I see my folly, and repent too late;
But since you're now possess'd of my estate,
And these few guineas all that now remain,
Teach me to thrive, and to be rich again :
To thee, the art of heaping endless stores
Is known, and Plutus opens all his doors.

PETER..

Already asking?-what! a fresh demand, With those five hundred guineas in your hand, Of which, had I insisted on my due,

One shilling never could have come to you?

LORD QUIDAM.

you,

who never but for interest lie,

Pity me in this ebb of poverty;

My spreading beeches and my oaks cut down,

My manors sold, and ev'ry acre gone;

Thus low reduc'd, what is my birth, my fame,

And all my virtue, but an empty name ?

PETER.

Since, then, you're chang'd from what

before,

you were

And have a just disdain for all that's poor;
And since to think you wisely now begin,
That poverty's a crime, and want a sin;
That gold to ev'ry wish its object draws,
Can purchase honour, can command applause,
Can laugh at punishment, and mock the laws;
Attend, whilst I point out the certain way
To wealth, and all my golden rules display:-
Whene'er you find a person deep in years,
Loaded with wealth, but destitute of heirs,
There get acquaintance, there get intimate,
Bow to him, follow, court him, visit, treat;
For rarities beat all the town about,
The fresh Thames salmon, and the Fordwich
The fattest ven'son and the plumpest quail,
The green-corn partridge, and delicious rail,
Procure and send him : ever in his sight

[trout;

Be found; attend by day and watch by night.

What tho' descended from the lowest race,
A coward, liar, human kind's disgrace ;
Not Hervey in a more avoided state,
Vieing with Pult'ney for contempt and hate;
With him in public still be fond t' appear,
Smile in his face, and whisper in his ear;
At park, at play, be ever at his side;

Walk when he walks, and in his chariot ride.

LORD QUIDAM.

What, Sir, be seen with Pult'ney in the Mall, Or follow old detested Marlbro's* call;

* Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough; she was a considerable personage in her day. Her own beauty, the superior talents of her husband in war, and the caprice of a feeble princess, raised her to the highest pitch of power; and the prodigious wealth bequeathed to her by her lord, and accumulated in concert with her, gave her weight in a free country.

The beauty of the duchess of Marlborough had always been of the scornful and imperious kind, and her features and air announced nothing that her temper did not confirm. Both together, her beauty and temper, enslaved her heroic lord. One of her principal charms was a prodigious abundance of fine fair hair.

One day at her toilet, in anger to him,

What blot in all my life has ever been,
To make you think that I could be so mean?

she cut off those commanding tresses, and flung them in his face. Nor did her insolence stop there; nor stop till it had totally estranged and worn out the patience of the poor queen, her mistress. The duchess was often seen to give her majesty her fan and gloves, and turn away her own head, as if the queen had offensive smells.

Incapable of due respect to superiors, it was no wonder she treated her children and inferiors with supercilious contempt. Her eldest daughter and she were long at variance, and never reconciled. When the younger duchess exposed herself by placing a monument and silly epitaph, of her own composition and bad spelling, to Congreve in Westminster-abbey, her mother, quoting the words, said, "I know not what pleasure she might have in his company, but I am sure it was no honour." With her youngest daughter, the duchess of Montagu, old Sarah agreed as ill.— "I wonder," said the duke of Marlborough to them, "that you cannot agree, you are so alike!" Of her granddaughter, the duchess of Manchester, daughter of the duchess of Montagu, she affected to be fond. One day she said to her, "Duchess of Manchester, you are a good creature, and I love you mightily-but you have a mother!" "And she has a mother!" answered the Manchester, who was all spirit, justice, and honour, and could not suppress sudden truth.

One of old Marlborough's capital mortifications sprung from a grand-daughter. The most beautiful of her four

charming daughters, lady Sunderland,* left two sons, † the second duke of Marlborough, and John Spencer, who became her heir, and Anne lady Bateman, and lady Diana Spencer, whom I have mentioned, and who became duchess of Bedford. The duke and his brother, to humour their grandmother, were in opposition, though the eldest she never loved. He had good sense, infinite generosity, and not more œconomy than was to be expected from a young man of warm passions and such vast expectations. He was modest and diffident too, but could not digest total dependence on a capricious and avaricious grandmother. His sister, lady Bateman, had the intriguing spirit of her father and grandfather earls of Sunderland. She was connected

* Lady Sunderland was a great politician; and having, like her mother, a most beautiful head of hair, used, while combing it at her toilet, to receive men whose votes or interest she wished to influence.

his

She had an elder son who died young, while only earl of Sunderland. He had parts, and all the ambition of his parents and of his family (which younger brothers had not); but George II. had conceived such an aver. sion to his father, that he would not employ him. The young earl at last asked sir Robert Walpole for an ensigncy in the guards. The minister, astonished at so humble a request from a man of such consequence, expressed his surprise-"I ask it,” said the young lord, "to ascertain whether it is determined that I shall never have any thing." He died soon after at Paris.-W.