Thomas Wharton, 1st Earl of Wharton

“ Neither had he the least tincture of a haughty superiority, arising from the nobleness of his birth, and the lustre of his abilities. His conversation was easy, pleasant, and instructive, always suited to his company, of whatever quality, humour, or capacity they were.
As it was the earl of Wharton’s view, to qualify his son to fill that high station, in which his birth would one day place him with advantage to his country; his great care was to form him a compleat orator. ”

“ In spite of advancing years, Wharton retained his wardenry throughout Mary's reign, the Earl of Northumberland being joined with him on 1 Aug. 1557 when fresh trouble with the Scots was imminent owing to the war with France. In the parliament of January 1557–8 a bill was introduced into the House of Lords for punishing the behaviour of the Earl of Cumberland's servants and tenants towards Wharton, but it did not get beyond the first reading. ”

“ To discover, at the very onset of a foreigner’s reign, that the gods bless his new subjects in such a king is something more than praise. Neither was this deemed one of his excusable pieces. We do not find it in his works.
Young’s father had been well acquainted with Lady Anne Wharton, the first wife of Thomas Wharton, Esq., afterwards Marquis of Wharton; a lady celebrated for her poetical talents by Burnet and by Waller.
To the Dean of Sarum’s visitation sermon, already mentioned, were added some verses “by that excellent poetess, Mrs. ”

“ To the general surprise, two noblemen who had been eminently zealous for the Revolution spoke against the proposed test. Lord Wharton, a Puritan who had fought for the Long Parliament, said, with amusing simplicity, that he was a very old man, that he had lived through troubled times, that he had taken a great many oaths in his day, and that he was afraid that he had not kept them all. He prayed that the sin might not be laid to his charge; and he declared that he could not consent to lay any more snares for his own soul and for the souls of his neighbours. ”

“ But if people would be fools, it was the business of a politician to make use of their folly. The cant of political purity was not so familiar to the lips of Wharton as blasphemy and ribaldry; but his abilities were so versatile, and his impudence so consummate, that he ventured to appear before the world as an austere patriot mourning over the venality and perfidy of a degenerate age. ”

“ When he helped his friends with money in a political transaction Senator Wharton took their notes, thus mixing business with politics and keeping his allies true—Congressman Wharton had never done this. When the machine sent him back to Washington without opposition to serve a second senatorial term, Tom Wharton was a power of the first class. Although the men in the Senate whom he called the Good, the True, and the Beautiful might ignore him socially, when these men needed help for a local bill they had to consult Senator Wharton. ”

“ Can we doubt that, together with this home trade in charters, a profitable foreign trade in secrets is carried on? Can we doubt that he who sells us to one another will, for a good price, sell us all to the common enemy?" Wharton concluded by moving that Leeds should be impeached of high crimes and misdemeanours. 582
Leeds had many friends and dependents in the House of Commons; but they could say little. Wharton's motion was carried without a division; and he was ordered to go to the bar of the Lords, and there, in the name of the Commons of England, to impeach the Duke. ”

“ They believed the same sentiments were cherished by the nation in general. They held private assemblies both in Great Britain and in Ireland. They concerted measures for turning the dissensions of the kingdom to the advantage of their cause. They even proceeded so far as to enlist men for the service of the pretender. Some of these practices were discovered by the earl of Wharton, who did not fail to sound the alarm. A proclamation was immediately published, promising a reward of five thousand pounds for apprehending the pretender, whenever he should land or attempt to land in Great Britain. ”

“ If any fancied affront irks him, he knows how to obtain satisfaction, and I trust that he will either take this course or meet me with the courtesy that I shall always be ready to offer him and that you will not suffer his whim to interrupt a friendship that I have the vanity to believe is not displeasing to you, and is the greatest of honors to your ladyship's humble servant,
Thomas Wharton. ”

“ His appointment as warden of the west marches was suggested as a reward for his services; but Norfolk thought that he ‘would not serve well as a warden,’ and recommended Henry Clifford, first earl of Cumberland, for the post. Wharton was, however, on 28 June 1537 appointed deputy warden, and in the same year was acting as a visitor of monasteries in Cumberland (Gasquet, ii. 185) . He seems to have been disliked by the older nobility as one of the ‘new’ men on whom the Tudors relied ”

“ The worst attribute of Philip Duke of Wharton, as a citizen of the world, was his indifference to reputation. Men of pleasure are not generally indifferent to a character for honour and consistency; but Lord Wharton cared merely for ephemeral applause. Attached, in reality, to no party, and having no actual motives but those of expediency, there was not the slightest dependence to be placed upon those visionary things, his opinions, beyond the moment when he was haranguing a popular assembly, or debating in the House of Lords. ”

“ 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 breast. 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. ”

“ On the outbreak of the civil war in 1642, Wharton sold his land in the north and raised a troop of horse for the royalists. He was defeated by parliamentary troops at Stow-on-the-Wold in Gloucestershire in 1643, and next year joined the king's headquarters at Oxford. He was soon appointed paymaster to the magazine and artillery, and on 8 Oct. 1645 a captain of horse (Ashmole, Life, p. 299) . He pursued his astrological studies at Oxford with much industry. ”

“ In March 1698 the king and Shrewsbury were his guests at Wooburn, and in January 1699 the same distinguished personages were godsons to Wharton's son, while the Princess Anne stood godmother. In 1700, as an emissary of the court, Wharton proposed amendments in the bill for the resumption of Irish land grants, but he had to beat a retreat before the strong outcry raised against foreigners and favouritism, which was quite irrespective of party. ”

“ In congratulating himself upon the probable success of his pension plans Wharton found another pleasure and perhaps a keener one. All New England turned toward Senator Felt as its hope in the struggle against the Wharton bill. If Felt failed to thwart Wharton, the East and his State and his party would have none of him. So Tom Wharton changed his tobacco quid from one jaw to the other and exhaled a curse upon Felt from the worm-eaten caverns of his soul.
The god of business is an exacting god, and he puts all sorts of warning signs at the mile-posts of the years in men's lives. ”

“ An order which he received under the privy seal to return to England was treated with ostentatious contempt by Wharton, who was occupied during this summer with an elaborate project for the restoration of the Pretender by means of an alliance between the emperor, the czar, and the court of Spain. The plan, in cipher, eventually fell into the hands of the Duke of Newcastle. Towards the close of 1726 he went to Rome with his wife, in order to be nearer his master ”

“ He felt, with a kind of horror, his own strong youth and the bounding blood in his veins. "Look here," he said suddenly, "I may have to go to Washington for a few days—soon; next week perhaps."
Her hand remained on the key of the lamp as she turned to him slowly. The heat from its flame had brought back a glow to her face, but it paled as she looked up.
"On business?" she asked, in a tone which implied that there could be no other conceivable reason, and that she had put the question automatically, as if merely to finish his own sentence. ”

“ Upon this his lordship with great chearfulness, paid all demands, amounting to 25 louis d’ors.’
It may seem a strange observation, but it is certainly true, that the brute creation differs not more from the rational in many respects, than a man from himself: That by suffering passions to usurp the dominion of the soul, human nature is stript of its dignity, debased to the beasts that perish, and still rendered more ignominious by the complications of guilt. We have already seen the duke of Wharton set up as the idol of an admiring people ”

“ I thought he was too big a man not to see in time that statesmanship is a finer thing than practical politics, and now that I've given him a chance to make the discovery, he's on the way to becoming just such a statesman as the country needs. ”

“ He had known that the moment must come sooner or later, but he had somewhat imagined that by force of willing he might hold it at bay.
"Yes—I—no: yes, it was beautiful," he said, looking at her blindly, and wondering if, whenever he heard those two syllables, all his carefully built-up world would tumble about him like a house of cards.
"Aren't you tired? It will be good to have some tea when we arrive—I'm sure the aunts have got everything beautifully ready," he rattled on, taking her hand in his ”

“ During his absence in Ireland there is no doubt that the whigs missed the aid of the most astute party manager they had ever had, but by the vehemence with which he pushed forward the Sacheverell trial there is equally no doubt that Wharton contributed to the temporary defeat of his political allies. ”

“ Williams was busy, and took Wharton into a reception-parlor. Wharton fancied, as he sat waiting on the edge of a chair, that he could hear men laughing in some distant room of the house. The iron rattle of a voice that sounded like Felt's invaded the recesses of Wharton's consciousness and hurt him like a sword twisting in his vitals. ”

“ William Wharton, who was killed in a duel, in 1689, calls himself 'fourth son to the Right Honourable Philip Lord Wharton of Wharton, in Westmoreland, [181] by Ann, Daughter to William Carr, of Fernihast, in Scotland, Esqr., one of the Groome (sic) of the Bedchamber to King James' ”

“ Early in 1717 he crossed over to Ireland in company with the poet Edward Young, to whom he was a liberal patron as long as he had any money. Young dedicated to him his ‘Revenge: a Tragedy,’ in 1721, and Wharton acknowledged the compliment by a gift of 2,000l. In August 1717, though he was not yet nineteen years old, Wharton was allowed to take his seat in the Irish House of Peers, being introduced as the Marquis of Catherlough by the Earls of Kildare and Mount Alexander. He soon distinguished himself in debate by his zeal for the government, and became member of several committees. ”

“ But what had originally sprung from the impulse to retain a hold over a woman, became in the end the instrument of a new and quite other situation. Wharton had no sooner entered the House of Commons than he felt himself strangely at home there. He had the instinct for debate, the instinct for management, together with a sensitive and contriving ambition. He found himself possessed for the moment of powers of nervous endurance that astonished him—a patience of boredom besides, a capacity for drudgery, and for making the best of dull men. ”

“ The state exists for the people; if they do not need it, it has ceased to serve its purpose."
She clasped her hands in an ecstasy of wonder. "Oh, fool, madman--but it is not of the state I speak! It is you who are in danger--you--you--you--"
He raised his head with an impatient gesture.
"I?" he said. "I had thought you meant a graver peril."
She looked at him in silence. Her pride met his and thrilled with it; and for a moment the two were one.
"Odo!" she cried. She sank into a chair, and he went to her and took her hand.
"Such fears are worthy neither of us," he said gravely. ”

“ If Wharton had had as much energy and consistency as he had talent and impudence, he might have done much towards that desirable, or undesirable end.
The grand question at this time before the House was the trial of Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester, demanded by Sir Robert Walpole. The man had a spirit almost as restless as his defender. The son of a man who might have been the original of the Vicar of Bray, he was very little of a poet, less of a priest, but a great deal of a politician. ”

“ By William, Lord Wharton was made comptroller of the household, an office far below his ambition, and, as far as ability should be taken into account, his deserts.
Wharton was an associate, but not a friend, of Marlborough and Godolphin. He was, in truth, a brier in their path; a dangerous friend, more dreaded than a foe; a man whose elevation they feared even more than his open enmity. He was an able debater, bold, and therefore likely to be, to a certain extent, powerful; for irresolute characters are governed by those of a decisive and fearless temper. ”

“ In the Lambeth Library there are sixteen volumes of Wharton's manuscripts. Describing him as “this wonderful man,” Stubbs says that Wharton did for the elucidation of English Church history " more than any one before or since." A life of Wharton is included in George D’Oyly's Life of W. Sancroft (1821) .
WHATELY, RICHARD (1787–1863) , English logician and theological writer, archbishop of Dublin, was born in London on the 1st of February 1787. He was educated at a private school near Bristol, and at Oriel College, Oxford. ”