There is so much to say about Savage. Firsst of all, he's the classic Age of Walpole secular patronage poet--the Volunteer Laureate, the author of the Epistle to Walpole and the dedicator to the Prince of Wales. Plus the private shakedowns to Mrs. Brett and Lord and Lady Tyrconnel. But there's also the appeal to his gentility and bend-sinistered aristocratic lineage--I wonder if Horace Walpole included him in his compendium of aristocratic poets. And there's the mocking the venality of Grub Street poetry in An Author to Be Lett (and, the rumors report, in informing to Pope on The Dunciad). The idea of believing yourself to be a bastard aristocrat, entitled to wine and cakes, is in a way an apotheosis of the predicament of the professional poet in this era.