reproach, and on whom the clemency of the Legislature had
undeservedly bestowed a fortune, which would have been very little
diminished by the expenses which the care of her child could have
brought upon her. It was therefore not likely that she would be
wicked without temptation; that she would look upon her son from his
birth with a kind of resentment and abhorrence; and, instead of
supporting, assisting, and defending him, delight to see him
struggling with misery, or that she would take every opportunity of
aggravating his misfortunes, and obstructing his resources, and with
an implacable and restless cruelty continue her persecution from the
first hour of his life to the last. But whatever were her motives,
no sooner was her son born than she discovered a resolution of
disowning him; and in a very short time removed him from her sight,
by committing him to the care of a poor woman, whom she directed to
educate him as her own, and enjoined never to inform him of his true
parents.

Such was the beginning of the life of Richard Savage. Born with a
legal claim to honour and to affluence, he was in two months
illegitimated by the Parliament, and disowned by his mother, doomed
to poverty and obscurity, and launched upon the ocean of life only
that he might be swallowed by its quicksands, or dashed upon its
rocks. His mother could not indeed infect others with the same
cruelty. As it was impossible to avoid the inquiries which the
curiosity or tenderness of her relations made after her child, she
was obliged to give some account of the measures she had taken; and
her mother, the Lady Mason, whether in approbation of her design, or
to prevent more criminal contrivances, engaged to transact with the
nurse, to pay her for her care, and to superintend the education of
the child.