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,
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.
* * * * *
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 general 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 all mankind;
Too rash for thought, for action too refined.
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