[Footnote 47: The first edition of this interesting narrative, according to Mr. Boswell, was published in 1744, by Roberts. The second, now before me, bears date 1748, and was published by Cave. Very few alterations were made by the author, when he added it to the present collection. The year before publication, 1743, Dr. Johnson inserted the following notice of his intention in the Gentleman's Magazine. "MR. URBAN "As your collections show how often you have owed the ornaments of your poetical pages to the correspondence of the unfortunate and ingenious Mr. Savage, I doubt not but you have so much regard to his memory, as to encourage any design that may have a tendency to the preservation of it from insults or calumnies; and, therefore, with some degree of assurance, intreat you to inform the publick, that his life will speedily be published by a person who was favoured with his confidence, and received from himself an account of most of the transactions which he proposes to mention, to the time of his retirement to Swansea, in Wales. "From that period to his death in the prison of Bristol, the account will be continued from materials still less liable to objection; his own letters and those of his friends; some of which will be inserted in the work, and abstracts of others subjoined in the margin. "It may be reasonably, imagined that others may have the same design, but as it is not credible that they can obtain the same materials, it must be expected that they will supply from invention the want of intelligence, and that under the title of the Life of Savage, they will publish only a novel, filled with romantick adventures and imaginary amours. You may, therefore, perhaps, gratify the lovers of truth and wit, by giving me leave to inform them, in your magazine, that my account will be published, in octavo, by Mr. Roberts, in Warwick-lane."] [Footnote 48: This year was made remarkable by the dissolution of a marriage solemnized in the face of the church. Salmon's Review. The following protest is registered in the books of the house of lords: Dissentient: Because we conceive that this is the first bill of that nature that hath passed, where there was not a divorce first obtained in the spiritual court; which we look upon as an ill precedent, and may be of dangerous consequence in the future. HALIFAX. ROCHESTER.] [Footnote 49: See Mr. Boswell's doubts on this head; and the point, fully discussed by Malone, and Bindley in the notes to Boswell. Edit. 1816. i. 150, 151. ED.]