BOOKS.
PHILIP, DUKE OF WHARTON.* MELvinnE's biography of the Duke of Wharton is a skilful piece of literary carpentry. He has made diligent use of his authorities, and in the Stuart Manuscripts and the publications of the Historical Manuscripts Commission has found material inaccessible to earlier biographers. Mr. Melville is a careful but somewhat prosaic and uninspired
• The Life and Times of Philip, Duke of Wharton. By Lewis Melville. London: John Lane. [16s. net.] chronicler, but in this case his subject provides an interest altogether independent of any biographical method. It would be bard to make a dull book out of those thirty-three years into which Wharton crammed more activity and folly, wit, wisdom, and vice than have often been united in so short span. He came of a famous Cumberland family, which once gave a Lord Warden to the English Borders, and his father. Thomas, the first Marquis, had raised it to a front rank among the Whig houses. Thomas was the first patron of Addison, and his song, "LiIli Burlero," did probably as much good to the Whig cause as even his resolute statesmanship. His public conduct was irreproachable; his private morals were among the worst of his age, so that Swift could write of him without contradiction as "the most universal; villain that I ever knew." The boy Philip was ruined in childhood by his upbringing at the hands of a disreputable mother and an ambitious and cynical father. He advanced rapidly in polite learning, and displayed an equal precocity in vice, till at the age of sixteen he offended his father by a runaway marriage. Six weeks later old Thomas died, and the young Marquis was sent abroad by his guardians for a course of foreign travel. The light-headed boy contrived to give his tutor the slip, after presenting him with a bear as a present appropriate to his temper, and chose to show his respect for his family traditions by intriguing with the Jacobite Court at Avignon. He bombarded them with letters, offering among other things to raise the counties of Buckingham and Westmorland for the Pretender, and justifying his conduct to his friends in England by a circular letter on the political situation, which is an astonishingly able production for a young gentleman of eighteen. The correspondence sheds a curious light upon the insane tortuousness and secrecy of Jacobite methods, but the- Court of the Pretender had at least the good sense to recognise the dangerous volatility of the new recruit. Wharton did not propose to be loyal for nothing, and demanded the Garter and. the title of Duke of Northumberland, and actually received the patent for the latter honour. He also borrowed money from the widow of James II. at St. Germaine, and showed the depth of his convictions by thus expounding his motives to a friend: "I have pawned my principles to Gordon, the Pretender's banker, for a considerable sum, and till I can repay him I must be a Jacobite. When that is done I will return to the Whigs." His lordship was out for mischief, and his motto seems to have been that of Michael Finsbury in The
Box—"anything to give pain."
He returned to England at the age of nineteen, and pro- ceeded to Ireland, where, although a minor, he took his sear in the Irish House of Lords and acquired a considerable reputation as an orator. He became a friend of Swift, who. gave him excellent advice, "You have had some capital frolics, my lord, and let me recommend one to you. Take a frolic to be virtuous." Presently the English Government, in the bops of attaching him to the Hanoverian side, made him a duke, the only case in our history where a dukedom has been con- ferred on a minor. The boy had done well for himself, for be was now a duke by the creation of both George and James. He became nominally a Whig, and returned to London to indulge his passion for escapades. His wit, scholarship, audacity, and complete freedom from scruples speedily gave him a bad pre-eminence in the life of the town. He took up house with his wife and conducted private devotions twice a day, but. only, according to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu," to break the hearts of all other women who have any claim upon him." He became President of the Hell-fire Club, and was the ringleader in all the foolish pranks of the gilded youth of the time, such as creating drunken riots in the House of Lords, and knock- ing up the sober Duke of Argyle in the small hours. Hi3 gallantries were notorious, and according to one account he furnished Richardson with the original for the character of Lovelace in Clarissa. He took resolutely to drink, and saw the bard-beaded Cumberland.squires below the table, and managed to scandalize even the said squires by hunting on Sundays. during his visits to Wharton Hall. But in spite of his, debauchery be retained an interest in literature and in good talk. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu had a weakness for his society, and Pope was his friend. He gave a large sum of money for the new buildings at All Souls' College, Oxford, and he was the benefactor of Young the poet, who wrote him
fulsome dedications and earned Dr. Johnson's contempt by suppressing them when his patron fell on evil days. In Parlia.
ment he was the chameleon of politics, being Tory and Whig by turns as the fancy took him. He seems to have had a sincere admiration for Atterbury, and his speech in the House of Lords on the trial of the Bishop of Rochester showed how brilliant his talents were when he took the trouble to use them. The story goes that he went toWalpole and got from him, on the plea that he wished to be reconciled to the Court, the main points of the prosecution ; that he spent the night drinking, and delivered his famous speech for the defence without ever having been to bed. He also dabbled in journalism, and the seventy-four numbers of his paper, the True Briton, expounded to the world the political philosophy of this young gentleman of twenty-five.
By this time his great fortune had become sadly encumbered, and he was forced to that last refuge of the distressed, a sojourn on the Continent. Since he could not expect Walpole to give him an embassy, and since insignificance was abhorrent to his soul, he turned his attention once more to the Pretender. For him be went on missions first to Vienna and then to Madrid, but neither the Emperor nor his Most Catholic Majesty was disposed to give more than promises. Mr. Melville prints a very interesting series of letters sent to Wharton by Atterbury, in which the exiled prelate strove to instil a little seriousness into the fickle Duke. The Garter (from the Pretender) was the reward of these missions, and the new knight celebrated his installation by drinking and boasting more than usual. The British Consul at Madrid wrote : "The evening he was with me be declared himself the Pretender's Prime Minister, and Duke of Whanion and Northumber- land. Hitherto (says he) my master's interest has been managed by the Duchess of Perth and three or four other old women who meet under the portal of St. Germains; be wanted a Whig, and a brisk one, to put them in the right trim, and I am the roan; you may now look upon me as Sir Philip Wharton, Knight of the Garter, and Sir Robert Walpole, Knight of the Bath, running a course, and, by God, he shall be hard pressed." Wharton seems to have cherished a grudge against Sir Robert because he bought his family pictures to form the collection which is now one of the treasures of the Hermitage. He was summoned home by the English Government, but declined to move ; and, presently, the Duchess having died, he espoused the Catholic faith and a young Irish lady of the name of O'Beirne. He held a com- mand on the Spanish side at the siege of Gibraltar, an act of treason which George II. and his Ministers were compelled to take notice of. He was outlawed and his estates confiscated, and, since the Pretender would have nothing more to do with so unstable a recruit, he found himself at the age of thirty- one without a penny in the world. His thoughts turned to religion, and he spent a few weeks in a monastery, but piety soon grew wearisome. For two years he and his wife lived a wandering life in France and Spain, borrowing what they could from friends. He rejoined his Spanish regiment, but the life he had so misused was nearing its end. In an age of heavy drinkers he excelled the heaviest. As a contemporary satirist wrote :—
"Some folks are drunk one day, and some for ever ; And some, like Wharton, but twelve years together."
He died at a bill monastery in Spain in 1731, in the thirty- third year of his age.
Wharton is an almost incredible figure to later generations, his contradictions were so violent and incessant. He seems to have existed to provide Pope with a series of antitheses, each part of which is strict truth. He could fill a brilliant rale in serious business, and the next day be immersed in the amusements of a vicious child. He was capable of affection and friendship, and he not only dazzled but attracted some of the best of his contemporaries. He was born with everything in the world, and spent seventeen laborious years in flinging it all away. It looked as if his aim was to discover the limit of human endurance in each class of extravagance. His master-passion seems to have been a colossal egotism. He must always be in the limelight, always cutting a figure, always setting people talking, and unfortunately he did not attempt to distinguish between fame and infamy. Pope, who had a kindness for him, has drawn his character in his Moral Essays:—
"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.
• • • • • Shall parts so various aim at nothing new 7 He'll shine a Tully and a Wilmot too.
• • ' • His passion still, to covet general praise, His life, to forfeit it a thousand ways. •
Ask you why Wharton broke through every rule 'Twas all for fear the knaves should call him fool."
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