The object of
his choice was Anne Brett, the eldest daughter of the infamous Countess
of Macclesfield by her second husband. The neglect of Savage, the poet,
her son, was merely one passage in the iniquitous life of Lady
Macclesfield. Endowed with singular taste and judgment, consulted by
Colley Cibber on every new play he produced, the mother of Savage was
not only wholly destitute of all virtue, but of all shame. One day,
looking out of the window, she perceived a very handsome man assaulted
by some bailiffs who were going to arrest him: she paid his debt,
released, and married him. The hero of this story was Colonel Brett, the
father of Anne Brett.
The child of such a mother was not likely to be even
decently-respectable; and Anne was proud of her disgraceful preeminence
and of her disgusting and royal lover. She was dark, and her flashing
black eyes resembled those of a Spanish beauty. Ten years after the
death of George I., she found a husband in Sir William Leman, of
Northall, and was announced, on that occasion, as the half-sister of
Richard Savage.
To the society of this woman, when at St. James's, as 'Mistress Brett,'
the three princesses were subjected: at the same time the Duchess of
Kendal, the king's German mistress, occupied other lodgings at St.
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