Page:The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, Volume 3.djvu/255

251 disappointed in his schemes; for the Lord Chamberlain, who has the disposal of the laurel, as one of the appendages of his office, either did not know the King's design, or did not approve it, or thought the nomination of the Laureat an encroachment upon his rights, and therefore bestowed the laurel upon Colley Cibber.

Mr. Savage, thus disappointed, took a resolution of applying to the Queen, that, having once given him life, she would enable him to support it, and therefore published a short poem on her birth-day, to which he gave the odd title of "Volunteer Laureat." The event of this essay he has himself related in the following letter, which he prefixed to the poem, when he afterwards reprinted it in "The Gentleman's Magazine," from whence I have copied it entire, as this was one of the few attempts in which Mr. Savage succeeded.

"Mr. ,

"In your Magazine for February you published the last 'Volunteer Laureat,' written on a very melancholy occasion, the death of the royal patroness of arts and Rh