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.