Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 22.djvu/422

 Granville the county of Cornwall, and chose the latter seat. On 29 Sept, 1710 he succeeded Walpole as secretary of war. On 30 Dec. 1711 he was created a peer of Great Britain with the title of Lord Lansdowne, Baron of Bideford, Devon. Eleven other peers were, at the suggestion of the Earl of Oxford, created at the same time. In 1712 Granville (Lord Lansdowne) was appointed comptroller of the household and a privy councillor. In 1713 he was advanced to be treasurer of the household. At the accession of George I he was out of favour, and on 11 Oct. 1714 was removed from his post of treasurer. He protested against the bill for attainting Ormond and Bolingbroke, and there is some reason to suppose that he was concerned in a scheme for a rising in Cornwall to help the Pretender (A full and authentick Narrative of the ... Invasion, London (T. Roberts, 1715). He was confined in the Tower as a suspected person from 26 Sept. 1715 till 8 Feb. 1717. On the window of his prison he inscribed his name and four lines of verse (, ''Roy. and Noble Authors'', iv. 155). In 1717 he was restored to his seat in parliament. He now settled at Longleat, then in possession of his wife's family. In 1719 he delivered an animated speech against the repeal of the Bill to prevent Occasional Conformity (see, Works, ed. 1732). In 1722 he went abroad, perhaps on account of diminished means, his expenditure being always lavish, or for political reasons. He lived at Paris for ten years, and there wrote: 1. ‘A Vindication of General Monk’ (against Burnet and Echard). 2. ‘A Vindication [against Clarendon and Echard] of Sir Richard Granville’ {Charles I's general and Lansdowne's ancestor). The ‘Vindications’ were published in Granville's ‘Works,’ 1732, vol. i. They were answered by Oldmixon in ‘Reflexions,’ &c., and defended in Granville's ‘Letter to the Author of Reflexions,’ &c., London, 1732, 4to. In 1732 Granville returned to England, and published a revised and finely printed edition of his complete works (‘The Genuine Works in verse and prose of G. G. Lord Lansdowne,’ 2 vols., London, 1732, 4to; another ed., 3 vols., London, 1736, 12mo). Before this edition there had appeared ‘A Collection of Poems ... by Mr. Granville,’ 1701, 8vo ; ‘A New Miscellany of Original Poems ... by Mr. G.’, 1701, 8vo; and ‘Poems upon several occasions’ (by G. G.), London, 1712, 8vo; 1716, 12mo; 1721, 12mo; 1726, 12mo). Granville's poems have been included in the collection for which Dr. Johnson wrote his ‘Lives,’ and in the collections of T. Bell (vol. lvi.), R. Anderson (vol. vii.), A.Chalmers (vol, xi.), T. Park (selection), and E. Sanford (selection). Pope (Pastorals, ‘Spring,’ l. 46) alludes to ‘Waller's strains, or Granville's moving lays,’ and Granville speaks of ‘Mira herself touch'd with the moving song’ (Works, i. 87). But Granville's poems are anything but moving, and there is little to add to Johnson's criticism (Life of Granville) that ‘he had no ambition above the imitation of Waller, of whom he has copied the faults, and very little more.’ Johnson praises his prologues and epilogues, and considers the ‘British Enchanters’ by ‘far the best of his works.’ Granville was an early patron of Pope. He invited (, Works, i. 437) a friend to his lodgings to meet Wycherley, who would bring with him ‘a young poet newly inspired’—‘his name is Pope, he is not above seventeen or eighteen years of age, and promises miracles.’ Granville commended the ‘Pastorals’ when in manuscript (cf. ‘Spring,’ l. 46). He is said (, quoted in Elwin's Pope, i. 324) to have ‘insisted’ on Pope's publishing ‘Windsor Forest,’ and probably suggested the eulogy of the ‘Peace’ at the end of that poem. Pope dedicated it (1713) to him, and in it spoke of ‘Surrey, the Granville of a former age’ (l. 292; cp. lines 5, 6). Much later in life (1735) Pope (Ep. to Arbuthnot, ll. 135-6) wrote the couplet: But why then publish? Granville the polite, And knowing Walsh, would tell me I could write. In 1732 Granville presented a copy of his ‘Works’ to Queen Caroline, by whom he was kindly received; but he took no further part in public affairs, and died in Hanover Square, London, on 30 Jan. 1735. He was buried on 3 Feb. in a vault in the chancel of St. Clement Danes, London. His wife, who had died a few days before him, was buried in the same vault. (For some details see, Autobiog., &c. i. 526-7). His niece, Mary Granville (Mrs. Delany), describes him as polite and good-natured. He is the ‘Alcander’ of her ‘Autobiography’ [cp. ] . Some of Granville's letters to her and to other members of his family have been printed in the ‘Autobiography, &c.’ (see Index, s.v. ‘Lansdowne’). There is a portrait of Granville, engraved ‘from a drawing’ in Walpole's ‘Royal and Noble Authors’ (Park), iv. 154, and one, from a miniature in the possession (1861) of Bernard Granville, is engraved in Mrs. Delany's ‘Autobiography,’ &c., i. 418. Granville married in 1711 Mary, daughter of Edward Villiers, earl of Jersey, widow of Thomas Thynne, who, according to Mrs. Delany, was very handsome and loved admiration. They had four daughters, of whom Anne, the eldest, and Elizabeth, the youngest, died unmarried. Mary, the second daughter (d.