, he discovered it, and could guess its size with considerable accuracy. When he walked, he knew when he passed by a tree, a wall, or a house. He had made these distinctions from the different ways his face was affected by the motion of the air.

His musical ear was so remarkably acute, that he could distinguish accurately to the fifth of a note. In his youth he had been a performer on the flute, and he had made such proficiency, that if he had cultivated his talents in this way, he would probably have been as eminent in music as he was in mathematics. He recognized not only his friends, but even those with whom he was slightly acquainted, by the tone of their voice; and he could judge with wonderful exactness of the size of any apartment into which he was casually conducted.

SAURAT, a village of France, in the department of Ariège, 7 miles S.S.W. of Foix. It has an old church, iron-works, saw-mills, and slate-quarries. Pop. 4456.

SAURIN, Jacques, a celebrated preacher, was the son of a Protestant lawyer, and was born at Nismes in 1677. He applied to his studies with great success; but being captivated with a military life, he relinquished them for the profession of arms. In 1694 he made a campaign as a cadet in Lord Galloway's company, and soon afterwards obtained a pair of colours in the regiment of Colonel Renault, which served in Piedmont. But the Duke of Savoy having made peace with France, he returned to Geneva, and resumed the study of philosophy and theology under Turretin and other professors. In 1700 he visited Holland, then went to England, where he remained for several years, and married. In 1705 he returned to the Hague, where he fixed his residence, and preached with the most unbounded applause. To an exterior appearance highly prepossessing, he added a strong and harmonious voice. The sublime prayer which he recited before his sermon was uttered in a manner highly affecting. Nor was the attention excited by the prayer, dissipated by the sermon. All who heard it were charmed; and those who came with an intention to criticise, were carried along with the preacher and forget their design. Saurin had, however, one fault in his delivery; he did not manage his voice with sufficient skill. He exhausted himself so much in his prayer and the beginning of his sermon, that his voice grew feeble towards the end of the service. His sermons, especially those which were published during his life, are distinguished for justness of thought, force of reasoning, and an eloquent, unaffected style. Saurin died on the 30th of December 1730, aged fifty-three years.

He wrote, first, Sermons, which were published in 12 vols. 8vo and 12mo, some of which display great genius and eloquence, and others are composed with negligence. One may observe in them the imprecatations and the aversion which the Calvinists of that age were wont to utter against the Roman Catholics. Saurin was, notwithstanding, a lover of toleration; and his sentiments on this subject gave great offence to some of his fanatical brethren, who attempted to obscure his merit and embitter his life. They found fault with him because he did not call the pope Antichrist, and the Church of Rome the whore of Babylon.

Secondly, he published Discours, historical, critical, and moral, on the most memorable events of the Old and New Testament. This is his greatest and most valuable work. It was first printed in 2 vols. folio. As it was left unfinished, Beausobre and Roques undertook a continuation of it, and increased it to four volumes. He also published L'Etat du Christianisme en France, 1725, 8vo, in which he discusses many important points of controversy, and calls in question the truth of the miracle said to have been performed on La Fosse at Paris; and an Abrégé of Christian theology and morality, in the form of a catechism, 1722, 8vo.

A Dissertation which he published on the Expediency of sometimes Disguising the Truth raised a multitude of enemies against him. He was immediately attacked by several adversaries, and a long controversy ensued; but his doctrines and opinions were at length publicly approved of by the synods of Campen and the Hague. This work was translated into English by Chamberlayne, London, 1723. Five volumes of his Sermons were likewise translated by R. Robinson, 1775.

Saurin, Joseph, a geometrician and member of the Academy of Sciences at Paris, was born at Courtaison, in the principality of Orange, in the year 1659. His father, who was a minister at Grenoble, was his first preceptor. He made rapid progress in his studies, and, when very young, was admitted minister of Eure in Dauphine; but having made use of some violent expressions in one of his sermons, he was obliged to quit France in the year 1683. He retired to Geneva, and thence to Berne, where he obtained a considerable living. Scarcely was he settled in his new habitation, however, when some theologians raised a persecution against him. Saurin, hating controversy, and disgusted with Switzerland, where his talents were entirely concealed, repaired to Holland. He returned soon afterwards to France, and surrendered himself into the hands of Bossuet, the bishop of Meaux, who obliged him to make a recantation of his errors. This event took place in 1690. His enemies, however, suspected his sincerity in the abjuration which he had made. It was a general opinion, that the desire of cultivating science in the capital of France had a greater effect in producing this change than religion. Saurin, however, speaks of the Reformers with great asperity, and condemns them for going too far. It is said, also, that Saurin appeased his conscience by reading Poiret's Cogitations Rationales. This book is written with a view to vindicate the Church of Rome from the charge of idolatry. If it was the love of distinction that induced Saurin to return to the Church of Rome, he was not disappointed; for he there met with protection and support. He was favourably received by Louis XIV., obtained a pension from him, and was treated by the Academy of Sciences with the most flattering respect. At that time (1717) geometry formed his principal occupation. He enriched the Journal des Savans with many excellent treatises; and he added to the memoirs of the academy many interesting papers. These are the only works which he has left behind him. He died at Paris, of a fever, on the 29th of December 1737, in his seventy-eighth year. He married a wife of the family of Crousas, in Switzerland, who bore him a son, Bernard Joseph, distinguished as a writer for the theatre.

Saurin was of a bold and impetuous spirit. He had that lofty deportment which is generally mistaken for pride. His philosophy was austere; his opinions of men were not very favourable; and he often delivered them in their presence. This created him many enemies. His memory was attacked after his decease. A letter was printed in the Mercure Suisse, said to be written by Saurin from Paris, in which he acknowledges that he had committed several crimes which deserved death. Some Calvinist ministers published, in 1737, two or three pamphlets to prove the authenticity of that letter; but Voltaire, in his Histoire Générale, made diligent inquiry, not only at the place where Saurin had been discharging the sacerdotal office, but at the deans of the clergy of that department. They all exclaimed against an imputation so opprobrious. It must not, however, be concealed, that Voltaire, in the defence which he has published in his general history of Saurin's conduct, leaves some unfavourable impressions upon the reader's mind. He insinuated that Saurin sacrificed his religion to his interest, and that he played upon Bossuet, "who believed he had converted a clergyman, when he had only given a little fortune to a philosopher."

SAUSSURE, Horace Bénédict de, a celebrated naturalist, was a native of Geneva, and born in the year 1740. His father was an intelligent farmer, who lived at Conches, about half a league from Geneva, and the youth seems early to have taken to the study of natural history. Botany, which was his favourite study, was the means of introducing him to the acquaintance of the great Haller, to whom he paid a visit in 1764, and who was astonished at his intimate acquaintance with every branch of the natural sciences. His attachment to the study of the vegetable kingdom was also increased by his connection with Charles Bonnet, who had married his aunt, and who put a proper estimate on the talents of his nephew. He was at that time engaged in the examination of the leaves of plants, to which Saussure was also induced to turn his attention, and published the result of his researches, under the title of Observations sur l'écorce des Feuilles et des Pétales, in 1762. About this time the philosophical chair at Geneva became vacant, and was given to Saussure, at the age of twenty- During the first fifteen years of his professorship he was alternately engaged in discharging the duties of his office and in traversing the mountains in the vicinity of Geneva; and in this period his talents as a great philosopher were fully displayed. He extended his researches on one side to the banks of the Rhine, and on the other to the country of Piedmont. He travelled to Auvergne to examine the extinguished volcanoes, going afterwards to Paris, England, Holland, Italy, and Sicily. The first volume of his travels through the Alps, which was published in 1779, contains a circumstantial description of the environs of Geneva, and an excursion as far as Chamouni, a village at the foot of Mont Blanc. It contains a description of his magnetometer. In proportion as he examined the mountains, the more was he persuaded of the importance of mineralogy; and that he might study it with advantage, he acquired a knowledge of the German language.

During the troubles which agitated Geneva in 1782, he made his beautiful and interesting experiments on Hygrometry, which he published in 1783. This has been pronounced the best work that ever came from his pen, and completely established his reputation as a philosopher. De Saussure resigned his chair to his pupil and fellow-labourer, Pietet, who discharged the duties of his office with reputation. In 1786, he published his second volume of travels, containing a description of the Alps around Mont Blanc, the whole having been examined with the eye of a mineralogist, geologist, and philosopher. It contains some valuable experiments on electricity, and a description of his own electrometer. To him we are indebted for the cyanometer, for measuring the degree of blueness of the heavens, which is found to vary according to the height of the observer; his diaphanometer, for measuring the transparency of the atmosphere; and his anemometer, for ascertaining the force of the winds. He founded the Society of Arts, to the operations of which Geneva is very much indebted for its continued prosperity. Over that society he presided to the day of his death, and the preservation of it in prosperity constituted one of his fondest wishes.

In 1794, the health of this eminent man began rapidly to decline, and a severe stroke of the palsy almost deprived him of the use of his limbs. His intellect still preserved its original activity, and he prepared for the press the last two volumes of his travels, which appeared in 1796, under the title of Voyages dans les Alpes. They contain a great mass of new facts and observations, of the last importance to physical science. He was in general a Neptunian, ascribing the revolutions of the globe to water, and admitting the possibility of mountains having been thrown up by elastic fluids disengaged from the cavities of the earth. In the midst of his rapid decline he cherished the hopes of recovery; but his strength was exhausted. He tried in vain to procure the re-establishment of his health; for all the remedies prescribed by the ablest physicians were wholly ineffectual. His mind afterwards lost its activity; and on the 22d of March 1799, he finished his mortal career, in the fifty-ninth year of his age. His life has been written by Jean Senebier, entitled Memoire Historique sur la vie et les écrits d'Horace Benedict de Saussure, Geneva, 1801; and his Eloge by Cuvier for the Institute in 1810, and for the Biographie Universelle.

SAUVEUR, Joseph, an eminent French mathematician, born at La Flèche in 1653. He was absolutely dumb until he was seven years of age; and even then his organs of speech were not so fully developed as to permit him to speak without great deliberation. Mathematics were the only studies he had any relish for, and these he cultivated with extraordinary success; so that he commenced teacher at twenty years of age, and rose so rapidly into vogue, that he had Prince Eugene for his scholar. He became mathematical professor in the royal college in 1686; and ten years afterwards was admitted a member of the Academy of Sciences. He died in 1716; and his writings, which consist rather of detached papers than of connected treatises, are all inserted in the Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences. He was twice married; and by the last wife he had a son, who, like himself, was dumb for the first seven years of his life.Richard, a man rendered famous by the singularity of his misfortunes, and by the elaborate life which Dr Johnson has written of him, was the son of Anne Countess of Macclesfield and of the Earl of Rivers, and was born on the 16th of January 1696-97. His mother, after a strenuous defence by her counsel, was convicted of adultery, and having thus separated herself from her husband the Earl of Macclesfield, she resolved to disown her unfortunate offspring, and treated him ever after with the most unnatural cruelty. (See Cunningham's edition of Johnson's Lives of the Poets.) She delivered him to a poor woman to educate as her own, and after a vain endeavour to send him secretly to the plantations, she had him apprenticed to a shoemaker. Savage having discovered some letters which revealed to him his birth and the cause of its concealment, he became suddenly dissatisfied with the situation of a shoemaker, and resolved to solicit his unnatural parent for the means of pursuing a more distinguished career than had hitherto been afforded him. But he could neither soften the heart of this woman nor open her hand. Having received a tolerably good education, and being endowed by nature with a turn for poetry, he wrote Woman's Riddle and Love in a Veil, which, if they did not bring him much money, at least brought him friends. He next wrote the tragedy of Sir Thomas Overbury, which brought him in a sum of L200. But Savage was a bad manager, and was ever in distress. He next published a volume of Miscellanies, and was on the fair way to fame, when he was suddenly condemned to be hanged for having killed a man in a drunken frolic. Despite his mother's anxiety to have the sentence of the law carried into effect, he was at last pardoned by the intercession of the Countess of Hertford. He now had his revenge upon his mother, by publishing his poem of the Bastard, 1728, which displays such an exalted tone of thought, an energy of expression, and a refined severity of sarcasm, which places it considerably ahead of his other writings. At last interest prevailed over maternal affection, and she resolved to allow him a pension of L200 a year. He was taken into the family of Lord Tyrconnel, with whom he lived for some time in the greatest amity. He wrote a poem entitled the Temple of Health and Mirth, in 1730, on the recovery of Lady Tyrconnel from a languishing illness; he dedicated, in strains of the highest panegyric, a poem called the Wanderer, in 1729, to his noble benefactor. A poem on the birthday of the Queen, entitled the Volunteer-Laureate, and written in 1731-32, brought him a pension of L50 a year, but her death, on the 20th November 1737, deprived him of all hopes from the court. But the friendships of Savage were not generally of very long duration. He suddenly quarrelled with Lord Tyrconnel in 1735, which again set him adrift penniless upon the world. His friends now resolved to procure him permanent relief, and he was accordingly despatched into Wales, where he was to live the rest of his life in quiet retirement, at the rate of L50 a year. Whether it was that the destitute and profligate life which he had lately led had unconsciously enchanted him, or what is more probable, that he entertained secret longings after that distinction to which he felt his birth entitled him, he, at all events, resolved to deceive his friends, by simply retiring to write another tragedy, and again return to London to bring it upon the stage. He at length reached Swansea, where, after living about a year, he returned to Bristol, on his way to London. While in Bristol he was feasted and caressed for a time, and money was even raised to carry him to London, but Savage had the misfortune to weary out his Bristol friends. His clothes were worn out; his appearance was shabby; his presence was disgustful. He was at last thrown into prison for a debt of L8, which he owed to the mistress of a coffee-house. Here, notwithstanding much kindness, he chafed and pined away, till at last, being seized with a fever, he expired on the 31st of July 1743, in the forty-sixth year of his age. He was buried on the 2d of August, in the churchyard of St Peter, Bristol, adjoining the gaol, where his remains rest without any external mark to indicate them.

SAVANNAH, an island in the South Pacific, the largest of the Navigator's or Samoan group. S. Lat. (of the southern point) 13° 49', W. Long. 172° 29'. Its length is about 50 miles, and its breadth varies from 20 to 30. The structure is volcanic; and the surface rises gradually from the shore to the peaks, thrown up by extinct craters. One of these, near the centre, rises to the height of 4000 feet, and is conspicuous to a wide distance round about. The interior has never been explored. Savana enjoys a very fertile soil, which produces, without culture, coffee, sugar, indigo, and other plants. There is one safe harbour on the north shore. Pop. estimated at 20,000.