Richard Savage (poet)

Richard Savage
Illustration from Richard Savage: A Romance of Real Life by Charles Whitehead
Born	c. 1697 England
Died	1 August 1743 (aged 46) Bristol
Occupation	Poet, satirist
Relatives	Richard Savage, 4th Earl Rivers (father, disputed) Anne Gerard, Countess of Macclesfield (mother, disputed)

Richard Savage (c. 1697 – 1 August 1743) was an English poet. He is best known as the subject of Samuel Johnson's Life of Savage, originally published anonymously in 1744, on which is based one of the most elaborate of Johnson's Lives of the English Poets.

What is known about Savage's early life mostly comes from Johnson's Life of Savage. However, such information is not entirely trustworthy, since Johnson did not feel the need to thoroughly investigate Savage's past. Johnson relied almost solely on books, papers and magazines that publisher Edward Cave retrieved for him from the The Gentleman's Magazine's archives.

In 1698 Charles Gerard, 2nd Earl of Macclesfield, obtained a divorce from his wife, Anne, daughter of Sir Richard Mason. Shortly afterwards she married Colonel Henry Brett. Lady Macclesfield had two children by Richard Savage, 4th Earl Rivers, the second of whom was born at Fox Court, Holborn, on 16 January 1697, and christened two days later at St Andrew, Holborn, as Richard Smith. Six months later the child was placed with nurse Anne Portlock in Covent Garden. Nothing more is positively known of him, but Savage later claimed to be this child. He stated that he had been cared for by Lady Mason, his grandmother, who had put him in a school near St Albans, and by his godmother, one Mrs Lloyd. He said he had been pursued by the relentless hostility of his mother, by then Mrs Brett, who had prevented Lord Rivers from leaving £6000 to him, had tried to have him abducted to the West Indies and then apprenticed him as a shoemaker in Holborn. Savage claimed to have discovered his true identity in 1714, through reading some letters by Mrs Lloyd. The first recorded occurrence of his name dates back to 1715, when he identified himself as "Mr. Savage, natural son to the late Earl Rivers" after being arrested for possessing a censored political pamphlet. He continued to use this name afterwards and gave further details of his parentage in Jacob's Poetical Register.