Page:The lives of the poets of Great Britain and Ireland to the time of Dean Swift - Volume 4.djvu/249



AS deſcended from an illuſtrious family, which traced their anceſtry from Rollo, the firſt duke of Normandy. He was ſecond ſon of Bernard Granville, and grandſon of the famous Sir Bevil Granville, killed at the battle of Lanſdowne 1643. This nobleman received the firſt tincture of his education in France, under the tuition of Sir William Ellis, a gentleman, who was eminent afterwards in many public employments.

When our author was but eleven years of age, he was ſent to Trinity College in Cambridge, where he remained five years, but at the age of thirteen was admitted to the degree of maſter of arts, having, before he was twelve years old, ſpoken a copy of Engliſh verſes, of his own compoſition, to the Ducheſs of York, when her Royal Highneſs paid a viſit to that univerſity.

At the time when the nation was embroiled by the public diſtractions, occaſioned by the efforts of King James II. to introduce Popery, lord Lanſdowne did not remain an unconcerned ſpectator. He had early imbibed principles of loyalty, and as ſome of his forefathers had fallen in the cause of Charles I. he thought it was his duty to ſacrifice his life alſo, for the intereſt of his