CHAPTER XII.

PHILIP, DUKE OF WHARTON.

Pope's Sketch of His Character His Birth in 1700 - His Father, the Marquis of Wharton, and His Mother, the Daughter of Lord Lismore - Comparison between the Father and Son Brief Sketch of the Former's Public Career - His Pride in the Precocious Genius of His Son - His Ambition to Make Him an Orator The Duke's Secret Marriage to the Daughter of General Holmes - His Father's Death, in 1715, from Grief and Disappointment at His Son's Connection His Mother's Death in the Following Year - The Duke Travels on the Continent - Separates in Disgust from His Tutor Arrives at Lyons, and Addresses a Complimentary Letter to the Exiled Son of James the SecondInvited by the Latter to Avignon, and Accepts from Him the Title of Duke of Northumberland - Goes to Paris - Drinks the Pretender's Health at the House of the English Ambassador Anecdote of His Ready Sarcasm-Takes His Seat in the Irish House of Lords, as Earl of Rathfernham - Sup. ports Government, and Is Created Duke of Wharton in 1718 - Takes His Seat in the English House of Lords - His Oratorical Powers Opposes the Ministry - Fatal Effects of His Invective against Earl Stanhope - Extract from Lady M. W. Montagu's Letters - Anecdote of Swift - The Duke's Masterly Defence of Bishop Atterbury in the House of Lords

Anecdote Related by Horace Walpole- Doctor King's Character of the Duke- The Latter's Gross Profligacy.

WHARTON! the scorn and wonder of our days,
Whose ruling passion was the lust of praise;

Born with whate'er could win it from the wise, —
Women and fools must like him, or he dies.
Though wondering senates hung on all he spoke,
The club must hail him master of the joke,
Shall parts so various aim at nothing new?
He'll shine a Tully and a Wilmot too :
Then turns repentant, and his God adores
With the same spirit that he drinks and whores;
Enough, if all around him but admire,

And now the punk applaud, and now the friar.
Thus, with each gift of nature and of art,
And wanting nothing but an honest heart;
Grown all to all, from no one vice exempt,
And most contemptible, to shun contempt;
His passion still, to covet general praise;
His life, to forfeit it a thousand ways;
A constant bounty, which no friend has made;
An angel tongue, which no man can persuade;
A fool, with more of wit than half mankind;
Too rash for thought, for action too refined;
A tyrant to the wife his heart approves;
A rebel to the very king he loves;

He dies, sad outcast of each church and state,
And, harder still, flagitious, yet not great.
Ask you, why Wharton broke through every rule?
'Twas all for fear the knaves should call him fool.

Such is the admirable sketch bequeathed to us by the first of poetical portrait painters, of the character of the handsome, witty, and dissipated Duke of Wharton. Melancholy, or rather offensive, as is this famous portrait, there is every reason to believe that the likeness is as correct as the verse is inimitable. Endowed with genius, elo

quence, and wit, exalted in rank, handsome in his person, and fascinating in his manners; such was the brilliant assemblage of advantages and accomplishments which distinguished the Duke of Wharton on his entry into the world. How striking a contrast is afforded by the reverse to the picture! With the ambition to render himself illustrious, he contrived to make himself despised; with talents which might have raised him to the head of any party, he became a traitor to all parties; and foolishly fancying himself an Alcibiades, he descended to be a Catiline. In the history of those gifted profligates, who have wasted their health and prostituted their genius in the vain pursuit of pleasure and the practice of witty buffooneries, there is no example more striking or more lamentable than that of this mercurial and unprincipled

man.

Philip, the first and last Duke of Wharton, was born about the year 1700. He was the only son of Thomas, Marquis of Wharton (the celebrated promoter of the revolution of 1688), by Lucy, daughter of Adam Loftus, Lord Lismore, in Ireland.' Though the career of no two persons could be more different than that of the father

son.

There is a portrait of this lady by Lely, engraved by ThompShe brought her husband the estate of Rathfernham, which her son, the Duke of Wharton, afterward sold to William Conolly, Esq., Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, for sixty. two thousand pounds.

and the son, there was a striking resemblance in some of the features of their characters. Both were remarkable for the brilliancy of their parts, their exceeding libertinism in private life, and their daring and unmanageable wit. Of the father it was said that he was an atheist grafted on a Presbyterian; of the son it may be said, with equal justice, that he was a freethinker in the garb of a Roman Catholic. In no other respect

was there any resemblance between them. The one acquired power, the other lost it; the one was as cautious as the other was reckless; the father was a miser, the son a spendthrift.

Of the father of the Duke of Wharton, a man who was himself so conspicuous for his vices and his genius, it may not be irrelevant to say a few words. Thomas, fifth Baron and first Marquis of Wharton, was the son of that Lord Wharton who distinguished himself in the civil troubles as the friend of Hampden and of liberal principles, and who fought on the side of the Parliament at Edgehill. Inheriting the principles of his family, the son leagued himself with the enemies of the despotic measures of James the Second, and, as has been already mentioned, had a considerable share in effecting the revolution. King William (though he seems to have disliked his character, and would never consent to make him his first minister) was not slow in rewarding his services. He appointed him comptroller of

the household, a Privy Counsellor, and chief justice in Eyre south of the Trent. On the accession of Queen Anne, his talents and intrigues procured him fresh honours. He was named one of the commissioners for effecting the union between England and Scotland; in 1706 he was created Earl of Wharton; and in 1708 was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. George the First appointed him lord privy seal, and advanced him to the rank of Marquis of Wharton. "The Marquis of Wharton," says Macky, "is one of the completest gentlemen in England; of a very clear understanding, and manly expression, with abundance of wit; brave in his person, much of a libertine, of a middle stature, and fair complexion." His accomplishments, indeed, and his abilities were of the first order; but his wit was frequently insolent, and his manner overbearing. He cared not for the means so that he obtained his ends; neither friend nor foe could make any visible impression on either his temper or his heart; he behaved himself with the same easy familiarity to the man whom he had injured and the man who had injured him; he gloried, even at an advanced age, in the character of a finished libertine; and though exceeding the profligacy of the youngest man, is said to have retained the appearance of youth to the last. His acquaintance, Lord Dartmouth, describes him as having the most provoking insolent manner of speaking that