Note 6e — JOURNAL TO STELLA

Thomas Wharton, Earl and afterwards Marquis of Wharton, had been one of Swift’s fellow-travellers from Dublin. Lord Lieutenant of Ireland under the Whig Government, from 1708 to 1710, Wharton was the most thorough-going party man that had yet appeared in English politics; and his political enemies did not fail to make the most of his well-known immorality. In his Notes to Macky’s Characters Swift described Wharton as “the most universal villain that ever I knew.” On his death in 1715 he was succeeded by his profligate son, Philip, who was created Duke of Wharton in 1718.