Page:The lives of the poets of Great Britain and Ireland to the time of Dean Swift - Volume 4.djvu/272

262 young man, born to have dictated to the ſenate, and directed the buſineſs of a ſtate, with the eyes of a people fixed upon him, ſhould fall ſo exceedingly ſhort of thoſe fair hopes, he had ſo juſtly raiſed in every breaſt. He wanted one quality, without which birth, fortune, and abilities, ſuffer a conſiderable diminution. That quality is prudence; of which the duke of Wharton was ſo deſtitute, that all his parts were loſt to the world, and the world loſt to him.

The firſt prelude to his misfortunes, may juſtly be reckoned his falling in love, and privately marrying a young lady, the daughter of major general Holmes; a match by no means ſuited to his birth, fortune and character; and far leſs to the ambitious views his father had of diſpoſing of him in ſuch a marriage, as would have been a conſiderable addition to the fortune and grandeur of his illuſtrious family. However diſappointed the earl of Wharton might be, in his ſon’s marrying beneath his quality; yet that amiable lady who became his daughter-in-law deſerved infinitely more felicity than ſhe met with by an alliance with his family; and the young lord was not ſo unhappy through any miſconduct of hers, as by the death of his father, which this precipitate marriage is thought to have haſtened. The duke being ſo early freed from paternal reſtraints, plunged himſelf into thoſe numberleſs exceſſes, which became at laſt fatal to him; and he proved, as Pope expreſſes it,

The young lord in the beginning of the year 1716 indulged his deſire of travelling and finiſhing his education abroad; and as he was deſigned to be inſtructed in the ſtricteſt Whig principles, Geneva was judged a proper place for his reſidence. On his