He was still in his usual exigencies, having no certain support, but the pension allowed him from the Queen, which was not sufficient to last him the fourth part of the year.  His conduct, with regard to his pension, was very particular.  No sooner had he changed the bill, than he vanished from the sight of all his acquaintances, and lay, for some time, out of the reach of his most intimate friends.  At length he appeared again pennyless as before, but never informed any person where he had been, nor was his retreat ever discovered.  This was his constant practice during the whole time he received his pension.  He regularly disappeared, and returned.  He indeed affirmed that he retired to study, and that the money supported him in solitude for many months, but his friends declared, that the short time in which it was spent, sufficiently confuted his own account of his conduct.

His perpetual indigence, politeness, and wit, still raised him friends, who were desirous to set him above want, and therefore sollicited Sir Robert Walpole in his favour, but though promises were given, and Mr. Savage trusted, and was trusted, yet these added but one mortification more to the many he had suffered.  His hopes of preferment from that statesman; issued in a disappointment; upon which he published a poem in the Gentleman’s Magazine, entitled, The Poet’s Dependance on a Statesman; in which he complains of the severe usage he met with.  But to despair was no part of the character of Savage; when one patronage failed, he had recourse to another.  The Prince was now extremely popular, and had very liberally rewarded the merit of some writers, whom Mr. Savage did not think superior to himself; and therefore he resolved to address a poem to him.

For this purpose he made choice of a subject, which could regard only persons of the highest rank, and greatest affluence, and which was therefore proper for a poem intended to procure the patronage of a prince; namely, public spirit, with regard to public works.  But having no friend upon whom he could prevail to present it to the Prince, he had no other method of attracting his observation, than by publishing frequent advertisements, and therefore received no reward from his patron, however generous upon other occasions.  His poverty still pressing, he lodged as much by accident, as he dined; for he generally lived by chance, eating only when he was invited to the tables of his acquaintance, from which, the meanness of his dress often excluded him, when the politeness, and variety of his conversation, would have been thought a sufficient recompence for his entertainment.  Having no lodging, he passed the night often in mean houses, which are set open for any casual wanderers; sometimes in cellars, amongst the riot and filth of the meanest and most profligate of the rabble; and sometimes when he was totally without money, walked about the streets till he was weary, and lay down in the summer upon a bulk, and in the winter, with his associates in poverty, among the ashes of a glass-house.