No wonder Lord Tyrconnel dropped him. Even Savage himself admitted that Lord Tyrconnel ‘often exhorted him to regulate his method of life, _and not to spend all his nights in taverns_, and that he appeared desirous that he would pass those hours with him, which he so freely bestowed upon others.’ The poor fellow eventually, having estranged all his friends by his petulance as well as his bad habits, got deplorably poor, and ‘wandered about the town, slighted and neglected, in quest of a dinner, which he did not always obtain.’ It was at this period that we read the extraordinary account of him, that ‘he was not able to bear the smell of meat till the action of his stomach was restored by a cordial.’ On one occasion in great distress at Bristol, ‘he received a remittance of five pounds from London, with which he provided himself a decent coat, and determined to go to London, but unhappily spent his money at a favourite tavern.’ The tale goes on, ‘Thus was he again confined to Bristol, where he was every day hunted by bailiffs. In this exigence he once more found a friend, who sheltered him in his house, though at the usual inconveniences with which his company was attended; for he could neither be persuaded to go to bed in the night nor to rise in the day.’ But if many were the victims of excess, many too were the champions of restraint; and, first of all, we turn to Dr. Samuel Johnson. In his early life he drank wine; let him testify for himself. In an interesting conversation with an old college friend, one Edwards, held April 17, 1778, he made a remark which Sir Wilfrid Lawson would hail:-- _Edwards._ How do you live, sir? For my part, I must have my regular meals and a glass of good wine. I find I require it. _Johnson._ I now drink no wine, sir. Early in life I drank wine; for many years I drank none. I then for some years drank a good deal.... _Edwards._ I am grown old: I am sixty-five. _Johnson._ I shall be sixty-eight next birthday. Come, sir, DRINK WATER, AND PUT IN FOR A HUNDRED. When he first came to London, at the age of 29, he abstained entirely (_teste_ Boswell) from fermented liquors, ‘a practice to which he rigidly conformed for many years together at different periods of his life.’ Upon this point Croker has a suggestive note, apropos of the effect of drink on hypochondria:--