Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 1.djvu/10

 NOTES AND QUERIES. ui s. i. JAN. i, 1910.

worthy of a detective bent on constructing a story of importance a zeal masked in the language of dispassionate investigation.

The fact is that, so far as a verdict is concerned (and the case is indeed one for the lawyer), nothing has been produced to vary BoswelPs highly judicial conclusion : " The result seems to be that the world must vibrate in a state of uncertainty as to what was the truth," MB. THOMAS, heading a regiment of writers in biographical diction- aries and encyclopaedias, disliked uncer- tainties. His mind and the minds of his faithful followers were incapable of vibrating. They must have a verdict " guilty '* or " not guilty," The intermediate " not proven n (which covers so many difficult cases) represented for these critics a dan- gerous specimen of Scottish casuistry. The principle of reaching a verdict on insuf- ficient evidence, however remarkable that evidence is, seems to me to be much more dangerous.

In the article of 13 November, 1858, MB. THOMAS admits that he is of opinion that Savage was one of those claimants who " grow at length into a kind of faith in their story which helps them to sustain their part." This seems to mean that the critic holds Savage to have started with a claim he knew to be false, and then reached a stage at which he believed in his own imposture. On the evidence this is no more than a hypothesis. But in the concluding article of the series the critic, or rather the counsel for the prosecution, finds all subtlety or reserve superfluous. He has " no doubt that Richard Savage was an impostor." Has the evidence for certainty increased with his argument ? Let us see.

Four accounts of Savage's story were published during his lifetime. Some of their contents are common to all ; others are peculiar to each. In addition to these sources we have to reckon with the letter from "Amintas" in No. 28 of The Plain Dealer, and the authentic letter of Savage to Mrs. Carter dated 1739 which was after- wards made public. Of the four accounts published during his life, only two are Savage's own : the letter in No. 73 of The Plain Dealer (1724), and the Preface to the 'Miscellanies' (1726).

I take an opportunity here of mentioning what has hitherto escaped the attention of MB. MOY THOMAS and all those who have accepted his leadership. Three copies of the ' Miscellaneous Poems '- containing the Preface and dated 1726 are in the Dyce collection of books in the Victoria and

Albert Museum. They are copies of the first edition ; and until I discovered them, I was content to believe, with other critics, that the second edition of 1728 was the first to include this Preface. The copies of 1726 in the Victoria and Albert Museum contain not only the Preface, but also reprints of the letter from " Amintas " in No. 28 of The Plain Dealer, and of the letter from Savage in No. 73 of that journal. In one of the four contemporary accounts of Savage, viz., the anonymous Life published in 1727, it is stated that Savage suppressed the Preface in his first edition of the ' Miscellanies.* Perhaps he did in some of the copies- circulated. But at least these three copies of the 1726 edition containing the Preface survive.

The strength of MB. MOY THOMAS'S ingenious indictment is gathered from a con- tention that all the four accounts were Savage's ; that, whether written by him or not, they were all his work ; 'and that he is to be held responsible for the statements made in them. The life in Curll's Poetical Register (1719) is blithely assumed to be an autobiography. On what grounds ? No other than that Curll did in this journal publish other autobiographies. With regard to the anonymous Life published in 1727, when Savage was in prison, all that is in- controvertible is that in his letter to Mrs. Carter in 1739 Savage denied the accuracy of some of its particulars. But MB. MOY THOMAS in his second article (13 November) writes imperturbably : " There can be no doubt that this pamphlet, so well adapted to serve his interests, was written by him, or at least from his instructions. n But for any dispassionate inquirer there must be doubt, and very little, if anything, but doubt, that Savage had anything to do with it. He may have helped, or he may not. He may wilfully have misrepresented, or accidentally have misrepresented, facts in this anonymous Life ; he may or he may not have issued instructions which may or may not have been carried out. But all these possibilities are no help to the estab- lishment of a fact. In the absence of the smallest fragment of evidence to show that Savage had anything to do with this account, we are bound to assume that it was not his. The burden of its errors cannot be laid at his door.

Errors of his own making can be found in Savage's own handiwork. He knew it himself, and admitted his own inaccuracy in his letter to Mrs. Carter (1739). The admis- sion may be taken as slightly, but of course