bear the marks of Dryden's influence. The Heroick Love is taken from the first book of Homer's Iliad. Granville also followed Dryden in adapting Shakespeare and Granville's The Jew of Venice (1701) was a successful updating of The Merchant of Venice. Perhaps his greatest success was The British Enchanters (1705), a pseudo-operatic extravaganza staged by Thomas Betterton's company. In the opinion of Samuel Johnson, Granville's non-dramatic poetry is slavishly imitative of Edmund Waller. However some of his poetry was popular in its day. Perhaps Granville's most useful act as regards poetry was the encouragement he gave to Alexander Pope, which Pope remembered with gratitude in his Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot. Political life The death of Granville's parents and of his uncle the 1st Earl of Bath in 1701 placed Granville in a position of power which the accession of Queen Anne in 1702 allowed him to employ. With the help of his cousin, John Granville, an influential Tory leader, he was elected Member of Parliament for Fowey at the 1702 English general election. When his elder brother, Sir Bevill Granville, was appointed Governor of Barbados, Granville inherited his office as constable of Pendennis Castle in 1703. In Parliament, he operated in the sphere of Harley, who was an indifferent patron at first. He was absent from the division on the Tack, becoming labelled a ‘Sneaker’. He was returned unopposed for Fowey at the 1705 English general election and with the help of Harley fended of an attempt to remove him from his post at Pendennis Castle. His aspiration to obtain a post led him to support the Court in voting for the Court candidate as Speaker on 25 October 1705, and he again supported the Court on the ‘place clause’ of the regency bill in February 1706. At the 1708 general election, he was returned again for Fowey. The height of his fame during the Godolphin-Marlborough administration came from his spirited defence of Henry Sacheverell in 1710. After the fall of the Godolphin government, Granville became MP for Cornwall at the 1710 British general election, and on 28 September 1710 he was made Secretary at War. In this capacity, he oversaw the passage of important bills on munitions and recruitment. However, his experience in the Tory government was marked by family and legal strife. He was the heir male to the senior line of the Granville family following the death