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 duchess 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 duchess was inexpressible, nor is it easy to conceive what would have been the consequence, if her unhappy circumstances had not reached the ear of another exiled nobleman 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 nobleman at court, who procured the duchess'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 duchess 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 illustrate.
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 passion, 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 assistance; 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 constitution 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 destitute of all the necessaries of life, 'till some charitable fathers of a Bernardine convent, offered him what assistance 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 lustre of his understanding, when his fortune was wasted, and his circumstances 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 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;
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 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;
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.