113502

22

worthy of a detective bent on constructing Albert Museum. They are copies of the a story of importance-a zeal masked in first edition; and until I discovered them the language of dispassionate investigation. I was content to believe, with other critics, The fact is that, so far as a verdict is that the second edition of 1728 was the first concerned (and the case is indeed one for the to include this Preface. The copies of 1726 lawyer), nothing has been produced to vary in the Victoria and Albert Museum contain Boswell's highly judicial conclusion: "The not only the Preface, but also reprints of the result seems to be that the world must letter from Amintas in No. 28 of The vibrate in a state of uncertainty as to what Plain Dealer, and of the letter from Savage was the truth," MR. THOMAS, heading a in No. 73 of that journal. In one of the four regiment of writers in biographical diction- contemporary accounts of Savage, viz., the aries and encyclopædias, disliked uncer- anonymous Life published in 1727, it is tainties. His mind and the minds of his stated that Savage suppressed the Preface faithful followers were incapable of vibrating. in his first edition of the 'Miscellanies.* They must have a verdict guilty or Perhaps he did in some of the copies not guilty," The intermediate not circulated. proven (which covers so many difficult cases) represented for these critics a dan- survive. gerous specimen of Scottish casuistry. The principle of reaching a verdict on insufficient evidence, however remarkable that evidence is, seems to me to be much more dangerous.

22

In the article of 13 November, 1858, MR. 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.

22

66

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 afterwards 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 MR. 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

But at least these three copies

of the 1726 edition containing the Preface

66

The strength of MR. MOY THOMAS'S ingenious indictment is gathered from a contention 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 incontrovertible is that in his letter to Mrs. Carter in 1739 Savage denied the accuracy of some of its particulars. But MR. 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." 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 establishment 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 admission may be taken as slightly, but of course

not conclusively favourable to his bona As if to add still greater confusion to his fides. But MR. THOMAS, in his illegitimate reckless treatment of the four contemporary use of two out of the four contemporary accounts as all proceeding directly from accounts as documents on which to convict Savage, MR. MOY THOMAS refers frequently Savage of dishonesty, exposes himself to a throughout his examination to the statecharge of inaccuracy as great as, if not ments made in Samuel Johnson's Life of greater than, any proved against Savage. Savage, which was written and published after Savage's death. He has no difficulty, of course, in assuming that Johnson put down what Savage had told him in addition to what could be gleaned from the four contemporary accounts. Well, Johnson probably tried to put down as much as he remembered of what Savage told him; he clearly believed in his friend's veracity; he certainly erred in accepting too much of the contemporary accounts as authentic. The subordinate service done by MR. MOY THOMAS's articles is indeed indestructible : he showed that Johnson's narrative contained grave inaccuracies. But in seeking to account for the way in which these inaccuracies were begotten, he erred, and misled the superficial commentators who followed him. Accurate biography is in the most favourable circumstances a difficult business; none knew better than Johnson how difficult. But the blunders and the inconsistencies in Savage's story, as it has come down to us in a variety of accounts, are after all intelligible on grounds other than those which necessitate the belief (however fascinating) that Savage deliberately maintained a claim which he knew be spurious. To regard Johnson's inaccuracy as additional proof of Savage's dishonesty is to heap confusion upon confusion.

And the more we examine the inaccuracy of MR. THOMAS in detail, the more damning becomes the exposure, as in the particular of Savage's alleged godmother Mrs. Lloyd. The phrase Mrs. Lloyd his godmother" occurs both in Curll and in the anonymous Life of 1727. In Savage's own accounts he makes no allusion to his godmother; and in his letter to Mrs. Carter he speaks of Mrs. Lloyd, not as his godmother, but as "the person who took care of me." MR. MOY THOMAS discovered that the name of the godmother to the Countess of Macclesfield's baby boy was Ousley. He hastened to point out the grave discrepancy between the names of Ousley and Lloyd (the alleged name of Savage's godmother in the two accounts not Savage's). At this stage the importance of fathering the Life of 1727 upon Savage became red hot for the constructive critic, and he wrote (27 November): "Who can doubt that the original version of this story [i.e., of the death of Savage's nurse and the discovery among her papers of his origin] in the Life was from Savage?" Again the answer is short and decisive. Every dispassionate inquirer will doubt it in the absence of all evidence to prove it.

Savage never wrote that Mrs. Lloyd was his godmother, but he did write of Mrs. Lloyd. The other accounts of Savage did write of Mrs. Lloyd as his godmother. In order to establish the connexion necessary to his indictment MR. THOMAS Confuses the autobiographical with the biographical accounts, and thus obtains an opportunity for a brilliant disquisition on the impossibility of supposing Lloyd and Ousley to be the same person, so as to remove all possibility of Supposing an identity between their respective godsons. This is to raise to a fine art the simple practice of putting in unauthentic documents to secure a conviction.

It is not my intention here to indicate all the steps by which MR. MOY THOMAS came to his conclusions. I care not even to deny that the main conclusion may be true; for one may come to a right assumption by a wrong course of reasoning. But it must be clearly understood that the result is nothing more than an assumption.

With one further consideration I shall conclude these notes.

to

Four years after MR. MOY THOMAS had written, an article signed W. G. S. appeared in Bentley's Miscellany for November, 1862. It sought to re-establish the perfect equilibrium set in Boswell's verdict of “not proven." But it was ignored. The ninth edition of The Encyclopædia Britannica found it an easy matter to settle in a phrase : "The conclusion which Boswell hinted at, but was prevented by his reverence for Johnson "what a charge to level at Bozzy !—“ from expressing, that Savage was an impostor, is irresistible" (Encyc. Brit., 9th ed., sub Savage, Richard '). The Dictionary of National Biography' attempts a summary of the arguments for and against Savage's claim; but the radical blunder about Mrs. Lloyd imported into the case by MR. MOY THOMAS is perpetuated, and the balance is suffered to appear against Savage : "The falsity of his tale seems demonstrated." His tale!

his

To extract the needle of truth from the life his business as a successful stockbroker growing bundle of loose statements becomes provided ample means, he sought increasingly difficult it is far easier to Londiniana in salerooms and through almost write down Savage as an impostor, and every dealer. Not that he had the field Johnson as his dupe. How can we ever to himself. His rivals (and they were determine the main question affecting doughty foemen) were James Holbert Wilson Savage's character the question whether (died 1865), Frederick Crace (died 1859), he was the victim or the agent of a fraud? The evidence for establishing the fraud itself is insufficient. More than a century has passed, and still we can only repeat with Boswell : The world must vibrate in a state of uncertainty as to what was the truth."2 STANLEY V. MAKOWER.

are

AND DRAWINGS. THE impending sale by auction of the Gardner Collection of London Prints and Drawings occasioned last summer some interesting notices in the press, and very general have been the expressions of regret that this, the last_of_the_great harvestings of illustrations of the London that has passed, should be scattered. There to-day many private portfolios whose contents rival, and even excel, certain sections of this and other huge collections formed in the last century; but, so far as I am aware, not any one claims to possess a greater number of prints and drawings of London generally. The origin and growth of this remarkable collection have not hitherto been recorded at any length, but from information kindly supplied by Mr. Fawcett and other sources, I have been able to compile

this note.

The late Mr. J. E. Gardner, F.S.A., the collector, was born at 453, Strand, where his father, Thomas Gardner, was in business as an oilman. It has been suggested that the gift of a few prints started the hobby, but the first great purchase was made at Stevens's Auction-Room, where, when a mere lad, he secured an extra-illustrated Pennant for five guineas. Mr. Fawcett had been sent to the sale by his father, the bookseller of Great Wild Street, to buy the book at five pounds, and he was much surprised to hear his schoolfellow bid another five shillings and secure the lot. Of course Gardner's father had to be induced to provide the money, and rather unwillingly he did so; but it was a wise concession, and if he lived to see the development of his son's hobby, he did not regret it.

Notes on the back of some of his earliest acquisitions record the collector's keen interest in the pursuit; and when in after

and the owner of the collection sold in July, 1853, whom I identify as the Rev. Dr. Wellesley. The keenness with which these collectors contended for choice items was a delight; it was a battle of wits, and of foresight, not simply of banking accounts. The print-dealers or at least those who retained their custom-wisely saw to it that each had some of the rare items they had for sale. As to the final result of this contest sale catalogues and our national collections bear witness.

Of the Crace portfolios little need be said, as they are known to probably every London topographer, and the catalogue by Mr. J. G. Crace is a very useful work of reference. Of Holbert Wilson's harvesting we ought to have had a similar catalogue ; his MS. notes and cuttings brought together for that purpose occurred as lot 27 when his collection was sold in 1898. If their present possessor has no use for them, he might care to entrust them to me with a view to their publication. The Wellesley Collection is almost unknown, yet it had merits placing it far in advance of the others.

London,'

For the purpose of making some comparison, I will go back to the commencement of the nineteenth century, when the taste for such scraps had its beginning. The vogue for extra-illustration was then at its height, but Granger and Clarendon were the favourite volumes, and hardly any attention had been paid to topographical books. In fact, as far as London topography was concerned, there was little opportunity until the issue in 1790 of Pennant's and the subsequent publication in 1805 of large-paper editions up to that unwieldy tome the atlas folio. Then their interest was appreciated, and the demand for London prints and drawings grew by leaps and bounds. Things Bindley or Gough had secured for pence and preserved in bundles were now sorted, described, and rehabilitated generally. Compare the unconsidered lots of topographical drawings in Gulstone's sale with the classification, by size, parish, or locality, of the London prints sold by King on 23 April, 1804. To this sale I shall refer again later, but from the fact that Bindley, Crowle, Lloyd, Sutherland, and Coram were amongst the purchasers we