A judge is just; a chancellor, juster still; More wise, more learn'd, more just, more every thing. 140 Court virtues bear, like gems, the highest rate, Born where heaven's influence scarce can pene trate: In life's low vale, the soil the virtues like; 'Tis education forms the common mind; Ask men's opinions: Scoto now shall tell 150 156 160 mediocrity of station can neither require nor exercise the more eminent public virtues: the prelate, the judge, the statesman, and the monarch, have duties which demand the most vigorous capacities of the heart and understanding: if they fail, their failure is the more glaring from their rank; but if they succeed, the more conspicuous should be their praise. The sentiment in the text is from Boileau, Sat. viii. That gay freethinker, a fine talker once, What turns him now a stupid, silent dunce? Some God or spirit he has lately found; Or chanced to meet a minister that frown'd. 165 Judge we by nature? Habit can efface, Interest o'ercome, or policy take place: By actions? those uncertainty divides: By passions? these dissimulation hides: Opinions? they still take a wider range: Find, if you can, in what you cannot change. Manners with fortunes, humors turn with climes, Tenets with books, and principles with times. 111. 170 176 Search then the ruling passion: there, alone, The wild are constant, and the cunning known; The fool consistent, and the false sincere : Priests, princes, women, no dissemblers here. This clew, once found, unravels all the rest, The prospect clears, and Wharton stands con fess'd. 179 Wharton stands confess'd. One of the most remarkable instances on record of the abuse of nature, fortune, of great talents turned into contempt, of high rank degraded, of vast opulence made useless, and of memorable opportunities perverted into disaster, shame, and ruin. Philip Wharton, born to the possession of a marquisate, the reward of his father's fidelity to the Brunswick line, made the first use of his inheritance to revolt to the pretender. From him he obtained the empty title of duke of Northumberland. Growing weary of the little court of the Stuarts, he revolted from the pretender. On being suffered to sit in the Irish house of peers, he became a zealous advocate of the Hanoverian succession: reinstated in his English honors, and created a duke, he 185 Wharton, the scorn and wonder of our days, 180 190 And most contemptible to shun contempt; 195 again adopted the Stuart cause, and distinguished himself as a defender of its rash partisan Atterbury. Thrown into comparative poverty, he retired to the continent, and recommenced his intrigues with the pretender and the court of Spain. His singular abilities made him still an object of importance to the British minister; and Walpole offered him a general restoration to his titles and estates. But the daring spirit was now giving way; and sinking under disease and disappointment, he lingered on the continent till the close of his brief, but singularly eventful, history. Returning to Spain to drink the waters of a mineral spring, he died on his journey; and was said to have been buried in the habit of a monk. He was born in 1699, and died in 1731. Thirty-one years thus closed the career of this brilliant profligate, who, if his principles had but equalled his genius, was formed to be one of the most memorable ornaments of his country. 187 John Wilmot, earl of Rochester, famous for his wit and extravagances in the time of Charles II. A constant bounty, which no friend has made; A tyrant to the wife his heart approves; A rebel to the very king he loves ; He dies, sad outcast of each church and state, And, harder still! flagitious, yet not great. Ask you why Wharton broke though every rule ? 'Twas all for fear the knaves should call him 205 fool. Nature well known, no prodigies remain; Comets are regular, and Wharton plain. Yet in this search, the wisest may mistake, 210 If second qualities for first they take. In this the lust, in that the avarice, 216 Had aim'd, like him, by chastity at praise. 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.' 213 When Cæsar made a noble dame. Servilia: she was the sister of Cato and mother of Brutus. The vices of public men have often, as if for the purpose of warning, led visibly to their ruin. Cato's passion for liberty might have spent itself in harangues, but for the insult thus offered to his house; and it has been probably asserted, that the dagger of Brutus was drawn as much to extinguish the suspicion of his illegitimacy, as to avenge the wrongs of Rome. Lucullus, when frugality could charm, 220 In this one passion man can strength enjoy, Old politicians chew on wisdom past, 230 227 Here honest Nature ends as she begins. Warton gives some amusing instances of the 'ruling passion strong in death.' An usurer in the last agony was presented by his confessor with the crucifix: it was ornamented with jewels: the dying man suddenly fixed his eyes on the gems, and cried out, Those stones are counterfeit: I cannot lend more than ten pistoles on the pledge.' Malherbe's passion was to reform his native tongue. The priest, who visited him on his deathbed, promised him the joys of paradise; but observing some impatience in his hearer, asked whether he might not go on with the description:--' Not another word,' gasped the old critic, unless you speak of paradise in purer French.' The classic examples are numerous. The habit among the ancients of finishing their career with some memorable sentences, was a ruling passion in itself. Augustus, the man of ostentatious elegance, died in a compliment to his wife, Livia, conjugii nostri memor, vive, et vale; Vespasian, in a jest on the vanity of his deified predecessors, 'Ut puto, Deus fio;' Galba, with the heroism of a public sacrifice, 'Feri, si ex re sit populi Romani;' Severus, with the public care of a great functionary, 'Adeste, si quid mihi restat agendum.' 231 Sober Lanesborow. Lord Lanesborow, who danced when a cripple in the gout. His enthusiasm on this point was so ardent, |