"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: Though wondering 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 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 half mankind; Too rash for thought, for action too refined: A tyrant to his 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 through every rule? 'Twas all for fear the knaves should call him fool." The Duke wrote a play on Mary Queen of Scots--of which only four lines have been preserved: "Sure were I free, and Norfolk were a prisoner, I'd fly with more impatience to his arms, Than the poor Israelite gaz'd on the serpent. When life was the reward of every look." It is usually stated that this play was written at some time between 1728 and 1730, but it is certain that it was begun at this time-- probably it was never finished. Perhaps only the scenario was drawn up, and a few scenes outlined; but that so much at least was done while the author was at Twickenham is proved conclusively by the fact that at this time Lady Mary composed for the play an epilogue, designed to be spoken by Mrs. Oldfield.