Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 2.djvu/464

 But in the Minister, Sir Robert Walpole, Savage had an irreconcilable opponent. The apprehension of exciting powerful enmities, if he elevated the "Bastard" and his wrongs to so conspicuous a place, had, no doubt, an influence with the shrewd statesman. Possibly, too, so keen and practical a mind could not but entertain thorough contempt for the man, who, with brains, thews, and sinews of his own, a fair education, and as many golden opportunities of advancement as a reasonable being could desire, should waste his days in profitless mendicancy at the doors of great people, in whining endeavors to excite the sympathies of the indifferent, in poem and petition, in beastly drunkenness, or, if sober, in maudlin lamentations at the bitterness of his fortune. A Falconbridge would have better suited the ministerial taste. At all events, when his Majesty came to request the appointment of the Queen's _protégé_, he found that the patent had already been made out in the name of Cibber: and Cibber had to be Laureate. The disappointed one raved, got drunk, sober again, and finally wrote an ode to her Majesty, announcing himself as her "Volunteer Laureate," who should repeat his congratulations upon each recurrence of her birthday. The Queen, in pity, sent him fifty pounds, with a promise of an equal amount for each of his annual verses. And although Cibber protested, and ridiculed the new title, as no more sensible than "Volunteer Duke, Marquis, or Prime Minister," still Savage adhered to it and the pension tenaciously, sharing the Queen's favor with Stephen Duck, the marvellous "Thresher,"[9] whose effusions were still more to her taste. That the yearly fifty pounds were expended in inexcusable riot, almost as soon as received, was a matter of course. Upon the demise of Queen Caroline, in 1738, Savage experienced another proof of Walpole's dislike. The pensions found upon her Majesty's private list were all continued out of the exchequer, one excepted. The pension of Savage was the exception. Right feelingly, therefore, might he mourn his royal mistress, and vituperate the insensible minister; and that he did both with some degree of animation, the few who still read his poems will freely admit.

Colley Cibber had recommended himself to promotion by consistent partisanship, and by two plays of fair merit and exceeding popularity. "The Careless Husband" even Pope had praised; "The Nonjuror," an adaptation of Molière's "Tartuffe," was one of the most successful comedies of the period. The King had been delighted with it,--a circumstance doubtless considered by Sir Robert in selecting a rival for Savage. Cibber had likewise been the manager, time out of mind, of Drury-Lane Theatre; and if now and then he had failed to recognize the exact direction of popular taste,--as in the instance of the "Beggar's Opera," which he rejected, and which, being accepted by Manager Rich of Covent Garden, made Rich gay and Gay rich,--he was generally a sound stage-tactician and judicious caterer. His career, however, had not been so profitable that an additional hundred pounds should be a thing of indifference; in fact, the sum seemed to be just what was needed to enable him to forsake active duty on the stage,--for the patent was no sooner signed than the veteran retired upon his laurels.

The annals of the Laureateship, during Cibber's reign, are without incident.[10]