These facts are equally ill-grounded; there was no foundation for them.

That Savage's misfortunes pleaded for pity, and had the desired effect on Mrs.
Oldfield's compassion, is certain; but she so much disliked the man, and disapproved his conduct, that she never admitted him to her conversation, nor suffered him to enter her house.

She indeed often relieved him with such donations as spoke her generous disposition.
But this was on the solicitation of friends, who frequently set his calamities before her in the most piteous light; and, from a principle of humanity, she became not a little instrumental in saving his life .-- CIBBER'S "Lives of the Poets."] Savage himself once turned player, and no one must have been more amused thereat than the Oldfield.

It happened during the summer of 1723, when the poet, who was in his customary state of (theatrical) destitution, determined to replenish his shabby purse by bringing out a tragedy.

While this play, "The Tragedy of Sir Thomas Overbury,"[A] was in rehearsal at Drury Lane, Colley Cibber kept the author in clothes, and the Laureate's son Theophilus, then a very young man, studied the part of Somerset.