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.