最疯狂最恶劣最危险的10个诗人 | 第7 Richard Savage

The aptly named Richard Savage was a satirist, blackmailer, murderer, and a friend of the poet Alexander Pope. He possessed a spectacular talent for falling out with the people he relied on for his well-being, and he blackmailed the woman he claimed was his mother.

“萨维奇”是凶狠攻击，猛烈批评的意思。理查德·萨维奇人如其名是个讽刺作家，勒索杀人犯。 他也是诗人亚历山大·蒲柏的朋友。他有一个奇妙的天赋那就是和他依赖的人闹翻，他还曾敲诈过一名他声称是他母亲的女人。

His origins are murky, but the facts seem to be these: In 1698, the Earl of Macclesfield divorced his wife, Anne, who then married one Colonel Brett. She also had two children with a man called Richard Savage, the 4th Earl Rivers, one of whom was given away at six months old in 1697. In 1718, the poet Richard Savage appeared, claiming to be the abandoned child and that he had been persecuted by his mother, kidnapped, and sent to the West Indies. It's almost certain that he was an imposter, but he wrote a poem entitled “The Bastard” detailing his mother's abuse and used the ensuing scandal to blackmail her family. Her son, Viscount Tyrconnell, gave him a home and 200 a year for his silence.

萨维奇的出身不明确，但是事情好像是这样的：在1698年，麦克尔斯菲尔德伯爵与妻子安妮离婚。安妮后来又嫁给了一个叫布雷特的上校。她还和一名叫理查德·萨维奇的里弗斯第四伯爵有两个孩子，其中一个在1697年，六个月大时送走了。1718年，诗人理查德·萨维奇出现了。他自称是被遗弃的孩子，遭到母亲的迫害和绑架并被送到了西印度群岛上。几乎可以肯定他在撒谎，但是他写了首名为“野种”的诗详细描述母亲对他的虐待并用接踵而来的丑闻敲诈他的家人。她的儿子，子爵蒂尔康奈，给了萨维奇一处住所并每年给他200英镑作为封口费。

In 1727, this charming figure murdered a man named James Sinclair in a coffeehouse following a drunken argument. He was sentenced to hang at the Old Bailey before outcry among the literati led to a royal pardon from Queen Charlotte and a royal pension until her death in 1737.

1727年，这位迷人的诗人在一个咖啡馆中醉酒闹事，杀死了一名叫詹姆斯·辛克莱的男子。在伦敦中央刑事法院上判处绞刑。但由于文人的强烈反对，他得到了夏洛特女王的赦免并领取皇家养老金直到1737年去世。

He relied on Pope for money and provided gossip on fellow poets as material for Pope's Dunciad. Having once been patronized by Sir Richard Steele, the founder of The Spectator magazine, the pair soon had a falling out. By 1742, Savage had even managed to sufficiently annoy Pope to the point that he canceled the pension he provided. He died in debtor's prison in Bristol a year later.

经济上萨维奇受蒲柏接济，而他向蒲柏提供其他诗人的八卦作为其长篇讽刺诗《愚人记》的素材。他曾受到观察家杂志创办人理查德·斯蒂尔爵士的资助，但很快这两人就闹翻了。到1742年，萨维奇甚至惹急了蒲柏，使其不再为他提供资金。一年后他在比利斯托尔因债入狱并死在了狱中。