Savage was best known for satirical poems and occasional verse, including The Authors of the Town (1725), The Bastard (a poem dedicated to his mother on his own illegitimate birth, 1728), The Wanderer (1729), and An Author to Be Lett (1729). He also authored two dramas, Love in a Veil: a Comedy (1719) and The Tragedy of Sir Thomas Overbury (1724). Savage lived a colorful life marked, among other events, by a conviction and later pardon on murder charges. He died destitute in prison.