Page:A Catalogue of the Royal and Noble Authors of England, Scotland, and Ireland, Volume 4.djvu/217

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LORD LANSDOWN.
171

lege, Cambridge;[1] and in 1679 recited a copy of his own verses to the princess Mary d'Este of Modena, then duchess of York, when she visited the university. In 1680 he was admitted to the degree of master of arts, and left college soon after. At the accession of James the second he addressed the new monarch in three short metrical panegyrics, which were commended by Waller, whose praise animated the young poet to breathe a rapture of acknowledgment,

"In numbers such as Waller's self might use."

[2]

He had early imbibed principles of loyalty, and was with difficulty prevented from taking up arms in defence of his sovereign, both at the time of Monmouth’s rebellion, and at the revolution. On the latter occasion he expressed his manly feelings in a letter to his father, which has been printed by Dr. Anderson.[3]

  1. This appears from a copy of Latin verses on the marriage of the prince of Orange and the princess Mary, in the Cambridge congratulations of that year. Anderson’s Brit. Poets, vol. vii. p. 689.
  2. The late Mr. Hurdis said, with truth and taste, in his Village Curate,

    ——————"Waller's Muse
    In courteous Granville lives, and still we hear
    Of Jove and Juno, Mercury and Mars,
    And all the nauseous mythologic rout."

    Lord Lansdown's reputation was formerly too much cried up, it is now too much sunk.

  3. See also Gen. Dict. art. Granville, and Cibber’s and Johnson's Lives of the Poets.