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G. GRANVILLE, L. LANSDOWNE,

Was 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 Sovereign.  However mistaken he might be in this furious zeal for a Prince, the chief scope of whose reign was to overthrow the law, and introduce absolute dominion, yet he appears to be perfectly sincere.  In a letter he wrote to his father upon the expected approach of the Prince of Orange’s fleet, he expresses the most ardent desire to serve the King in person[A].  This letter we shall insert, but beg our readers patience to make a digression, which will justify what we have said concerning James ii.

The genuine mark of a tyrant is cruelty, and it is with concern we can produce an instance of the most inhuman barbarity in that Prince, which ever stained the Annals of any reign.  Cruelty should be the badge of no party; it ought to be equally the abhorrence of all; and whoever is tainted with it, should be set up to view, as a terror to the world, as a monster, whom it is the interest of mankind to destroy.

After the suppression of Monmouth’s rebellion, many of the unfortunate persons engaged In it fled to London, and took shelter there, ’till the Act of Indemnity should be published.  They who afforded them shelter, were either of the Monmouth faction, or induced from principles of humanity, to administer to their safety:  what would become of the world, if our friends were always to forsake us in distress?  There lived then in London an amiable lady, attached to no party, who enjoyed a large fortune, which she spent in the exercise of the most extensive beneficence.  She made it her business to visit the Jails, and the prisoners who were most necessitous and deserving, she relieved.  Her house was an asylum for the poor; she lived but