" will, I beg leave to infist upon it, that I may "be prefented to his majesty, as one whofe " utmost ambition it is to devote his life to his "fervice, and my country's, after the example "of all my ancestors.

66

"The gentry assembled at York, to agree upon the choice of representatives for the દ country, have prepared an addrefs, to affure "his majefty they are ready to facrifice their "lives and fortunes for him upon this and all "other occafions; but at the fame time they

humbly befeech him to give them such ma"giftrates as may be agreeable to the laws "of the land; for, at prefent, there is no authority to which they can legally fubmit.

"They have been beating up for volun teers at York, and the towns adjacent, to supply the regiments at Hull; but nobody " will lift.

"By what I can hear, every body wishes "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; L 2

"there

"therefore I may hope, with your leave and "affiftance, to be in readiness before any action

can begin. I befeech you, Sir, most humbly "and moft earneftly, to add this one act of indulgence more to fo many other tefti"monies which I have constantly received of your goodness; and be pleased to believe me always, with the utmost duty and fubmiffion, Sir,

¢

"Your most dutiful fon,

" and moft obedient fervant,

"GEO. GRANVILLE."

Through the whole reign of king William he is supposed to have lived in literary retirement, and indeed had for fome time few other pleasures but those of study in his power. He was, as the biographers obferve, the younger fon of a younger brother; a denomination by which our ancestors proverbially expreffed the loweft ftate of penury and dependance. He is faid, however, to have preserved himself at this time from difgrace and difficulties by œconomy, which he forgot or neglected in life more advanced, and in better fortune.

About

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 praise.

In the time of his retirement it is probable that he compofed his dramatick pieces, the She-Gallants (acted 1696), which he revised, and called Once a Lover and always a Lover; The few of Venice, altered from Shakspeare's Merchant of Venice (1701); Heroick Love, a tragedy (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 masters, and may be fuppofed to have learned obfcenity from Wycherley as he learned mythology from Waller.

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

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 Chryseis, and therefore eafily funk into neglect, though praised in verfe 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.

At the acceffion of queen Anne, having his fortune improved by bequests from his father, and his uncle the earl of Bathe, he was chofen into parliament for Fowey. He foon after engaged in a joint tranflation of the Invectives against Philip, with a defign, furely weak and puerile, of turning the thunder of Demofthe nes upon the head of Lewis,

He

He afterwards (in 1706) had his eftate again augmented by an inheritance from his elder brother, Sir Bevil Granville, who, as he returned from the government of Barbadoes, died at fea. He continued to serve in parlia ment; and in the ninth year of queen Anne was chofen knight of the fhire for Cornwall.

At the memorable change of the ministry (1710), he was made fecretary at war, in the place of Mr. Robert Walpole.

Next year, when the violence of party made twelve peers in a day, Mr. Granville became Lord Lanfdown Baron Biddeford, by a promotion juftly remarked to be not invidious, because he was the heir of a family in which two peerages, that of the earl of Bathe and lord Granville of Pothcridge, had lately become extinct. Being now high in the Queen's favour, he (1712) was appointed comptroller of the household, and á privý counsellor 3 and to his other honours was added the dedication of Pope's Windsor Forest. He was advanced next year to be treasurer of the household.