Thus endowed by nature to charm and persuade, what expectations might not have been formed on him? A youth of a noble descent, who added to that advantage the most astonishing parts ever man possessed, improved by an uncommon and well regulated education. What pity is it, this illustrious 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 breath. 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, A tyrant to the wife his heart approv'd; A rebel to the very king he lov'd. 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 departure from England for this purpose, he took the rout of Holland, and visited several courts of Germany, and that of Hanover in particular. Though his lordship was now possessed of his family estate, as much as a minor could be; yet his trustees very much limited his expences, and made him too moderate remittances, for a person of his rank and spirit. This gave him great uneasiness, and embarrassed him much in his way of living, which ill suited with the profusion of his taste. To remove these difficulties, he had recourse to mortgaging, and by premiums and large interest paid to usurers, supplied his present necessities, by rendering his affairs still worse.