The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) Volume IV Part 26

A Scots peer with whom both the duke, and the d.u.c.h.ess lived in great intimacy in Italy, happening to come to Paris, when the duke was there, they renewed their acquaintance and friendship, and for some time continued with mutual freedom, till the duke had reason to believe from what he heard from others, that the peer had boasted favours from the d.u.c.h.ess of Wharton.

This instance of wanton vanity, the duke could not help resenting, though he often declared since the quarrel, that he never had the least suspicion of the d.u.c.h.ess's honour. He resolved therefore very prudently to call the Scots lord to an account, without letting him know it was for the d.u.c.h.ess or so much as mentioning her name; accordingly he took occasion to do it in this manner.

It happened that the duke of Wharton and his lordship met at a lady's whom they mutually visited, and the duke dropping his glove by chance, his lordship took it up, and returned it to the duke; who thereupon asked him if he would take it up in all it's forms? To which his lordship answered, yes, my lord, in all its forms.

Some days after, the duke gave a ball at St. Germains, to which he invited the Scots n.o.bleman, and some person indiscretely asked his grace whether he had forbid the d.u.c.h.ess's dancing with lord C----.

This gave the duke fresh reason to believe that the Scots peer had been administring new grounds for his resentment, by the wantonness of calumny. He dissembled his uneasiness for the present, and very politely entertained the company till five o'clock in the morning, when he went away without the ceremony of taking leave; and the next news that was heard of him was from Paris, from whence he sent a challenge to lord C----d, to follow him to Flanders.

The challenge was delivered by his servant, and was to this effect: 'That his lordship might remember his saying he took up his glove in all its forms, which upon mature reflexion, his grace looked upon to be such an affront, as was not to be born, wherefore he desired his lordship to meet him at Valenciennes, where he would expect him with a friend and a pair of pistols; and on failure of his lordship's coming his grace would post him, &c.

The servant who delivered the letter, did not keep its contents a secret; and lord C----d was taken into custody, when he was about setting out to meet his grace. All that remained then for his lordship to do, was to send a gentleman into Flanders, to acquaint the duke with what happened to him. His grace upon seeing the gentleman, imagining him to be his lordship's second, spoke to him in this manner; 'Sir, I hope my lord will favour me so far as to let us use pistols, because the wound I received in my foot before Gibraltar, in some measure disables me from the sword.' Hereupon the gentleman replied with some emotion, 'My lord duke, you might chuse what you please; my lord C----d will fight you with any weapon, from a small pin to a great cannon; but this is not the case, my lord is under an arrest, by order of the duke of Berwick.'

His grace being thus disappointed in the duel, and his money being almost spent, he returned to Paris, and was also put under an arrest till the affair was made up by the interposition of the duke of Berwick, under whose cognizance it properly came as Marshal of France.

The duke's behaviour on this occasion, so far from being reproachable, seems to be the most manly action of his whole life. What man of spirit would not resent the behaviour of another, who should boast of favours from his wife, especially when in all probability he never received any?

His grace's conducting the quarrel, so as to save the reputation of his d.u.c.h.ess, by not so much as having her name called in question, was at once prudent, and tender; for whether a lady is guilty or no, if the least suspicion is once raised, there are detractors enough in the world ready to fix the stain upon her. The Scots lord deserved the severest treatment, for living in strict friendship with two persons of quality, and then with an insidious cruelty endeavouring to sow the seeds of eternal discord between them, and all to gratify a little vanity: Than such a conduct nothing can be more reproachable.

Not long after this adventure, a whim seized the duke of going into a convent, in order to prepare for Easter; and while he was there, he talked with so much force and energy upon all points of religion, that the pious fathers beheld him with admiration. Mankind were for some time in suspense, what would be the issue of this new course of life; but he soon put an end to their speculations by appearing again in the world, and running headlong into as wild courses of vice and extravagance, as he had ever before done. He had for a companion, a gentleman for whom he entertained a very high esteem; but one who was as much an enemy as possible to such a licentious behaviour. In another situation, our n.o.ble author would have found it a happiness to be constantly attended by a person of his honour, probity, and good sense; but the duke's strange and unaccountable conduct, rendered the best endeavours to serve him ineffectual. In a letter which that gentleman wrote to a friend in London, he concludes with a melancholy representation of the duke's present circ.u.mstances;

----'However, notwithstanding what I have suffered, and what my brother 'madman' has done to undo himself, and every body who was so unlucky as to have the least concern with him, I could not help being sensibly moved on so extraordinary a vicissitude of fortune, to see a great man fallen from that shining light, in which I have beheld him in the house of lords, to such a degree of obscurity, that I have beheld the meanest commoner here decline his company; and the Jew he would sometimes fasten on, grow tired of it, for you know he is a bad orator in his cups, and of late he has been seldom sober. A week before he left Paris, he was so reduced, that he had not one single crown at command, and was forced to thrust in with any acquaintance for a lodging: Walsh and I have had him by turns, all to avoid a crowd of duns, which he had of all sizes, from 1400 livres to 4, who hunted him so close, that he was forced to retire to some of the neighbouring villages for safety. I, sick as I was, hurried about Paris to get him money, and to St. Germains to get him linen. I bought him one shirt and a cravat, which, with 500 livres, his whole stock, he and his d.u.c.h.ess, attended by one servant, set out for Spain. All the news I have heard of him since, is, that a day or two after he sent for captain Brierly, and two or three of his domestics to follow him; but none but the captain obeyed the summons. Where they are now I cannot tell, but I fear they must be in great distress by this time, if he has had no other supplies; and so ends my melancholy story.'

In this deplorable situation did the duke leave Paris, an instance indeed of the strange reverse of fortune, but for which he could not blame the severity of providence, or the persecution of enemies, but his own unbounded profusion, a slave to which he seems to have been born. As a long journey did not very well suit with his grace's finances, so he went for Orleans, thence fell down the river Loire to Nantz in Britany, and there he stopt some time 'till he got a remittance from Paris, which was squandered almost as soon as received. At Nantz some of his ragged servants rejoined him, and from thence he took shipping with them from Bilboa, as if he had been carrying recruits to the Spanish regiment. From Bilboa he wrote a humorous letter to a friend at Paris, such as his fancy, not his circ.u.mstances, dictated, giving a whimsical account of his voyage, and his manner of pa.s.sing away his time. But at the end, as if he had been a little affected with his late misconduct, he concludes thus, 'notwithstanding what the world may say of me,

'Be kind to my remains, and O! defend, Against your judgment, your departed friend[A].'

When the duke arrived at Bilboa, he had neither friends, money, nor credit, more than what the reputation of his Spanish commission procured him. Upon the strength of that he left his d.u.c.h.ess and servant there, and went to his regiment, where he was obliged to support himself upon the pay of 18 pistoles a month, but could get no relief for the poor lady and family he left behind him. The distress of the d.u.c.h.ess was inexpressible, nor is it easy to conceive what would have been the consequence, if her unhappy circ.u.mstances had not reached the ear of another exiled n.o.bleman at Madrid, who could not hear of her sufferings without relieving her. This generous exile, touched with her calamities, sent her a hundred Spanish pistoles, which relieved her grace from a kind of captivity, and enabled her to come to Madrid, where she lived with her mother and grandmother, while the duke attended his regiment. Not long after this, the duke's family had a great loss in the death of his lady's mother, by which they were deprived of a pension they before enjoyed from the crown of Spain; but this was fortunately repaired by the interest of a n.o.bleman at court, who procured the d.u.c.h.ess's two sisters to be minuted down for Maids of Honour to the Queen of Spain, whenever a vacancy should happen, but to enter immediately upon the salary of these places. Her Majesty likewise took the d.u.c.h.ess to attend her person.

There have been many instances of people, who have sustained the greatest shocks which adversity can inflict, through a whole life of suffering, and yet at last have yielded to the influence of a trifling evil: something like this was the case of the duke of Wharton, which the following story will ill.u.s.trate.

He was in garrison at Barcelona, and coming from a ball one night, in company with some ladies, a man in a masque, whom he did not know, was guilty of some rudeness to him. The duke enquired who he was, and being informed that he was valet de chambre to the marquis de Risbourg, governour of Catalonia, he suffered himself to be transported by the first motions of his pa.s.sion, and caned him. The fellow complained of this usage to his master, who at first took no notice of it, imagining his grace would make some excuse to him for such a procedure, but whether the duke thought it beneath his quality to make any apology for beating a menial servant, who had been rude to him, or would not do it upon another account, he spoke not a word about it. The marquis resenting this behaviour, two days after ordered the duke to prison. He obeyed, and went to Fort Montjuich: as soon as he arrived there, the marquis sent him word, he might come out when he pleased; the duke answered, he scorned to accept liberty at his hands, and would not stir without an order from the court, imagining they would highly condemn the governour's conduct; but the marquis had too much credit with the minister, to suffer any diminution of his power on that account; he received only a sharp rebuke, and the duke had orders to repair to his quarters, without entering again into Barcelona. This last mortification renewed the remembrance of all his misfortunes; he sunk beneath this accident, and giving way to melancholy, fell into a deep consumption. Had the duke maintained his usual spirit, he would probably have challenged the marquis, and revenged the affront of the servant upon the master, who had made the quarrel his own, by resenting the valet's deserved correction.

About the beginning of the year 1731 he declined so fast, being in his quarters, at Lerida, that he had not the use of his limbs, so as to move without a.s.sistance; but as he was free from pain, he did not lose all his gaiety. He continued in this ill state of health for two months, when he gained a little strength, and found some benefit from a certain mineral water in the mountains of Catalonia; but his const.i.tution was too much spent to recover the shocks it had received.

He relapsed the May following at Terragana, whither he removed with his regiment; and going to the above mentioned waters, the benefit whereof he had already experienced, he fell into one of those fainting fits, to which he had for some time been subject, in a small village, and was utterly dest.i.tute of all the necessaries of life, 'till some charitable fathers of a Bernardine convent, offered him what a.s.sistance their house afforded. The duke accepted their kind proposal, upon which they removed him to their convent, and administered all the relief in their power. Under this hospitable roof, after languishing a week, died the duke of Wharton, without one friend, or acquaintance to close his eyes. His funeral was performed in the same manner in which the fathers inter those of their own fraternity.

Thus we have endeavoured to exhibit an adequate picture of the duke of Wharton, a man whose life was as strongly chequered with the vicissitudes of fortune, as his abilities were various and astonishing. He is an instance of the great imbecility of intellectual powers, when once they spurn the dictates of prudence, and the maxims of life. With all the l.u.s.tre of his understanding, when his fortune was wasted, and his circ.u.mstances low, he fell into contempt; they who formerly worshipped him, fled from him, and despised his wit when attended with poverty. So true is it that,

Want is the scorn of every wealthy fool, And wit in rags is turn'd to ridicule.

The duke of Wharton seems to have lived as if the world should be new modelled for him; for he would conform to none of the rules, by which the little happiness the world can yield, is to be attained. But we shall not here enlarge on his character, as we can present it to the reader, drawn in the most lively manner, by the masterly touches of Pope, who in one of his familiar epistles, thus characterizes him.

POPE's Epistle on the KNOWLEDGE and CHARACTERS of MEN.

Wharton, the scorn and wonder of our days, Whose darling pa.s.sion was the l.u.s.t of praise: Born with whate'er could win it from the wise, Women and fools must like him, or he dies; Tho' wond'ring 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 G.o.d adores, With the same spirit that he drinks and wh.o.r.es; 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 pa.s.sion still to covet gen'ral 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 refin'd: A tyrant to the wife his heart approves; A rebel to the very King he loves; He dies, sad out-cast of each church and state, And, harder still! flagitious, yet not great.

Ask you why Wharton broke thro' ev'ry rule?

'Twas all for fear the Knaves should call him Fool.

Pope's Works, Vol. III. The duke is author of two volumes of poems, of which we shall select the following as a specimen.

The FEAR of DEATH.

Say, sov'reign queen of awful night, Dread tyrant say!

Why parting throes this lab'ring frame distend, Why dire convulsions rend, And teeming horrors wreck th' astonish'd sight?

Why shrinks the trembling soul, Why with amazement full Pines at thy rule, and sickens at thy sway?

Why low'r the thunder of thy brow, Why livid angers glow, Mistaken phantom, say?

Far hence exert thy awful reign, Where tutelary shrines and solemn busts Inclose the hallow'd dust: Where feeble tapers shed a gloomy ray, And statues pity feign; Where pale-ey'd griefs their wasting vigils keep, There brood with sullen state, and nod with downy sleep.

Advance ye lurid ministers of death!

And swell the annals of her reign: Crack every nerve, sluice every vein; And choak the avenues of breath.

Freeze, freeze, ye purple tides!

Or scorch with seering flames, aera's nature flows in tepid streams, And life's meanders glide.

Let keen despair her icy progress make, And slacken'd nerves their talk forsake; Years damp the vital fire.

Yawn all ye horrors of the flood; And curl your swelling surges higher.

Survey the road!

Where desolating storms, and vengeful fates, The gawdy scene deface; Ambition in its widest havock trace Thro' widow'd cities, and unpeopl'd states.

And is this all!

Are these the threaten'd terrors of your reign?

O dream of fancy'd power!

Quit, quit, th' affected shew, This pageantry of grief, and labour'd pomp of woe.

Draw the pleasing scene, Where dreadful thunders never rowl, nor giddy tempests low'r.

Scenes delighting!

Peace inviting, Pa.s.sions sooth'd, and tumult dying; Aera's rowling, Fears controuling, Always new, and always flying.

We dread we know not what, we fear we know not why, Our cheated fancy shrinks, nor sees to die Is but to slumber into immortality.

All reconciling name!

In s.p.a.ce unbounded as in power; Where fancy limits cannot frame; Nor reason launch beyond the sh.o.r.e: An equal state from all distinction free, Spread like the wide expanse of vast immensity.

Seditious tumults there obey, And feuds their zeal forget: Debated empires own one common sway, There learn'd disputes unite; Nor crowded volumes the long war maintain: There rival chiefs combine To fill the gen'ral chorus of her reign.

So streams from either pole, Thro' diff'rent tracks their wat'ry journies rowl; Then in the blending ocean lose their name, And with consenting waves and mingl'd tides forever flow the same.

[Footnote A: These two lines are taken from Dryden, who addressed them to Congreve, when he recommended to him the care of his works.]

Colonel CODRINGTON,

This gentleman was of the first rank of wit and gallantry. He received his education at All Souls College in the university of Oxford, to which he left a donation of 30,000 l. by his will, part of which was to be appropriated for building a new library[A]. He was many years governour of the Leeward Islands, where he died, but was buried at Oxford. He is mentioned here, on account of some small pieces of poetry, which he wrote with much elegance and politeness. Amongst these pieces is an epilogue to Mr. Southern's tragedy called The Fate of Capua, in which are the following verses;

Wives still are wives, and he that will be billing, Must not think cuckoldom deserves a killing.

What if the gentle creature had been kissing, Nothing the good man married for was missing.

Had he the secret of her birth-right known, 'Tis odds the faithful Annals would have shewn The wives of half his race more lucky than his own.