The principal actors were not in London just then, it being the off season, when the younger players strutted across the classic boards of the house, and Savage determined himself to enact Sir Thomas.

He did so with melancholy results; even Johnson admits the failure of so presumptuous a leap before the footlights, "for neither his voice, look, nor gesture were such as were expected on the stage; and he was so much ashamed of having been reduced to appear as a player, that he always blotted out his name from the list when a copy of his tragedy was to be shown to his friends."[B] [Footnote A: Savage, with his usual bad taste, published this tragedy as the work of "Richard Savage, _son of the late Earl Rivers_."] [Footnote B: In the publication of his performance he was more successful, for the rays of genius that glimmered in it, that glimmered through all the mists which poverty and Cibber had been able to spread over it, procured him the notice and esteem of many persons eminent for their rank, their virtue, and their wit.

Of this play, acted, printed, and dedicated, the accumulated profits arose to an hundred pounds, which he thought at that time a very large sum, having been never master of so much before.

In the "Dedication," for which he received ten guineas, there is nothing remarkable.

The preface contains a very liberal enconium on the blooming excellence of Mr.
Theophilus Cibber, which Mr.Savage could not in the latter part of his life see his friends about to read without snatching the play out of their hands .-- DR.