d his poetical labours.

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

Writers commonly derive their reputation from their works; but there are
works which owe their reputation to the character of the writer. The
publick sometimes has its favourites, whom it rewards for one species of
excellence with the honours due to another. From him whom we reverence
for his beneficence we do not willingly withhold the praise of genius; a
man of exalted merit becomes, at once, an accomplished writer, as a
beauty finds no great difficulty in passing for a wit.

Granville was a man illustrious by his birth, and, therefore, attracted
notice: since he is by Pope styled "the polite," he must be supposed
elegant in his manners, and generally loved: he was, in times of contest
and turbulence, steady to his party, and obtained that esteem which is
always conferred upon firmness and consistency. With those advantages
having learned the art of versifying, 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 praise already received will be thought
sufficient; for his works do not show him to have had much comprehension
from nature, or illumination from learning. He seems 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 amusing 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 dutchess of Grafton's lawsuit, after having
rattled awhile with Juno and Pallas, Mars and Alcides, Cassiope, Niobe,
and the Propetides, Hercules, Minos, and Rhadamanthus, at last concludes
its folly with profaneness.

His verses to Mira, which are most frequently mentioned, have little in
them of either art or nature, of the sentiments 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.

His little pieces are seldom either sprightly or elegant, either keen or
weighty. They are trifles written by idleness, and published by vanity.
But his prologues and epilogues have a just claim to praise.

The Progres