To this unhappy state it is just to impute much of the inconstancy of his conduct; for though a readiness to comply with the inclination of others was no part of his natural character, yet he was sometimes obliged to relax his obstinacy, and submit his own judgment, and even his virtue, to the government of those by whom he was supported: so that, if his miseries were sometimes the consequences of his faults, he ought not yet to be wholly excluded from compassion, because his faults were very often the effects of his misfortunes. In this gay period[78] of his life, while he was surrounded by affluence and pleasure, he published the Wanderer, a moral poem, of which the design is comprised in these lines: I fly all publick care, all venal strife, To try the still, compar'd with active life; To prove, by these, the sons of men may owe The fruits of bliss to bursting clouds of woe; That e'en calamity, by thought refin'd, Inspirits and adorns the thinking mind. And more distinctly in the following passage: By woe, the soul to daring action swells; By woe, in plaintless patience it excels: From patience, prudent clear experience springs, And traces knowledge through the course of things! Thence hope is form'd, thence fortitude, success, Renown--whate'er men covet and caress. This performance was always considered by himself as his masterpiece; and Mr. Pope, when he asked his opinion of it, told him, that he read it once over, and was not displeased with it; that it gave him more pleasure at the second perusal, and delighted him still more at the third. It has been generally objected to the Wanderer, that the disposition of the parts is irregular; that the design is obscure and the plan perplexed; that the images, however beautiful, succeed each other without order; and that the whole performance is not so much a regular fabrick, as a heap of shining materials thrown together by accident, which strikes rather with the solemn magnificence of a stupendous ruin, than the elegant grandeur of a finished pile. This criticism is universal, and, therefore, it is reasonable to believe it, at least, in a great degree, just; but Mr. Savage was always of a contrary opinion, and thought his drift could only be missed by negligence or stupidity, and that the whole plan was regular, and the parts distinct. It was never denied to abound with strong representations of nature, and just observations upon life; and it may easily be observed, that most of his pictures have an evident tendency to illustrate his first great position, "that good is the consequence of evil." The sun that burns up the mountains, fructifies the vales: the deluge that rushes down the broken rocks, with dreadful impetuosity, is separated into purling brooks; and the rage of the hurricane purifies the air.