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"They have been beating up for "voluntiers at York, and the towns ad"jacent, to fupply the regiments at "Hull; but nobody will lift..

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By what I can hear, every body. "wifhes well to the King; but they "would be glad his minifters were "hanged..

"The winds continue fo contrary, "that no landing can be fo foon as was "apprehended; therefore I may hope, "with your leave and affistance, to be. "in readiness before any action can "begin. I befeech you, Sir, most hum-, "bly and moft earnestly, to add this "one act of indulgence more to fo

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many other teftimonies which I have. "conftantly received of your goodness; "and

"and be pleased to believe me always, "with the utmoft. duty and fubmif

fion, Sir,

"Your most dutiful fon,

"And most obedient fervant,-
"GEO. GRANVILLE."

Through the whole reign of king William he is fuppofed to have lived in literary retirement, and indeed had for fome time few other pleasures but those

power.

He

of study in his was, as the biographers obferve, the younger fon of a younger brother; a denomination by which our anceflors proverbially expreffed the loweft ftate of penury and dependance. He is faid, however, to have preferved himself at this time from

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difgrace and difficulties by economy, which he forgot or neglected in life more advanced, and in better fortune.

About this time he became enamoured of the countefs of Newburgh, whom he has celebrated with fo much ardour by the name of Mira. He wrote verfes to her before he was three and twenty, and may be forgiven if he regarded the face more than the mind. Poets are fometimes in too much hafte to praife.

In the time of his retirement it is probable that he compofed his dramatick pieces, theShe-Gallants (acted 1696), which he revised, and called Once a Lover and always a Lover; The Jew of Venice, altered from Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice (1701); Heroick Love, a tragedy (1698);

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(1698); The British Enchanters (1706), a dramatick poem; and Peleus and Thetis, a mafque, written to accompany The Few of Venice.

The comedies, which he has not printed in his own edition of his works, I never faw; Once a Lover and always a Lover, is faid to be in a great degree indecent and grofs. Granville could not admire without bigotry; he copied the wrong as well as the right from his mafters, and may be fuppofed to have learned obfcenity from Wycherly as he learned mythology from Wallcr.

In his few of Venice, as Rowe remarks, the character of Shilock is made comick, and we are prompted to laughter inftead of deteftation.

It

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It is evident that Heroick Love was

written, and prefented on the stage,. before the death of Dryden. It is a mythological tragedy, upon the love of Agamemnon and Chryfeis, and there-fore eafily funk into neglect, though praised in verse by Dryden, and in profe by Pope.

It is concluded by the wife Ulyffes> with this fpeech :

Fate holds the ftrings, and men like children move

But as they're led; fuccefs is from above.

In this collection are only Peleus and Thetis, and the British Enchanters, of which finding that the compilers had

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