Through the whole reign of king William he is fupposed to have lived in literary retirement, and indeed had for fome time few other pleasures but thofe 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 lowest state of penury and dependance. He is faid, however, to have preserved himself at this time from difgrace and difficulties by economy, which he forgot or neglected in life more advanced, and in better for

tune.

About this time he became enamoured of the countefs of Newburgh, whom he has celebrated with for much ardour by the name of Mira. He wrote verses 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 Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice (1698); Heroick Love, a tragedy (1701); The British Enchanters (1706), a dramatick poem; and Peleus and Thetis, a mafque, written to accompany The Jew 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 fupposed to have learned obscenity from Wycherley, as he learned mythology from Waller,

In

In his Jew of Venice, as Rowe remarks, the character of Shylock 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 Chryfeis, and therefore easily funk into neglect, though praifed in verfe by Dryden, and in profe by Pope.

It is concluded by the wife Ulyffes with this fpeech:

Fate holds the strings, 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 Demofthenes upon the head of Lewis.

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 Barbados, died at fea. He continued to serve in parliament; 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 Lansdown Baron Biddeford, by a promotion justly remarked to be not invidious, because he was the heir of a family in

which

which two peerages, that of the earl of Bath and lord Granville of Potheridge, had lately become extinct. Being now high in the Queen's favour, he (1712) was appointed comptroller of the household, and a privy counsellor; and to his other honours was added the dedication of Pope's Windfor Foreft. He was advanced next year to be treafurer of the household.

Of these favours he foon loft all but his title; for at the acceffion of king George his place was given to the earl Cholmondeley, and he was perfecuted with the rest of his party. Having protested against the bill for attainting Ormond and Bolingbroke, he was, after the infurrection in Scotland, feized Sept 26, 1715, as a fufpected man, and confined in the Tower till Feb. 8, 1717, when he was at last released, and reftored to his feat in parliament; where (1719) he made a very ardent and animated fpeech against the repeal of the bill to prevent Occafional Conformity, which, however, though it was then printed, he has not inferted into his works.

Some time afterwards (about 1722), being perhaps embarraffed by his profufion, he went into foreign countries, with the ufual pretence of recovering his health. In this ftate of leifure and retirement, he received the first volume of Burnet's Hiftory, of which he cannot be fuppofed to have approved the general tendency, and where he thought himself able to detect fome particular falfehoods. He therefore undertook the vindication of general Monk from fome calumnies of Dr. Burnet, and fome mifreprefentations of Mr. Echard. This was anfwered civilly by Mr. Thomas Burnet and Oldmixon, and more roughly by Dr. Colbatch.

His other historical performance is a defence of his relation Sir Richard Greenville, whom lord Clarendon has fhewn in a form very unamiable. So much is urged in this apology, to justify many actions that have been reprefented as culpable, and to palliate the rest, that the reader is reconciled for the greater part; and it is made very probable that Clarendon was by perfonal enmity difpofed to think the worst of Greenville, as Greenville was alfo very willing to think the worst of Clarendon. Thefe pieces were published at his return to England.

Being now defirous to conclude his labours, and enjoy his reputation, he published (1732) a very beautiful and fplendid edition of his works, in which he omitted what he difapproved, and enlarged what feemed deficient.

He now went to Court, and was kindly received by queen Caroline; to whom and to the princefs Anne he prefented his works, with verses on the blank leaves, with which he concluded his poetical labours.

He died in Hanover-fquare, Jan. 30, 1735, having a few days before buried his wife, the lady Anne Villers, widow to Mr. Thynne, by whom he had four daughters, but no fon.

Writers commonly derive their reputation from their works; but there are works which owe their reputation to the character of the writer. The publick fometimes has its favourites, whom it rewards for one fpecies of excellence with the honours due to another. From him whom we reverence for his beneficence we do not willingly withhold the praife of genius; a man of exalted merit becomes at once an accomplished wri

ter,

ter, as a beauty finds no great difficulty in paffing for

a wit.

Granville was a man illuftrious by his birth, and therefore attracted notice: fince he is by Pope ftyled the polite, he must be fuppofed elegant in his manners, and generally loved: he was in times of conteft and turbulence steady to his party, and obtained that efteem which is always conferred upon firmness and confiftency. With thofe advantages, having learned the art of verfifying, he declared himself a poet; and his claim to the laurel was allowed.

But by a critick of a later generation who takes up his book without any favourable prejudices, the praife already received will be thought fufficient; for his works do not fhew him to have had much comprehenfion from nature, or illumination from learning. He feems to have had no ambition above the imitation of Waller, of whom he has copied the faults, and very little more. He is for ever amufing himself with the puerilities of mythology; his King is Jupiter, who, if the Queen brings no children, has a barren Juno. The Queen is compounded of Juno, Venus, and Minerva. His poem on the dutchefs of Grafton's lawfuit, after having rattled a while with Juno and Pallas, Mars and Alcides, Caffiope, Niobe, and the Propetides, Hercules, Minos, and Rhadamanthus, at last concludes its folly with profaneness.

His verfes to Mira, which are moft frequently mentioned, have little in them of either art or nature, of the fentiments of a lover, or the language of a poet: there may be found, now-and-then, a happier effort; but they are commonly feeble and unaffecting or forced and extravagant.

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