[21] In the 'Annual Register,' (vol. v. p. 37), it is stated that a pension of ten guineas a month was paid to Nash during the latter years of his life by the Corporation of Bath.
PHILIP, DUKE OF WHARTON.
Wharton's Ancestors.—His Early Years.—Marriage at Sixteen.—Wharton takes leave of his Tutor.—The Young Marquis and the Old Pretender.—Frolics at Paris.—Zeal for the Orange Cause.—A Jacobite Hero.—The Trial of Atterbury.—Wharton's Defence of the Bishop.—Hypocritical Signs of Penitence.—Sir Robert Walpole duped.—Very Trying.—The Duke of Wharton's 'Whens.'—Military Glory at Gibraltar.—'Uncle Horace.'—Wharton to 'Uncle Horace.'—The Duke's Impudence.—High Treason.—Wharton's Ready Wit.—Last Extremities.—Sad Days in Paris.—His Last Journey to Spain.—His Death in a Bernardine Convent.
If an illustration were wanted of that character unstable as water which shall not excel, this duke would at once supply it: if we had to warn genius against self-indulgence—some clever boy against extravagance—some poet against the bottle—this is the 'shocking example' we should select: if we wished to show how the most splendid talents, the greatest wealth, the most careful education, the most unusual advantages, may all prove useless to a man who is too vain or too frivolous to use them properly, it is enough to cite that nobleman, whose acts gained for him the name of the infamous Duke of Wharton. Never was character more mercurial, or life more unsettled than his; never, perhaps, were more changes crowded into a fewer number of years, more fame and infamy gathered into so short a space. Suffice it to say that when Pope wanted a man to hold up to the scorn of the world, as a sample of wasted abilities, it was Wharton that he chose, and his lines rise in grandeur in proportion to the vileness of the theme:
'Wharton, the scorn and wonder of our days,
Whose ruling passion was a love of praise.
Born with whate'er could win it from the wise,
Women and fools must like him or he dies;
Though raptured senates hung on all he spoke,