Page:A New General Biographical Dictionary, vol. 8.djvu/98

Rh called him into Spain, and nominated him ambassador to conclude the marriage of the Infanta Catharine with the duke of Savoy. The fatigue of this journey threw him into an illness on his return, which carried him off at Madrid in September 1586. He was a great patron of learning, and bore part of the expense of printing the Antwerp Polyglott, and was a liberal patron of Plantin, the printer, from whose press it issued. GRANVILLE, GREENVILE, or GRENVILLE, (George,) viscount Lansdowne, an English poet, was born in 1667, and in his childhood was sent to France, under the tuition of Sir William Ellys, a pupil of Busby, from whom he imbibed a taste for classical learning. At the age of ten he was sent to Trinity college, Cambridge; and on account of his extraordinary merit he was created M. A. at the age of thirteen, and left the university soon after. He had a strong passion for a military life, which discovered itself on the duke of Monmouth’s rebellion, and he requested his father to let him arm in defence of his sovereign; but being then only eighteen years of age, he was thought too young for such an enterprize. It was not without extreme reluctance that he submitted to the tenderness of paternal restraint. He took up his pen after the rebellion was crushed, and addressed some congratulatory lines to the king. When the prince of Orange declared his intended expedition to England, he made a fresh application, in the most importunate terms, to be permitted to prove his loyalty. His letter to his father on this occasion, which is printed by Dr. Johnson, is an elegant composition; but this was likewise unavailing, as the danger was increased in a greater proportion than his age. He now sat down a quiet spectator of the revolution, in which most of his family acquiesced; and resolving to lay aside all thoughts of pushing his fortune either in the court or the camp, he endeavoured to divert his melancholy in the company and conversation of the softer sex. His adopted favourite was the countess of Newburgh, and he exerted all his powers of verse in singing the charms of this inexorable enchantress, and the sweets of his own captivity. In this temper he passed the course of king William’s reign in private life, employing his muse in celebrating the reigning beauties of that age, as Waller, whom he strove to imitate, had celebrated those of the preceding. He wrote also several dramatic pieces, and his British Enchanters was introduced by Betterton upon the stage, where it obtained general applause for at least forty successive nights. Addison joined with Dryden in sounding his praises; the former in the epilogue to the British Enchanters, and the latter, in some verses addressed to him upon his tragedy of Heroic Love. Upon the accession of queen Anne he made his court to her in the politest manner in Urganda’s prophecy, spoken by way of epilogue at the first representation of the British Enchanters. He entered heartily into the measures for carrying on the war against France; and, with a view to excite a proper spirit in the nation, he translated the second Olynthiac of Demosthenes, in 1702. And when the design upon Cadiz was projected the same year, he presented to Harley, afterwards earl of Oxford, an authentic journal of Wimbledon’s expedition thither in 1625; in order that, by avoiding the errors committed in a former attempt upon that place, a more successful plan might be formed. But, little attention being given to it, the same mistakes were committed, and the same disappointment ensued; though Vigo fell into the hands of the duke of Ormond. After the death of his father he was returned to the House of Commons, as member for Fowey, in Cornwall, in the first parliament of the queen. In 1706 his fortune was improved farther by the decease of his eldest brother, who died that year, in his passage from Barbadoes. Hence he now stood at the head of his family, with the possession of an ample fortune. A change of administration, however, cut off his prospects of advancement at court. About this time he introduced Wycherley and Pope, then about eighteen years of age, to the acquaintance of Henry St. John, afterwards lord Bolingbroke. Sacheverell’s trial (1710) brought Granville’s friends again into power, and he was elected for the borough of Helston; but being returned at the same time for the county of Cornwall, he chose to represent the latter; and on September 29 he was declared secretary at war, in the room of Walpole. In December 1711 he was created a peer of Great Britain, by the title of lord Lansdowne, baron of Bideford, in the county of Devon. In this promotion he was one of the twelve peers who were all created at the same time; and so numerous a creation, being unprecedented, gave much offence; although but little in his case, as already two peerages, that of the earl of Bath, 88