Page:The Life of Mr. Richard Savage - Johnson (1727).djvu/25

 The Right Honourable the Countess of Strafford. Mr. John Savage. The Right Honourable the Countess Dowager of Warwick.

The Dedication of this Book, was to the Right Honourable the Lady Mary Wortley Montague; wherein he says thus, "Nature seems to have form'd my Mind as inconsistently, as Fortune has my Condition: She has given me a Heart that is as proud as my Father's; to a Rank in Life, almost as low as the Humanity of my Mother!"

He had also wrote a long Preface to it, giving some Account of his Mother's unparallel'd ill Treatment of him; but was prevail'd on through the Imposition of some very considerable Persons to cancel it; and about that Time he had a Pension of 50 Pounds a Year settled upon him. I will not venture to say whether this Allowance came directly from her, or, if so, upon what Motives she was induced to grant it him; but chuse to leave the Reader to guess at it. This was the first Time that he may properly be said to have enjoyed any Certainty in Life, and this, alass! of how short a Duration is it like to be, from the unhappy Affair that has brought him under the heaviest Sentence of the Law! A Sentence, which, of all Men living, he was thought, by his whole Acquaintance,