It would, perhaps, be hard to lay the finger on any one family recorded in the ‘_British Peerage_’ which so long and so largely influenced our political history, in the Georgian era of it, as did that of GRENVILLE. During the century (speaking roundly) which began with the suppression of the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745, and ended with the Repeal of the Corn Laws, GRENVILLES are continually prominent in every important political struggle. The personal influence and (for lack of a plainer word) the characteristic ‘idiosyncrasy’ of individual GRENVILLES notoriously shaped, or materially helped to shape, several measures that have had world-wide results. But perhaps the most curious feature in their political history as a family is this: At almost every great crisis in affairs one GRENVILLE, of ability and prominence, is seen in tolerably active opposition to the rest of the GRENVILLES. In the political history of the man who forms the subject of this brief memoir the family peculiarity, it will be seen, came out saliently. The political GRENVILLES were offshoots of an old stock which, in the days of eld, were richer in gallant soldiers than in peace-loving publicists. The old GRENVILLES dealt many a shrewd swordthrust for England by land and by sea, in the Tudor times, and earlier. The younger branch has been rich in statesmen and rich in scholars. Not a few of them have shone equally and at once in either path of labour. [Sidenote: PARENTAGE AND EARLY LIFE OF THOMAS GRENVILLE.] Thomas GRENVILLE was the second son of the Minister of GEORGE THE THIRD, George GRENVILLE,—himself the second son of Richard GRENVILLE, of Wotton, and of Hester TEMPLE (co-heiress of Richard TEMPLE, Lord Cobham, and herself created Countess TEMPLE in 1749). He was born on the thirty-first of December, 1755, and entered Parliament soon after attaining his majority. In the House of Commons he voted and acted as a follower of Lord ROCKINGHAM and a comrade of Charles FOX, in opposition to the other GRENVILLES and the ‘Grenvillite’ party. Had the famous India Bill of FOX’S ministry been carried into a law, Thomas GRENVILLE, it was understood, would have been the first Governor-General of India under its rule. [Sidenote: HIS SHORT DIPLOMATIC CAREER.] His first entrance into the diplomatic service was made in 1782. His mission was to Paris. Its purpose, to negotiate with Benjamin FRANKLIN a treaty of peace with America. [Sidenote: See above, Book II, Chap. III, page 431.] The circumstances beneath the influence of which it was undertaken I have had occasion to advert to, already, in the notice of Lord SHELBURNE. It is needless to return to them now.