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.