Page "Noble savage" Paragraph 15

Dryden's use of the phrase is a striking oxymoron.

However, in his day it would have been less so, for in English the word " savage " did not necessarily have the connotations of cruelty we now associate with it, but only gradually acquired them.

Instead it could as easily mean " wild ", as in a wild flower, as it still does in its French and Italian cognates, for example.