Born with whate'er could win it from the Wise,
Women and Fools must like him, or he dies;
Tho' wondring 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 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 !

185

190

195

NOTES.

Ver. 187. John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, famous for his wit and extravagances in the time of Charles the Second. W. Ver. 189. With the same spirit] Spirit for principle, not passion. W.

Ver. 190. Enough, if all around him but admire, &c.] What an able French writer observes of Alcibiades may be justly applied to this nobleman. "Ce n'étoit pas un ambitieux, mais un homme vain, qui vouloit faire du bruit, et occuper les Atheniens. Il avoit l'esprit d'un grand homme; mais son ame, dont les ressorts amollis étoient devenus incapables d'une application constante, ne pouvoit s'elever au grand, que par boutade. J'ai bien de la peine à croire, qu'un homme assez souple, pour être à Sparte aussi dur et aussi sévère, qu'un Spartiate; dans l'Ionie aussi recherché dans ses plaisirs, qu'un Ionien, &c. fût propre à faire un grand homme." W.

A Fool, with more of Wit than half mankind, 200

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;

205

He dies, sad outcast 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.

NOTES.

Ver. 200. A Fool, with more of Wit] Folly, joined with much wit, produces that behaviour which we call absurdity; and this absurdity the Poet has here admirably described in the words,

"Too rash for Thought, for Action too refin'd:"

by which we are given to understand, that the person described indulged his fancy when he should have used his judgment; and pursued his speculations when he should have trusted to his experience. W.

Ver. 205. And, harder still! flagitious, yet not great.] To arrive at what the world calls GREATNESS, a wicked man must either hide and conceal his vices, or he must openly and steadily practise them in the pursuit and attainment of one important end. This unhappy nobleman did neither. W.

Ver. 206. Ask you why Wharton] "This celebrated peer," says Lord Orford," like Buckingham and Rochester, comforted all the grave and dull by throwing away the brightest profusion of parts on witty fooleries, debaucheries, and scrapes, which may mix graces with a great character, but never can compose one. If Julius Cæsar had only rioted with Catiline, he had never been emperor of the world. Indeed the Duke of Wharton was not made for conquest; he was not equally formed for a Roundhouse and Pharsalia. In one of his ballads he has bantered his own want of heroism; it was in a song he made on being seized by the guard in St. James's Park, for singing the Jacobite air, The king shall have his own again :'

"The duke he drew out half his sword,

The guard drew out the rest.”

His levities, wit, and want of principles, his eloquence and adventures, are too well known to be recapitulated. With attach

Nature well known, no prodigies remain,
Comets are regular, and WHARTON plain.
Yet in his search, the wisest may mistake,
If second qualities for first they take.

VARIATIONS.

Ver. 208. In the former Editions,

Nature well known, no Miracles remain.

Altered as above, for very obvious reasons.

NOTES.

210

ment to no party, though with talents to govern any party, this lively man changed the free air of Westminster for the gloom of the Escurial, the prospect of King George's garter for the Pretender's; and, with indifference to all religion, the frolic lord, who had writ the ballad on the Archbishop of Canterbury, died in the habit of a capuchin.

66

It is difficult to give an account of the works of so mercurial a man, whose library was a tavern, and women of pleasure his muses. A thousand sallies of his imagination may have been lost he no more wrote for fame than he acted for it. There are two volumes in octavo, called his Life and Writings, but containing of the latter nothing but "seventy-four numbers of a periodical paper, called the True Briton," and his celebrated Speech in the House of Lords on the third reading of the bill to inflict pains and penalties on Francis Lord Bishop of Rochester, May 15, 1723." It is a remarkable anecdote relating to this speech, that his Grace, then in opposition to the Court, went to Chelsea the day before the last debate on that prelate's affair, where acting contrition, he professed being determined to work out his pardon at Court, by speaking against the bishop, in order to which he begged some hints. The minister was deceived, and went through the whole cause with him, pointing out where the strength of the argument lay, and where its weakness. The Duke was very thankful, returned to town, passed the night in drinking, and, without going to bed, went to the House of Lords, where he spoke for the bishop, recapitulating, in the most masterly manner, and answering all that had been urged against him. His speech against the Ministry, two years before, on the affair of the South-Sea Company, had a fatal effect, Earl Stanhope answering it with so much warmth that he broke a blood-vessel and died.

When Catiline by rapine swell'd his store;
When Cæsar made a noble dame a whore;
In this the Lust, in that the Avarice

Were means, not ends; Ambition was the vice. 215

NOTES.

Ver. 207. 'Twas all for fear, &c.] To understand this, we must observe, that the lust of general praise made the person, whose character is here so admirably drawn, both extravagant and flagitious: his madness was to please the Fools,

"Women and Fools must like him, or he dies.”

And his crimes, to avoid the censure of the Knaves,

""Twas all for fear the Knaves should call him fool." Prudence and Honesty being the two qualities in which fools and knaves are most interested, and consequently most industrious, to misrepresent. W.

Ver. 213. When Cæsar made] This was Servilia, the sister of Cato, and the mother of Brutus. "How great," says St. Real, finely, "must have been her affliction at the death of Cæsar her lover, massacred by the hand of her own son! who perhaps hoped to efface this suspicion of his bastardy by this very action! Historians have neglected to inform us of the fate of this most unhappy mistress and mother. Nothing could have been more interesting than the history of Servilia after this event. Next to Cleopatra, she was the most beloved of all Cæsar's mistresses ; and Suetonius says, Cæsar bought for her a single jewel at the price of 50,0007.

Ver. 214. In this the Lust,] The same passion excited Richelieu to throw up the dyke at Rochelle, and to dispute the prize of poetry with Corneille; whom to traduce was the surest method of gaining the affection of this ambitious minister; nay, who formed a design to be canonized as a Saint. A perfect contrast to the character of Cardinal Fleury, who shewed that it was possible to govern a great state with moderate abilities and a mild temper. His ministry is impartially represented by Voltaire in the age of Louis XIV.

Ver. 215. Ambition was the vice.] Pride, Vanity, and Ambition, are such bordering and neighbouring vices, and hold so much in common, that we generally find them going together; and therefore, as generally mistake them for one another. This does not

That very Cæsar born in Scipio's days,
Had aim'd, like him, by Chastity at praise.
Lucullus, when Frugality could charm,
Had roasted turnips in the Sabin farm.
In vain th' observer eyes the builder's toil,
But quite mistakes the scaffold for the pile.

In this one Passion man can strength enjoy,
As Fits give vigour, just when they destroy.
Time, that on all things lays his lenient hand,
Yet tames not this; it sticks to our last sand.
Consistent in our follies and our sins,
Here honest Nature ends as she begins.
Old Politicians chew on wisdom past,
And totter on in bus'ness to the last;

NOTES.

220

225

a little contribute to our confounding characters; for they are, in reality, very different and distinct; so much so, that it is remarkable, the three greatest men in Rome, and contemporaries, possessed each of these passions separately, with very little mixture of the other two: the men I mean were, Cæsar, Cato, and Cicero for Cæsar had ambition without either vanity or pride; Cato had pride without ambition or vanity; and Cicero had vanity without pride or ambition. The aim of these passions too, are very different. VANITY leads men, as it did Cicero, to seek homage from others: PRIDE, as it did Cato, to seek homage from one's self: and AMBITION, as in the case of Cæsar, to dispense with it from all, for the sake of solid interest.

W.

Ver. 225. it sticks to our last sand, &c.]" M. de Lagny mourut le 12 Avril 1734. Dans les derniers momens, ou il ne connoissoit plus aucun de ceux qui etoient autour de son lit, quelqu'un, pour faire une experience philosophique, s'avisa de lui demander quel étoit le quarré de douze: Il repondit dans l'instant, et apparemment sans savoir qu'il repondit, cent quarante quatre.” Fontenelle, Eloge de M. de Lagny.

Ver. 228. Old Politicians] The strength and continuance of what our Author calls the Ruling Passion, concerning which see ver. 174, and the notes, is strongly exemplified in these eight cha