of Wharton. "Your Grace," says the
Dedication, "has been pleased to make yourself accessory to the
following scenes, not only by suggesting the most beautiful incident
in them, but by making all possible provision for the success of the
whole." That his grace should have suggested the incident to which he
alludes, whatever that incident might have been, is not unlikely. The
last mental exertion of the superannuated young man, in his quarters
at Lerida, in Spain, was some scenes of a tragedy on the story of Mary
Queen of Scots.

Dryden dedicated "Marriage a la Mode" to Wharton's infamous relation
Rochester, whom he acknowledges not only as the defender of his poetry,
but as the promoter of his fortune. Young concludes his address to
Wharton thus--"My present fortune is his bounty, and my future his care;
which I will venture to say will be always remembered to his honour,
since he, I know, intended his generosity as an encouragement to merit,
though through his very pardonable partiality to one who bears him so
sincere a duty and respect, I happen to receive the benefit of it." That
he ever had such a patron as Wharton, Young took all the pains in his
power to conceal from the world, by excluding this dedication from his
works. He should have remembered that he at the same time concealed his
obligation to Wharton for THE MOST BEAUTIFUL INCIDENT in what is surely
not his least beautiful composition. The passage just quoted is, in a
poem afterwards addressed to Walpole, literally copied:

"Be this thy partial smile from censure free!
'Twas meant for merit, though it fell on me."

While Young, who, in his "Love of Fame," complains grievously how often
"dedications wash an AEthiop white," was painting an amiable Duke of
Wharton in perishable prose, Pope was, perhaps, beginning to describe
the "scorn and wonder of his days" in lasting verse. To the patronage of
such a character, had Young studied men as much as Pope, he would have
known how little to have trusted. Young, however, was certainly indebted
to it for something material; and the duke's regard for Young, added to
his lust of praise, procured to All Souls College a donation, which was
not forgotten by the poet when he dedicated The Revenge.

It will surprise you to see me cite second Atkins, Case 136, Stiles
versus the Attorney-General, March 14, 1740, as authority for the life
of a poet. But biographers do not always find such certain guides as
the oa