THE LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON.
 
 LIBRARY
 
 /// ^ /( X Z— - £ /u^e^jcusi <f^ 
 
 THE LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS FKOST, 
 
 AUTHOR OF " THE LIVES OF THE CONJURORS," ETC. 
 
 IConbon : 
 TINSLEY BROTHERS, 8, CATHERINE STREET, W.C. 
 
 1876. 
 
 [All rights reserved.']
 
 CHARLES PICKENS AND EVASS, 
 CRYSTAL PALACE PRESS. 

 
 PREFACE. 
 
 Thomas Lord Lyttelton, the second Baron, 
 commonly mentioned as " the wicked Lord 
 Lyttelton," was, in many respects, one of the 
 most remarkable characters of the century in 
 which he lived. Accomplished, witty, clever, a 
 brilliant orator, a good debater, an amusing letter- 
 writer, the life and delight of every circle he 
 joined, he shone like a meteor in society and 
 politics for a few years, and invested even his last 
 moments with an amount of interest which has 
 seldom, if ever, been excelled. Yet there are 
 few men who have ever occupied public attention 
 in the same degree while living about whom so 
 little is generally known. The majority, even of 
 the educated, have no other impression concerning 
 him, than that he was a gambler and a libertine, 
 who outraged every moral law, and created a 
 sensation in the world when about to leave it, 
 by prophesying the hour of his death, on the 
 authority of a supposed supernatural visitation. 
 
 The causes of the prevalence of this view of 
 the position which Thomas Lyttelton held in the 

 
 vi PREFACE. 
 
 society and politics of his time are easily to be 
 found by those who will take the trouble to seek 
 them. During the greater part of his life, he 
 was estranged from his family, every member 
 of which avoided even the mention of his name. 
 Numerous as are the published letters of his 
 father, he is mentioned in them only once or twice 
 after attaining his majority, and then only in 
 the slightest manner. The biographers of his 
 father scarcely mention him., The memoir- writers 
 of the latter part of the eighteenth century record 
 only the gossip of club and coterie concerning his 
 death. Horace Walpole, who mentions him more 
 frequently than any other diarist or letter-writer 
 of the period, never fails to depreciate him in 
 every possible way, and to strive to convey the 
 impression that he was as contemptible as he 
 was reported to be profligate. 
 
 This persistent endeavour to ignore the man 
 altogether, and to depreciate his character and 
 abilities when that course became impossible, 
 cannot be accounted for by his evil repute as a 
 gambler and a rake. There were worse men in 
 both Houses of Parliament than Thomas Lyttelton. 
 There were some who, with the same faults and 
 without greater abilities, have become celebrated ; 
 there were more who did not possess half his 
 talent and eloquence, and yet were better re- 
 membered. How is it, then, that he has been
 
 PREFACE. vii 
 
 known for nearly a century as " the wicked Lord 
 Lyttelton," and nothing more ? 
 
 It seems to me that the motive for the 
 general desire to ignore or depreciate Thomas 
 Lyttelton may be found in the independence of 
 party of which he was almost an unique example 
 in his day, and which must have rendered him 
 to his contemporaries a political anomaly. Though 
 he held office under a Tory minister, his speeches, 
 equally with his letters, evince a regard for 
 civil and religious freedom greater than was felt 
 by some even of those who sat on the benches 
 of the Opposition. There was no one among 
 the Whigs who spoke more strongly against 
 the North Ministry than he did whenever he 
 believed them to be in the wrong. On one 
 occasion he declared himself as genuine a Whi<r 
 as the Earl of Chatham. " I love Whig- 
 principles," he said, " as much as I despise those 
 of anarchy and republicanism. But if the bare 
 name of Whig is all that is meant, I disclaim it." 
 As that political phenomenon, an independent 
 member of a Ministry — the position claimed to 
 be held by Sir Eobert Peel in 1854, to the 
 disgust of the partisans of the then existing 
 Government, and the amusement of its opponents 
 — he could not fail to be misunderstood, sus- 
 pected, reviled, even if he had been the most 
 virtuous man in the kingdom.
 
 viii PREFACE. 
 
 He was suspected, moreover, of holding the 
 sceptical views of revealed religion which were 
 then beginning to prevail among the educated 
 classes of continental Europe. There is not only 
 no proof that he held such views, but the 
 strongest reasons for believing that, inconsistent 
 with the requirements of a Christian life as his 
 conduct often was, he entertained the most 
 profound respect for the Gospel. He certainly 
 always professed such a respect, and there seems 
 no reason to doubt that he felt it. No one 
 ever accused him of being hypocritical or dis- 
 honest, but he read the works of deistical authors, 
 and that was sufficient for his condemnation. 
 The hands of his pious father and right reverend 
 uncle were held up in horror, and, as the 
 semblance of piety was fashionable in those 
 days, than which none have been marked more 
 strongly with corruption and immorality, society 
 shrank from him as a matter of decorum, if not 
 of loyalty. 
 
 Thomas Lyttelton was not a virtuous man. 
 Virtuous men were scarce in those days, and it 
 cannot be claimed for the subject of this biography 
 that he was one of the comparatively few 
 exceptions to the general rule. But it may 
 fairly be doubted whether his character has not 
 been unfairly blackened. Some of the scandals 
 associated with his name, which have been re-
 
 PREFACE. ix 
 
 peated by successive writers, without inquiry, 
 have proved, on investigation, to have no other 
 foundation to rest upon than the idlest rumour. 
 Others have been so variously related by different 
 narrators as to sufficiently testify, by their 
 variations, to their mvthical character. It was 
 the common belief of that generation that a 
 man or woman who was sceptical on the subject 
 of revealed religion must necessarily be abandoned 
 to every kind of wickedness, and such scepticism 
 being unfairly attributed to Thomas Lyttelton, 
 he became the dog with an ill name, whom it 
 was an evidence of piety and respectability to 
 abuse. 
 
 In gathering materials for this biography 
 it was impossible to disregard the collection of 
 letters edited by William Combe, author of 
 the amusing poetical record of the " Travels and 
 Adventures of Dr. Syntax." That industrious 
 litterateur was a schoolfellow of Thomas Lyttel- 
 ton, at Eton. Having dissipated a good fortune 
 by gambling, he adopted literature as a profes- 
 sion, and worked indefatigably for many years 
 at compiling, editing, translating, and contri- 
 buting letters and articles upon almost every topic 
 to newspapers and magazines. Of his com- 
 paratively few original works, "Dr. Syntax" 
 is the only one which has survived him. He 
 seems to have been always at the beck of the
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 booksellers — equally ready to write a pamphlet, 
 which should bear on its title-page the name 
 of a peer or M.P., to supply a sermon for a 
 preacher with more money than brains, or to 
 produce a biography for publication on the day 
 after the decease of its subject. 
 
 Shortly after the death of Thomas Lyttelton 
 a volume of letters appeared, with the title — 
 " Letters of the late Lord Lyttelton." The exe- 
 cutors of the deceased nobleman at once pro- 
 nounced them to be forgeries, but no grounds 
 were assigned by them for that statement, which 
 does not appear to have received much credit, 
 since the sale of the book was sufficient to 
 induce the publishers to issue a second volume 
 two years afterwards. How, indeed, could his 
 executors, only one of whom had been on in- 
 timate terms with him, be in a position to be 
 cognisant of every letter he had ever written ? 
 The Lyttelton family may have had good reasons 
 for desiring the suppression of the correspon- 
 dence ; but they were the last persons likely to 
 know much about the matter of which they 
 pretended to judge. They condemned as spurious, 
 with equal confidence, many of the poems pub- 
 lished in 1780, as the works of the deceased 
 nobleman, though the volume was edited by his 
 friend Roberts, who was one of his executors, and 
 to whom he bequeathed all his MSS. at his death.
 
 t/ 7 ^66- 
 
 
 r ii J 
 
 (yi^i^C^Uj? 
 
 . 
 
 PREFACE. ii 
 
 I W 
 
 The letters were alleged by the Lyttelton 
 family to have been concocted, as a literary 
 speculation, by William Combe. It will be shown, 
 however, that there are matters of family interest 
 mentioned in them which Combe could not have 
 known. There is no doubt that Combe edited 
 both volumes, and it has been conjectured,* with- 
 out any show of reason, that he may have made 
 alterations and additions : the hypothesis is purely 
 gratuitous. Nicholt treated the letters as genuine ; 
 and the author of the article in the Quarterly, 
 just alluded to, was of the same opinion. 
 
 The late John Camden Hotten J claimed them, 
 however, as an undoubted production of Combe's, 
 on the authority of an article by Mr. Eobert 
 Cole,§ in which a list of Combe's works appeared, 
 the original of which was stated to be in his own 
 handwriting, and in the possession of the writer 
 of the article. It appears that Ackermann, the 
 publisher, for whom Combe sometimes did literary 
 work, had asked the veteran for a complete list 
 of his productions ; and the letter containing the 
 request (dated eleven days before Combe's death), 
 
 *■ Quarterly Review, December, 1851 : art. "Junius." 
 t " Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century." 
 1 Memoir of Combe, prefixed to Hotten's edition of " Dr. 
 
 Syntax," 1868. 
 
 § Gentleman's Magazine, May, 1852.
 
 xii PREFACE. 
 
 with the list and a duplicate, Avere found at the 
 latter's lodging in Lambeth. In this list there 
 certainly appears this entry : " Lord Lyttelton's 
 Letters. 2 vols, duod." This, in the opinion of 
 John Camden Hotten, was conclusive evidence 
 that the letters were not the genuine corre- 
 spondence of Thomas Lyttelton, but the spurious 
 productions of the clever William Combe. 
 
 Unfortunately for this characteristically cool 
 and reckless assumption, the list includes also 
 Anderson's " History of Commerce," Foote's " Life 
 of Murphy," Anderson's " History of the Embassy 
 to China," Anderson's " History of the Campaign 
 in Egypt," Sir Alexander Mackenzie's " Journey 
 across North America," and the same traveller's 
 " Voyage to South America," — works which he 
 merely revised for republication, or gave literary 
 assistance in ! John Camden Hotten has gone 
 where he cannot write letters to explain his reasons 
 for believing that Combe wrote the letters published 
 as Lord Lyttelton's, though he certainly did not 
 write the other works just mentioned, the evidence 
 in both cases beino; the same : but the readers 
 of the following biography will have no difficulty 
 in forming a sound judgment upon the question. 
 
 Little more value can be attached to the 
 documentary evidence on the subject with which 
 I have been favoured, for the purpose of this 
 work, by the present Lord Lyttelton than to the
 
 PREFACE. xiii 
 
 list of Combe's " works " given to the world by 
 Mr. Robert Cole. The evidence to which I allude 
 is neither more nor less than the confession of 
 William Combe himself that he was the author 
 of the letters attributed to Thomas Lord Lyttelton; 
 and it was made very circumstantially to Major 
 Cockburn, and communicated by that gentleman 
 to Mr. ^ Lyttelton, of Wimbledon Park, Surrey, 
 in the following letter : — 
 
 "Woolwich, May 19th, 1818. 
 
 " Dear Sir, — When I had the pleasure of 
 meeting you at the theatre, you expressed a 
 wish to know the particulars of a conversation 
 that took place between Mr. Combe and myself, 
 relating to Lord Lyttelton. I have seen Mr. C. 
 on this subject, and now send you what he said, 
 word for word. 
 
 "'At the German Spa, about the year 1782, 
 a Mrs. H., a sort of literary lady, and whom I 
 had known for some years, had brought from 
 England Lord L.'s poems, then lately published, 
 as I understood by Miles Peter Andrews, a gun- 
 powder gentleman, whom that nobleman brought 
 into Parliament for Bewdley. Mrs. H., who was 
 a contemporary with me in the great and fashion- 
 able world, when I* moved in that sphere, and knew 
 some little circumstances that took place between 
 
 i^tvV
 
 xiv PREFACE. 
 
 Lord (when Mr.) L. and myself, which made no 
 common noise at the period, as an inducement 
 for me to breakfast with her, said she would add 
 a plate of jeux cV esprit that must very much 
 interest me. I went, and beheld the poems, in 
 the form of a quarto pamphlet. They were all 
 of them familiar acquaintances of mine that used 
 to occupy a portfolio in the sanctum sanctorum — 
 God forgive me ! — in Curzon Street, where the 
 old lord lived above, and his son and heir lived 
 below. 
 
 " ' My recollection at this moment would enable 
 me to give a very curious comparative history 
 of those two apartments, and of the two distinct 
 personages who occupied them ; for I was equally 
 well received by both, and I remember, to my 
 no small satisfaction, that, difficult as the task 
 might be, I did not play the hypocrite with 
 either. Oh, what two conversations I could re- 
 peat, on two successive mornings, between the 
 noble father, the right reverend uncle of Carlisle, 
 the Reverend Dr. De Salis, and myself; and, on 
 the following day, between the noble son — a 
 sneaking, sycophantic, but learned Scotchman, — 
 Dr. Baylis, a Worcestershire physician trans- 
 planted to London — a gentleman of genius, known 
 by the name of Mad Henley — and the self-same 
 expletive, which L. used to honour with three 
 titles, and at this distance of time they may be
 
 PREFACE. xv 
 
 mentioned without vanity — the immovable, the 
 fascinating, and polished C. And on which three 
 denominations, as you have caused me to touch 
 the spring of a secret drawer in the cabinet of 
 my memory, which has not been examined for 
 so many years, I now find sufficient materials 
 to form a volume. 
 
 " ' This episode you will excuse, but it is con- 
 nected most intimately in my mind with the 
 poems which I left upon Mrs. H.'s breakfast-table 
 at Spa, whither I must beg leave to reconduct 
 you. I read them aloud, and to my surprise found 
 two of my own trifles among them. Compliments 
 passed, and it was wished that some more from 
 the same mind had been added. In short, the 
 conversation terminated in my engaging to do 
 something a la Lyttelton that might be received 
 as his. I accordingly turned my thoughts to 
 " Dialogues of the Dead." He, I knew, had 
 written some to ridicule those of his father* and 
 Mrs. Montagu. I remember three of them, and 
 have them somewhere among my immense cargo 
 of papers, the waste of between fifty and sixty 
 years. They were, if I recollect right, replete 
 with wit, spirit, and blasphemy, and patriotism. 
 
 * This accusation of Combe's is strenuously repelled in one 
 of the letters which he -wished Major Cockburn to believe were 
 written by himself.
 
 svi PREFACE. 
 
 The parties were King David of Israel and Caesar 
 Borgia, the Saviour of the world and Socrates, 
 Epaminondas and General Wolfe. 
 
 " ' However, I changed my plan, for very 
 evident reasons, and began a series of letters, 
 one or more of which were thought to form an 
 amusing article at Mrs. H.'s breakfast-table, till 
 the materials of the first volume were completed. 
 She requested the manuscripts, and I presented 
 them to her. She took them to England, 
 where they became an object of curiosity in her 
 circle. On her persuasion, I consented to their 
 publication. The public received them with 
 great avidity, when the family thought proper 
 to advertise them in the public papers as an 
 imposition, which they certainly were ; but, as 
 they were not discreditable to his character, 
 they were rather to blame to consider the writer 
 of them, whom they did not know, in the view 
 in which they thought proper to represent, or 
 rather misrepresent him. I accordingly, by a 
 counter advertisement, dated Edinburgh, but 
 written at Brussels, insisted upon their origi- 
 nality, and promised another volume, which I 
 wrote in the capital of Brabant. And here the 
 work closed. Though the bookseller offered me 
 200 guineas, which he afterwards advanced to 
 300, for another volume, and offered 500 if I
 
 PREFACE. xvii 
 
 would make it two, and I had materials for 
 three or four, with many curious histories, which 
 I have not yet forgotten ; but I had a respect 
 for the family, which was fruitful in virtues, 
 and whose weaknesses — for there was a little 
 sprinkle of them — were such as are generally 
 associated with worthy qualities. 
 
 " ' It is curious enough that the old Lady 
 Lyttelton, the widow of the first lord — a fine, 
 obstinate, clever woman — used to abuse the 
 family to the last hour of her life, and to that 
 period I knew her, for denying the authenticity 
 of these letters ; and this she has done to me 
 fifty times. The last summer she passed at her 
 cottage at Ripley, in Surrey, at her particular 
 request, I read the letters through to her. 
 Her observations, as you may suppose, which 
 were very frequent, very angry, very severe, 
 and not without that wit which she eminently 
 possessed, were very amusing to me ; and the 
 Spanish Minister, Del Campo, who passed a couple 
 of days there during this lecture, and who knew 
 the author, made the sofa upon which he lay 
 shake from his occasional bursts of laughter, and 
 did not escape frequent sallies of her lively 
 reproach for so treating the beautiful compositions, 
 as she was pleased . to call them, of her son, as 
 she was also pleased to call him, as she declared 
 
 
 
 U*c 
 
 A
 
 xviii PREFACE. 
 
 that the concentrated genius of Spain, and all 
 the doctors of Salamanca, and the Archbishop 
 of Toledo at their head, could not produce any- 
 thing like them/ 
 
 " I have finished this curious account, and 
 have only one remark to make. Mr. C. wished 
 to know, previous to his relating it, whether I 
 wanted it for publication. I told him certainly 
 not ; I only wished to mention it to a friend. 
 To this he had no objection. — I remain, dear sir, 
 your obedient servant, 
 
 "J. COCKBURN." 
 
 I have given this story of Combe's in all 
 its minuteness of detail as the best means of 
 enabling my readers to form a sound judgment 
 of it, and of the man by whom it was told. The 
 inordinate vanity and coxcombry of his character 
 are revealed in every sentence, and it is impos- 
 sible to avoid the conclusion that he told the 
 story (first taking the precaution to ascertain that 
 it was not to receive publicity,) because his 
 vanity was tickled in a greater degree by being 
 thought the author of the letters than by being 
 regarded as merely their editor. If he had been 
 the forger and liar he confesses himself to have 
 been, would he have revelled, as he evidently 
 did, in all the details of the story, in the
 
 PREFACE. xix 
 
 presence of an honourable man ? Such an 
 exhibition can be reconciled with the theory that 
 the letters were spurious only by the supposition 
 that Combe had fallen so low at this time as to 
 be utterly insensible to shame. But on this 
 hypothesis what credit is due to his confession ? 
 
 It is a remarkable circumstance, not to be 
 overlooked in forming a judgment on this ques- 
 tion, though it seems to have escaped the notice 
 of everyone who has maintained the spuriousness 
 of the letters, that it might have been solved as 
 soon as it was raised by the persons to whom 
 the letters were addressed. The names of some 
 of them are discoverable even now, and at the 
 time of their publication the friends of Thomas 
 Lord Lyttelton could have had no difficulty in 
 deciding the point by declaring their knowledge, 
 or otherwise, of the letters. They did not do so, 
 however, and the acceptance of the letters was all 
 but universal. In after years, even the Lyttelton 
 family did not seek to disturb the verdict by pub- 
 lishing the confession of Combe, which is now 
 given to the world for the first time. 
 
 All the circumstances considered, I incline to 
 the view that the letters were the genuine epistles 
 of Thomas Lord Lyttelton, and I am strengthened 
 in my belief by the strong similarity of their tone 
 and style to those of the autograph letters of
 
 XX 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 that nobleman with which I have been favoured 
 by the present Lord Lyttelton, and which are 
 scattered through the following pages. Seventy 
 years having elapsed since the last edition of 
 the letters edited by Combe was published, it is 
 now a scarce book, and the copy in my posses- 
 sion is the only one which has ever come under 
 my notice, with the exception of the copy in 
 the library of the British Museum. I have drawn 
 upon it, therefore, for many illustrations of Thomas 
 Lyttelton's life and character, which I believe my 
 readers will not be sorry to have. I have not 
 been able, in every instance, to ascertain the 
 precise date, or the person to whom the letter 
 was addressed. In every instance in which I 
 have supplied a name left blank by Combe, I 
 have enclosed it between brackets. 
 
 T. FROST. 
 
 Long Ditton, January, 1876.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Birth and Parentage — Education — Early Promise of future Fame 
 — Journey through Scotland with his Father — His Proficiency 
 in Drawing and Painting — Encomiums of Mrs. Montagu — His 
 Admiration of Milton's Poetry — Development of the Family 
 Foible — Flattering Opinions of his Abilities formed by his 
 Father and Earl Temple — Dr. Barnard compares him with 
 Charles James Fox 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Thomas Lyttelton's Engagement with Miss Warburton — His Tour 
 through France and Italy— John Darner — Thomas Lyttelton's 
 Duels at Bologna — Rupture of the Matrimonial Treaty — Pro- 
 longation of the Tour — Return to England — Masque at Stowe 
 — Returned to Parliament for Bewdley ..... 10 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Politics of the Period — Men of the Commons — The Damers — 
 George Durant — Petition against Lyttelton's Return — His 
 Maiden Speech — Complimented by Wellbore Ellis — Reconcilia- 
 tion with his Family — Unseated — " Junius " — Hypothesis 
 that Lyttelton was the Author of the Famous Letters — ■ 
 Second Continental Tour — Quarrel with George Ayscough — 
 Return to England 36 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Overtures for Domestic Reconciliation — Lord Chatham congratu- 
 lates Lord Lyttelton on" his Son's Return — Lord Lyttelton's 
 Reply — Thomas Lyttelton's Letters to his Friends — The
 
 XX11 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Miseries of having nothing to do — Regret at the Loss of his 
 Seat in Parliament — "Dialogues of the Dead" — His own Version 
 of the Causes of his Disgrace — Claude Anet— Story of the 
 Quaker and his Dog — Bishop Lyttelton and the French Horn- 
 blowers — Comparison with Mirabeau 61 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Morals of the Eighteenth Century — Gambling and Gallantry — 
 Mania for Card-playing and Betting — Singular Wagers — 
 Lyttelton's Wager with Blake — Elopement of Sally Harris 
 with Lyttelton — Letter about George Ayscough — John 
 Courtney — Mrs. Dawson — Letter on the Passions — Mrs. Peach 
 — Lyttelton's Account of his Courtship and Marriage — Letters 
 to his Father on the Subject — Anecdote of Lord Lyttelton — 
 Letter from Lord Chatham to Lord Lyttelton — Lord Lyttelton's 
 Reply — A Contrast 88 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Separation — Journey to Paris — Death of Lord Lyttelton — Letter 
 on the Event — Return to England — Letter of Condolence from 
 the Earl of Chatham — Correspondence with Earl Temple — 
 Letters on his New Position — Hopes of Moral Amendment — 
 Dissatisfaction with Hagley — Letter to Sir Richard Lyttelton 
 — Political Views — The American Troubles — His Estimate of 
 Public Men — Hopes and Aims for the Future .... 116 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Parliamentary Session of 1774 — Appeal to the Lords in Beckett v. 
 Donaldson — Speech on Literary ProjDerty — Letter to Earl 
 Temple — Speech on the Booksellers' Copyright Bill — Dedication 
 of his Father's Works to him by George Ayscough — Letter on 
 the Subject — Thoughts about Maids of Honour — Speech on 
 the Government of Quebec Bill — Meeting of the New Parlia- 
 ment — Debate on the Address — Speech on the American 
 Question — Secrecy of the Lords' Debates — Motion on the Sub- 
 ject — Rejection of the Motion — Successful Second Attempt — 
 Project of Selling or Leasing Hagley 137
 
 CONTENTS. xxiii 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Lord Lyttelton's Speech on the Earl of Chatham's Proposal to with- 
 draw the Troops from Boston — Speech on the Provisional Bill 
 for the Settlement of the American Difficulty — Strictures on 
 Lord Camden — Complaints of the Duke of Richmond and the 
 Duke of Manchester — Lord Lyttelton's Exculpation — Speech 
 on the Administration of the Poor Law — Debate on the 
 Licensing of the Manchester Theatre — Speech on the Quebec 
 Act— Strictures of Horace Walpole — Visit to Bristol — Parson 
 Adams — Story of a Lost Sermon— The Lyttelton Pudding and 
 the Parson's Cradle — Scheme for relieving Hagley of the 
 Jointures of Lady Lyttelton and the Dowager . . . .157 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Opening of the Parliamentary Session of 1775-76— Debate on the 
 Address — Speech of Lord Lyttelton — Speech on the Intro- 
 duction of Foreign Troops without the Consent of Parliament 
 — Change of Relations with the Ministry — Appointment as 
 Chief Justice in Eyre, north of the Trent, and a Privy Coun- 
 cillor — Letter on his Appointment — Opposition to the Duke of 
 Grafton's Motion for Return of Troops in America — Defence 
 of the Prohibitory Bill — Vindication of his Conduct against the 
 Duke of Richmond — Calumnies of Horace Walpole — Trial of 
 the Duchess of Kingston 201 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Speech on the Proposal of the Duke of Richmond to Countermand 
 the March of the German Troops— Debate on the Duke of 
 Grafton's Motion for Conciliatory Measures — Lord Lyttelton's 
 Speech — Letter on the American Question — Visit to the 
 "Justitia" hulk — Anecdote of David Hume — Letter on his 
 Political Position— Lord Lyttelton's Double Life — His Opinion 
 of Literary Ladies — Mrs. Montagu and Miss Carter — Gambling 
 Debts of the Darners and the Foleys — Suicide of John Darner 
 
 Letters of Horace Walpole, the Earl of Carlisle, and Lord 
 
 Lyttelton on the Subject 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 Lord Lyttelton's Moral Amendment — Testimony of his Friends — 
 His Thoughts on Scepticism and Revealed Religion — Satirical 
 Reflections on Credulity and Incredulity — Stormy Debate on 
 
 231
 
 XXIV 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PiGE 
 
 the Earl of Chatham's Motion against the War — Lord Lyttel- 
 ton's Profession of Whig Principles — Letter to Lord Westcote 
 — Opposition to I'aising Troops without Consent of Parliament — 
 Speech on the State of the Country — Defence of the Con- 
 ciliatory Bills — Speech on the Dnke of Eichmond's Proposal 
 to withdraw the Troops from America — Strictures on the Earl 
 of Sandwich — Death of the Earl of Chatham — Letter on the 
 Subject — Speech on the Annuity Bill ..... 2G6* 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Lord Lyttelton's Occupations at Hagley — Yiews on the Game Laws 
 — Speech on the American War' — The Earl of Bristol's Motion 
 against the Earl of Sandwich — Lord Lyttelton's Speech — His 
 Political Status in 1779 — Belations with the Earl of Shelburne 
 — Pitt Place — Beasons for preferring it to Hagley — Discussion 
 on the Locality of the Soul, and the End of the World — Death 
 of George Ayscough — Letter on the State of Public Affairs 
 — Visit to Ireland — The Irish Volunteers — Agitation in Ireland 
 for Free Trade 294 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Lord Lyttelton's Secession from the Ministerial Banks — Great 
 Speech on the Irish Question — Opinions of the Whig and Tory 
 Journals- — Lord Sandwich and Miss Bay — Understanding be- 
 t ween Lord Lyttelton and the Earl of Shelburne — More 
 Calumnies of Horace Walpole — Lord Lyttelton's Famous 
 Dream — Various Versions of the Story — New Light on it from 
 the Family Archives at Hagley Hall — The Dowager Lady 
 Lyttelton's Picture — True Circumstances of Lord Lyttelton's 
 Sudden Death— His Will— Conclusion 328
 
 THE LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 THOMAS LOED LYTTELTON. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Birth and Parentage— Education— Early Promise of future Fame 
 —Journey through Scotland with his Father— His proficiency 
 in Drawing and Painting— Encomiums of Mrs. Montagu— 
 His Admiration of Milton's Poetry— Development of the 
 Family Foible— Flattering Opinions of his Abilities formed 
 by his Father and Earl Temple— Dr. Barnard compares him 
 with Charles James Fox. 
 
 Thomas Lyttelton, the second Baron of that 
 name, was bom on the 30th of January, 1744. 
 His father was the son of Sir Thomas Lyttelton, of 
 Hagley, in Worcestershire ; and his mother, whom 
 Sir George Lyttelton married in 1741, was Lucy 
 Fortescue, a Devonshire lady, whose untimely 
 death, five years after marriage, deprived the hope 
 of the family of maternal care during the years 
 when he most needed it, and afforded her husband 
 a theme for the poetical effusion by which he is 
 best known to the present generation of readers. 
 Young Lyttelton gave promise, at a very
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 / 
 
 early age, of the intellectual ability displayed by 
 so many of his family, and was in due time sent 
 to Eton, where his conduct seems to have been 
 as free from blame as his progress in his studies 
 was remarkable. His father wrote in 1758, when 
 Thomas was fourteen years of age, of " the promise 
 afforded by his opening talents ;" and in the fol- 
 lowing year, when the lad accompanied his father 
 in a tour through Scotland, as far as Inverary, 
 Lord Lyttelton — he had been raised to the peerage 
 during the Pelham Administration for his oppo- 
 sition to Sir Robert Walpole — wrote to his brother 
 "William : " Much the greatest pleasure I had 
 in my tour was from the company of my son, 
 and from the approbation (I might say admiration) 
 which his figure, behaviour, and parts drew from 
 all sorts of people wherever he went. Indeed, his 
 mother""" has given him her don de plaire, and 
 he joins to an excellent understanding the best 
 of hearts, and more discretion and judgment than 
 ever I observed in any young man except you." 
 
 During this Scottish tour young Lyttelton pro- 
 duced some views of the beautiful scenery through 
 which he passed, which, though it is probable 
 that some allowance must be made for partiality 
 
 *Lord Lyttelton had married, in 1749, Elizabeth, daughter 
 of Sir Eobert Rich. The union was unfortunate, and resulted in 
 separation. 

 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 
 
 on the part of his critics, must have been above 
 
 the average excellence of amateur productions, 
 
 to have evoked such praise as was awarded them 
 
 by Mrs. Montagu, in a letter to his father. 
 
 " Mr. Lyttelton," says the lady, " is a charming 
 
 painter. His views of Scotland appear as the / £ 
 
 scenes of Salvator Eosa would do, were they / Vt ,, us*% 
 
 copied by Claude, whose sweet and lovely imagina- A+»c*^fl 
 
 tion would throw fine colours over the darkest 
 
 parts, and give grace to the rudest objects. I 
 
 design at some time to visit Scotland, but I do 
 
 not expect more pleasure from Nature's pencil 
 
 than I have had from his pen. I can trust with 
 
 equal confidence and delight to all you say of 
 
 him. Pray God preserve you to guide him, and 
 
 preserve him to make you happy." 
 
 It is not surprising to find, combined with 
 the admiration of Nature which is essential to 
 the landscape artist, a love of the grandest con- 
 ceptions of the poet ; but it must surprise those 
 who regard Thomas Lyttelton as a mere scape- 
 grace, remarkable only for his profligacy and the 
 strange circumstances that attended his death, to 
 learn that his favourite poet was Milton. " Of 
 all the poets that have graced ancient times, or 
 delighted the latter ages," he says, in a letter to 
 a friend, "Milton is my favourite. I think him 
 superior to every other, and the writer of all
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 others the best calculated to elevate the mind, 
 to form a nobleness of taste, and to teach a 
 bold, commanding, energetic language. I read 
 him with delight as soon as I could read at all ; 
 and I remember, in my father's words, I gave 
 the first token of premature abilities in the 
 perusal of the ' Paradise Lost.' I was quite a 
 boy when, in reading that poem, I was so forcibly 
 struck with a passage, that I laid down the book 
 with some violence on the table, and took a 
 hasty turn to the other end of the room. Upon 
 explaining the cause of this emotion to my father, 
 he clasped me in his arms, smothered me with 
 embraces, and immediately wrote letters to all 
 his family and friends, to inform them of the 
 wonderful foreboding I had given of future genius. 
 Your curiosity may naturally expect to be gratified 
 with the passage in question ; I quote it, there- 
 fore, for your reflection and amusement : 
 
 " 'He spoke ; and, to confirm his words, out flew 
 Millions of flaming swords, drawn from the thighs 
 Of mighty Cherubim : the sudden blaze 
 Far round illumin'd Hell ! ' " 
 
 Too much reason is afforded by the letters of 
 his father, of Mrs. Montagu, and others, for the 
 belief that the praises which his budding talents 
 called forth were too lavishly and indiscriminately 
 awarded to be good for the mental and moral
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 
 
 health of their recipient. In after-life he saw the 
 mistake that had been made, and complained of 
 it with the bitterness that pervades many of the 
 letters of the period when he roused himself for 
 a time from the influence of the Circean draughts 
 of which he had so deeply drank. " I have been," 
 he said, " the victim of vanity, and the sacrifice 
 of me was begun before I could form a judgment 
 of the passion." The friend to whom this remark 
 was made wishing for its explanation, he wrote 
 a letter, which will be further quoted in another 
 chapter, and from which only as much need be 
 given here as relates to the defects of his early 
 training. 
 
 " You will," he says, " I believe, agree with 
 me that vanity is the foible of my family. Every 
 individual has a share of it for himself, and for 
 the rest. They are all equally vain of them- 
 selves and of one another. It is not, however, 
 an unamiable vanity : it makes them happy, 
 though it may sometimes render them ridiculous ; 
 and it never did an injury to anyone but to 
 me. I have every reason to load it with execra- 
 tion, and to curse the hour when this passion 
 was concentrated to myself. Being the only boy, 
 and hope of the family, and having such an 
 hereditary and collateral right to genius, talents, 
 and virtue (for this was the language held by
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 certain persons at that time), my earliest prattle 
 was the subject of continual admiration. As I 
 increased in years, I was encouraged in boldness, 
 which partial fancy called manly confidence ; while 
 sallies of impertinence, for which I should have 
 been scourged, were fondly considered as marks 
 of an astonishing prematurity of abilities. As 
 it happened, Nature had not been a niggard to 
 me. It is true she has given me talents, but 
 accompanied them with dispositions which de- 
 manded no common repressure and restraint, in- 
 stead of liberty and encouragement. But this 
 vanity had blinded the eyes, not only of my 
 relations, but also of their intimate connections ; 
 and, I suppose, such an hot-bed of flattery was 
 never before used to spoil a mind, and to choke 
 it with bad qualities, as was applied to mine. 
 The late Lord Bath, Mrs. Montagu, and many 
 others, have been guilty of administering fuel to 
 the flame, and joined in the family incense to 
 such an idol as myself. Thus was I nursed into 
 a very early state of audacity ; and being able, 
 almost at all times, to get the laugh against a 
 father, or an uncle, I was not backward in giving 
 such impertinent specimens of my ability. This 
 is the history of that impudence which has been 
 my bane, gave to my excesses such peculiar accom- 
 paniments, and caused those who would not have
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 
 
 hesitated to commit the offence loudly to condemn 
 the mode of its commission in me." 
 
 One specimen of the praise that Lord Lyttelton 
 lavished upon his son has been given. That he 
 wrote of him to Mrs. Montagu in terms equally 
 eulogistic may be gathered from a letter from 
 that lady to his lordship, written in August, 1759, 
 in which she says : " Your lordship's commenda- 
 tions of Mr. Lyttelton not only make me happy, 
 but make me vain. He is every day going on 
 to complete all I have wished and predicted on 
 this subject." Earl Temple joined in the chorus 
 of praise, as we learn from a letter addressed in 
 after years to its object, in which he says : " I 
 have in very early days acknowledged and done 
 justice to your talents."'" Dr. Barnard, the head- 
 master at Eton, often compared Thomas Lyttelton 
 with Charles James Fox, to the advantage of the 
 former ; and though it must be remembered that 
 young Lyttelton was five years the senior of the 
 future Prime Minister of England, it is probable 
 that Dr. Barnard was not unmindful of the differ- 
 ence of age, and had in his mind, when making 
 the comparison long after both men had left Eton, 
 the intellectual powers which they had respectively 
 displayed at the same age. The master's estimate 
 
 * Correspondence of the Earl of Chatham, vol. iv., p. 222.
 
 8 THE LIFE OF 
 
 has been thought partial. But it is impossible to 
 compare the oratorical efforts and few literary 
 productions of both men without feeling that the 
 intellectual superiority assigned to Lyttelton was 
 a reality, and that he might, had he attained 
 the same years as Fox, have achieved greater 
 distinctions both in literature and in politics. At 
 Eton, and at the same age, there was no reason 
 to anticipate for Fox a degree of fame and dis- 
 tinction higher than might be won by Lyttelton. 
 
 But for the injudicious training that developed 
 the foibles that should have been counteracted, 
 and the uncliscriminating flattery that was lavished 
 upon him by all with whom he came in contact, 
 the youth of Thomas Lyttelton would have been 
 passed under favourable auspices. His father was 
 honoured with the friendship of the Prince of 
 Wales and the leading men of the day; he 
 was a Privy Councillor, a Lord of the Treasury, 
 and, later, Chancellor of the Exchequer. The 
 future peer enjoyed the advantage of social in- 
 tercourse with most of those who had achieved 
 political or literary distinction, his hither blending 
 both characters, and being a patron of literary 
 men, as well as himself a contributor to the litera- 
 ture of the period. It was Lord Lyttelton who. 
 obtained for Thomson his pension, and for Fielding 
 his appointment as a magistrate ; he was the first
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 
 
 to encourage the poetical efforts of Mickle, who 
 came to London when Thomas Lyttelton was 
 twenty years of age, and he was a fellow-labourer 
 with Horace Walpolc, Soame Jenyns, the Earl of 
 Chesterfield, and other remarkable men, in the 
 columns of the World. 
 
 " Coventry dined yesterday at Claremont," says 
 George James Williams — commonly called Gilly 
 Williams- — in a letter to George Selwyn, written 
 in the summer of 1763, when Thomas Lyttelton 
 was in his twentieth year. " The dinner consisted 
 of Lord Spencer, the Rockinghams, little Villiers, 
 Lord Lyttelton and his son, General Mostyn, and 
 his lordship." Claremont was at that time the 
 seat of the first Duke of Newcastle. This is the 
 earliest mention of Thomas Lyttelton in the letters 
 and memoirs of the period, subsequent to the date 
 of the eulogies of Mrs. Montagu. He was the 
 youngest of the party at Claremont, and may be 
 excused if he felt a sense of rising importance in 
 the world upon which he was preparing to enter, 
 with all the eclat derivable from his father's social 
 and political position and associations. As yet he 
 viewed life through the " ff olden exhalations of the 
 dawn," and everything was to his youthful vision 
 beautiful and bright. A brilliant future was antici- 
 pated for him by all, his friends ; and the blight and 
 chill of the future were as yet in the thoughts of none.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Thomas Lyttelton's Engagement with Miss Warburton — His 
 Tour through France and Italy — John Darner — Thomas 
 Lyttelton's Duels at Bologna — Rupture of the Matrimonial 
 Treaty — Prolongation of the Tour — Return to England — 
 Masque at Stowe — Returned to Parliament for Bewdley. 
 
 About the time of the dinner at Claremont, a 
 matrimonial project was planned by the Lyttelton 
 family for its hope, the young heir of Hagley, 
 and acceded to by him with a readiness which 
 the beauty and amiability of the young lady of 
 their choice sufficiently explains. 
 
 Miss Warburton, the only daughter of General 
 Warburton, belonged to a good family, and pos- 
 sessed both great personal attractions and an ex- 
 cellent disposition, as well as a considerable fortune ; 
 and young Lyttelton, enraptured with her beauty, 
 and viewing life through the rose-coloured glasses 
 of youth, anticipated with eagerness the felicity 
 which seemed to be in store for him. Letters are 
 extant in which he speaks of Miss Warburton in the 
 highest terms, and looks forward to their union 
 with the most passionate devotion ; and it is not
 
 LIFE OF THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 11 
 
 improbable that, if this dream of his youth had 
 been realised, he would have lived in the memory 
 of posterity, not as " the wicked Lord Lyttelton," 
 but as one of the greatest statesmen of the 
 eighteenth century. 
 
 But, as he was at this time only nineteen 
 years of age, and no marriage-settlement could be 
 made until he had attained his majority, it was 
 suggested by Sir Richard Lyttelton, one of his 
 uncles, that he should pass the intervening time 
 in travelling on the Continent. It does not seem 
 the course best calculated to give steadiness to 
 the character of a young man, who, from hints 
 which he has given in letters written in after 
 life, seems already to have shown symptoms of 
 moral aberration, or to ensure the future happiness 
 of the young persons whom it was thought desir- 
 able to unite in marriage, that they should not see 
 each other during the period between betrothment 
 and union, and that the interval should be passed by 
 him in rambling with companions of his own age 
 and dispositions from one foreign capital to another, 
 and joining in the pleasures and dissipations of 
 all. The admonition of Lord Burghley was thrown 
 away upon Lord Lyttelton, and fashion and con- 
 ventionality held their sway as potently as with 
 inferior minds. 
 
 Thomas Lyttelton saw, later in life, the grievous
 
 12 THE LIFE OF 
 
 mistake that was committed by his elders, and 
 has placed on record his view of the matter in 
 the letter quoted in the preceding chapter, and 
 to which I now return. " When I drew towards 
 manhood," he says, " it will be sufficient to say 
 that I began to have some glimmering of the 
 family weakness. However, I was still young, 
 dependence was a considerable restraint, and I 
 had not acquired that subsequent knowledge of 
 the world which changed my notions of paternal 
 authority. I was, therefore, without much diffi- 
 culty brought to consent to the design of giving 
 solidity to my character, and preserving me from 
 public contagion by marriage. A rich and amiable 
 young lady was chosen to the happy and honour- 
 able task of securing so much virtue as mine, 
 to correct the natural exuberance of youthful in- 
 experience, and to shape me into that perfection 
 of character which was to verify the dreams of my 
 visionary relations. 
 
 " I must own that the lady was both amiable 
 and handsome, but cold as an anchorite; and, 
 though formed to be the best wife in the world 
 to a good husband, was by no means calculated 
 to reclaim a bad one. But, to complete the sen- 
 sible and well-digested plan, in which so many 
 wise heads were concerned, it was determined for 
 me to make the tour of Europe previous to my
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 13 
 
 marriage, in order to perfectionate my matrimonial 
 qualifications ; and the lovely idea of the fair 
 maid I left behind was presented to me as pos- 
 sessing a talismanic power to preserve me from 
 seduction. But this was not all. For the better 
 enabling me to make a j)roper and becoming 
 appearance, or, in other words, to give me every 
 means of gratification, the family purse was 
 lavishly held, forth ; I was left almost without 
 control in point of expense, and every method 
 pursued to make me return the very reverse of 
 what expectation had painted me." 
 
 The expenses of the Continental tour were 
 borne by Sir Richard Lyttelton, a circumstance 
 which explains the allusion to " the family purse." 
 It may be remarked here that this circumstance 
 was not likely to be known beyond the family lV -^ 
 
 circle, and its mention goes far to prove the genu- 
 ineness of the letters which the Lytteltons strove to 
 
 \j^ 
 
 6** 
 
 persuade the world were the spurious concoctions ^ 
 
 of William Combe, the author of "Dr. Syntax." 
 How should this circumstance have been known 
 to Combe ? The fact itself does not rest solely 
 on the authority of the letter that has been 
 quoted ; it is mentioned in a letter from Lord 
 Lyttelton to his brother Richard.'" 
 
 * Quarterly Revieio, December, 1851.
 
 14 THE LIFE OF 
 
 Thomas Lyttelton set out on his travels in 
 the summer of 1763, and was either accompanied 
 by John Darner, the eldest son of Lord Milton, 
 and probably by that gentleman's brother George, 
 or met them on the Continent. They had been 
 at Eton together, and continued through life on 
 terms of the closest intimacy. John Darner was 
 the same age as Lyttelton, whom he resembled in 
 temperament and aspirations. 
 
 It seems to have been contemplated at the 
 outset that Lyttelton should have the advantage 
 of paternal companionship and guidance during 
 the greater part of the Continental tour; for his 
 father wrote, towards the close of September, " He 
 is just setting out from France to go to Italy, 
 and I hope next summer to come to him at 
 Florence, and make with him the tour of the 
 Milanese, part of Germany, and all Switzerland 
 by the end of October."'"' But this intention was 
 not realised ; and if the cause is to be found in 
 the parental displeasure which Thomas Lyttelton 
 soon evoked by the follies and dissipation in which 
 he indulged during this tour, both he and his 
 friends must have often regretted that an en- 
 deavour was not made to preserve him from the 
 temptations with which a youth of rank and 
 
 * " Memoirs and Correspondence of George Lord Lyttelton." 1845.
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 15 
 
 fortune could not fail to be beset while travelling 
 through France and Italy with young men of his 
 own age and of similar temperaments. 
 
 The first of the letters which the courtesy and 
 kindness of the present Lord Lyttelton enables 
 me to place before my readers was written from 
 Turin, on the 19th of November, and is addressed / ^3 
 
 to Sir Richard Lyttelton. Though he had been 
 absent from England about five, months, he had 
 not then received a single letter, a circumstance 
 which seems to have caused him some uneasiness, 
 and which the letter-writing habits of the age 
 amon£ the higher classes renders the more re- 
 markable : — 
 
 "My dear Sir Richard, 
 
 "I am at length got over those impending 
 precipices, covered with frozen snow, (that cer- 
 tainly Hannibal alone had the secret of melting 
 with vinegar,) and repose myself now in the deli- 
 cious plains of Italy. My eye has seen only what 
 the French call the affreuses beautcs of nature from 
 Lyons quite to the Alps. I need not describe to 
 you their horrible grandeur. But from the foot 
 of Mount Cenis to Turin the lovely vale of Pied- 
 mont opens to you a thousand beauties, and all 
 the dolce and amabile is laid before you. 
 
 " But I will not enter into minute descriptions
 
 16 THE LIFE OF 
 
 of a country you have so lately seen, and will only 
 in general tell you that I am much delighted with 
 all I have seen, and liberally feast my imagination 
 on the thoughts of what I am to see. I found 
 every house open to me at Lyons, and everywhere 
 the most polite and friendly reception. But I do 
 not place this to my account, and I am pleased 
 to tell my dear uncle the respect was shown to me 
 as to his nephew ; and there is nothing they would 
 not do to oblige anybody you recommended. 
 
 " I have not yet received any letters from 
 England. The silence of my friends I can attri- 
 bute to a thousand accidental causes, from some 
 of which they certainly proceed ; but Love ivill 
 not be satisfied by Reason, and ever suspects the 
 worst. When you see my sweet girl, do, my 
 •dear uncle, tell her all my fears. I know the 
 value of her too well not to be afraid of losing 
 her. She is a treasure that multitudes loner to 
 possess. In my absence, every device will be 
 conceived, and every means made use of, to 
 deprive me of her. New lovers will be fired by 
 her beauty, and importunities she will be forced 
 to submit, though I hope, and rest assured, never 
 to yield to. All that can make the ties of affec- 
 tion binding certainly has been used to make our 
 love so, but time and absence may efface the 
 tender impressions that early love has made upon
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 17 
 
 lier heart. Objections, too, may possibly arise, 
 and her parents, and even my father, may pos- 
 sibly be inclined rather to divide than unite us. 
 This, indeed, is to me a cruel consideration. 
 ' Dark as I am, unconscious of their will/ I 
 cannot prevent whatever may be done in my 
 prejudice. I therefore stand much in need of 
 one who loves me by inclination. I know of 
 none who have given such proofs of love as you. 
 To you, therefore, I apply, and entreat you to 
 guard this fairer than Hesperian fruit. She will 
 in everything be directed by you, and make you 
 the confidant of her most secret thoughts. My 
 lord she respects and loves, but she looks upon 
 him as a father, and to him she fears to throw 
 off all reserve. 
 
 " I am interrupted by a pacquet of letters from 
 England — one from you, one from my father, and 
 one from Miss "Warburton. It always diminishes 
 the pleasure I should have in hearing from you 
 to see upon the superscriptions of your letters the 
 doctor's hand. You say, my dear uncle, you have 
 been ill ever since I left you. I hope only ill 
 with the gout. Indeed, there is more vivacity in 
 your letters than men generally have when they 
 are oppressed with sickness. I trust, therefore, 
 the pains in your kinds and feet, though bad, 
 are the worst you feel. I will leave you to 
 
 • c
 
 18 THE LIFE OF 
 
 think how sincerely I wish those pains were re- 
 moved. 
 
 " Miss W.'s letter has removed all jealous 
 suspicions of her constancy. She professes her- 
 self, in the language of desiring love, to be mine, 
 and only mine. She has promised to send me 
 her picture, and I will bid her deliver it to you 
 as soon as it is painted. You will be so good as 
 to order it to be enclosed in such a frame as will 
 make it fit to be hung to my watch, and then 
 will send it immediately to me. I believe I can 
 not have it before I get to Venice. 
 
 " I reflect with pleasure, my dear uncle, upon 
 the conversations that passed between us at Rich- 
 mond ; and it is a great happiness to me that 
 your inclinations and mine should be the same 
 in points of so great importance to my future 
 welfare. 
 
 " Ambitious, to you I confess myself to be, but I 
 am also diffident of myself. I have something of 
 the presumption, but all the heat, of youth about 
 me. To your advice and direction I give up 
 myself. Tempered and influenced by your judg- 
 ment, my ambition may not be fruitless. 
 
 " I have wrote a long letter, and not said a 
 word about Turin. The town, you know, is a 
 fine one, and the society I am got into is very 
 agreeable. The women, too, are most incitingiy
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTT ELTON. 19 
 
 handsome. I am cecisbeo,* en passant, to her who 
 I think is much the prettiest in the place. I 
 shall set out to Milan in three days, or perhaps 
 I may prolong it to a week. I told you in my 
 last that Pernon was to supply me with all my 
 clothes. I have found some at Turin much hand- 
 somer (and I think cheaper) than any he has got. 
 I therefore intend to have only one habit de galas 
 of him, and the other made here. Adieu. — I am 
 ever your most dutiful nephew, 
 
 " T. L." 
 
 He proceeded from Turin to Venice, as indi- 
 cated in the preceding letter; for in a subsequent 
 letter he alludes to a o-amblino- transaction in the 
 latter city, which seems to have been the first 
 incident of his tour which drew down upon him 
 the reproaches of his father and uncle. It must 
 not be forgotten, in justice to young Lyttelton, 
 that the institutions and habits of Italian society 
 at this period were not favourable to morality. 
 Gambling and gallantry (as unbridled libertinism 
 was then called, in the delicate phraseology of 
 fashionable life) were the vices of the age ; and 
 in none of the European capitals were they more 
 prevalent than in Turin and Florence. "Gambling," 
 
 * Chaperon had been written here, but scored out with the pen.
 
 20 THE LIFE OF 
 
 says Lady Morgan, " was the prevailing vice, from 
 the king to the least of his courtiers. Pharo- 
 banks were publicly kept ; jewels and trinkets 
 were staked when all else was gone ; and the 
 enormous sums won from young English travellers 
 at the court of Turin by the native nobility could 
 not save them from ruin, brought on by play 
 and by a total neglect of their affairs. The bond 
 of marriage was one of mere accommodation. The 
 necessity (originating in fashion) which every man 
 was under of neglecting his own wife, and entering 
 into the service of his neighbour's, while it under- 
 mined morality, deprived taste of its preference, 
 and passion of its excitement ; and general gal- 
 lantry was so blunted by authorised libertinism 
 that lovers became as stupidly loyal as husbands 
 were confessedly faithless."'* 
 
 There is no doubt that it was in Italy that 
 the germs of the twin passions that dominated 
 the life of Thomas Lyttelton were implanted. 
 Between the letter from Turin and the next 
 Avhich I have before me — thick, gilt-edged post 
 quarto, yellow with age, and the ink faded to a 
 yellowish-brown hue — there is an interval of six 
 months. In that period occurred the gambling 
 loss at Venice, two duels at Bologna, and several 
 
 * " Italy," vol. i., p. 90.
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 21 
 
 affairs of gallantry with Italian women, which we 
 shall find alluded to in a subsequent letter, but 
 concerning which no details appear ever to have 
 been known in England. 
 
 While at Bologna, or shortly after leaving 
 that city, he wrote to Sir Richard Lyttelton an 
 account of the circumstances connected with a 
 duel in which he had there been enovwed with an 
 Italian gentleman ; but it seems that his uncle 
 thought that sometlmiq- had been withheld from 
 him, and Thomas Lyttelton, in a letter written 
 from Naples, on the 11th of May, 1764, while 
 assuring him that he had withheld no circum- 
 stance connected with that affair, acknowledged 
 that there had been another, at the same place, 
 concerning which he had been silent, " because 
 it happened with an Englishman who is too much 
 my friend for me to let it be known that my 
 honour obliged me to purchase a just satisfaction 
 at his expense." 
 
 It appears from the statement which he wrote 
 from Naples, that the Englishman, whose name 
 was Pigott, had been at Eton with him, and that 
 the quarrel out of which the duel arose occurred 
 at a little dinner-party, given by himself, the other 
 guests being two English artists, named Brumpton 
 and Wilson. The , conversation took a literary 
 turn, and some difference of opinion arose between
 
 22 THE LIFE OF 
 
 Lyttelton and Pigott, which, owing probably to 
 both being heated with wine, culminated in hasty 
 and offensive words, followed by a challenge and 
 a hostile encounter. Each of the parties regarded 
 the other as the aggressor, and it is evident from 
 Lyttelton's explanation that there was wrong on 
 both sides, though the cause was so trivial that 
 it might well have been adjusted by an exchange 
 of apologies. 
 
 The gambling losses at Venice were, however, 
 regarded as the most serious of young Lyttelton's 
 follies, both by himself and the family. Sir 
 Richard's purse-strings had again to be untied, 
 and his nephew expressed the deepest gratitude 
 for the relief. " Is it possible," he wrote, " for 
 me to express by words the acknowledgments I 
 owe you for your most noble and disinterested 
 generosity to me ? Henceforward, in every action 
 of my life, I will endeavour to show the deep 
 gratitude your unwonted kindness has raised in 
 my heart. Guided and directed by you, to your 
 opinion I submit everything that concerns me, 
 and should hold myself unworthy to live if I 
 disobliged you in any one instance, who have 
 added to the strong ties of relationship the in- 
 finitely more strong ones of unbounded love. It 
 is indeed the debt immense of endless gratitude 
 still owing, still to pay.
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTOX. 23 
 
 " Nothing I can ever do can balance the 
 account, but no future ill-conduct of mine shall, 
 at least designedly, lower me in your opinion and 
 affections. In respect to the cursed transaction that 
 raised your just anger against me at Venice, I 
 do give you the most solemn and sacred assurances 
 that you have nothing to fear upon that account. 
 Gaming I hold in detestation, and if again I ever 
 relapse in that most absurd vice, I will forfeit 
 my life, my estate, or what is as dear to me as 
 either, the good opinion of men, and will allow 
 myself patiently to be treated with universal con- 
 tempt. Moderate play, too, when it is absolutely 
 for amusement, I hold in great aversion, for, as I 
 always either lose or am cheated out of my money, 
 it is no amusement to me. Last night I lost thirty 
 ounces at a game I thought it impossible to lose 
 ten at ; and at sober whist, at seven ounces the 
 rubber, I lost seven rubbers together. So I have 
 now determined never again (at least while I am 
 abroad) to play, even for trifles. Of this you, 
 upon my honour, may be as well assured as of my 
 determination about gaming." 
 
 The next of the unpublished letters is undated, 
 but was written from Toulon, probably in the latter 
 part of 1764. The time was approaching for his 
 return to England, and his union with Miss War- 
 burton, for which he was as anxious as he had been
 
 24 THE LIFE OF 
 
 before his departure. Though there is nothing in 
 the published letters of his father to indicate 
 the nature and extent of the causes of the dis- 
 pleasure with which he was regarded on his return 
 to England, the rupture of the matrimonial treaty 
 has generally been regarded as due to his mis- 
 conduct while in Italy ; but the following letter, 
 addressed to Sir Eichard Lyttelton, throws a new 
 light on the subject, and, if it does not fully ex- 
 plain the cause of the rupture, exonerates the writer 
 from the suspicion of having been the cause of it : — 
 
 " I have the pleasure to inform you that I 
 have left Italy, though allowed by a charming 
 woman to give some time more to the most 
 delicious pleasures I have ever yet enjoyed. It 
 is, indeed, a land of softness and delight. The 
 women, like Armidas, have the power of fasci- 
 nating their lovers, and of instilling into the 
 most ambitious minds the love of ignoble ease 
 and voluptuous refinement. But when the love 
 of honour predominates they charm in vain. For 
 myself, I can answer that I would as lief spend my 
 days among the savages of wild America as in the 
 arms of the most charming of the fair Italian ladies. 
 
 " I embarked last week with Lord Ossory from 
 Genoa, and we purposed to continue our voyage, 
 without stopping, towards Antibes. We were
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 25 
 
 carried on by a very favourable wind to Hospita- 
 
 letto, a little village about twenty miles from 
 Monaco, when the wind suddenly changed, and 
 we were forced to quit our feluccas, and continue 
 our route upon mules to Monaco. We stayed 
 there two days, and then, as the wind was fair, 
 we again embarked. The sea, which had been 
 agitated by violent storms, was much more swelled 
 than we supposed, and the waves ran so high 
 that we more than once expected to be overset. 
 By good luck, however, we got to Villafranca, 
 where we remained until the sea was quite calm, 
 and from thence sailed most agreeably to Antibes. 
 
 " I write you this letter from Toulon. As the 
 weather has been bad, I have not yet been able to 
 see the port, which is the finest the French have 
 in the Mediterranean, and where there are at this 
 time twenty ships of the line. 
 
 "In the last letter I wrote to you, I desired 
 your directions in respect to the future course of 
 my travels. You well know the situation of my 
 affairs in England. I am betrothed to a woman 
 whom I would give the world to enjoy, and whom 
 I cannot marry until those preliminaries are 
 settled which cannot be settled until the General 
 has sold his estate. The estate is not sold, as I 
 know of, and my marriage is no farther advanced 
 than it was a year and a half ago. To what
 
 26 THE LIFE OF 
 
 purpose, then, should I return in so nice a con- 
 juncture ? The sight of my mistress will raise 
 to an ungovernable height that desire of possessing 
 her which the enjoyment of the finest Italian 
 ladies has never been able to diminish. 
 
 " I love you, my dear uncle — I love you in my 
 heart. I wish to live with you. 1 prefer Miss 
 Warburton's love to that of any other woman ; 
 but, in this crisis, I had rather be a banished 
 man, condemned abroad to roam. Time, that great 
 artificer of men's fortunes, may work some lucky 
 change. Her father is very old ; he is turned 
 of seventy. When the old man dies, she will 
 have at once, and in her own power, a fortune 
 of fifty thousand pounds. It is also probable he 
 may sell the estate. He must some time or other 
 find a purchaser. Was anything, in short, to 
 happen that might facilitate this wished-for alli- 
 ance, I would instantly direct my course to 
 England; but till some preparatory step be taken, 
 / think I am better ivhere I am, improving my- 
 self by foreign observation and experience. I 
 mean only for some months to come. Before the 
 summer ends, I would, I think, at all events be 
 in England ; and by prolonging thus much my 
 stay abroad, I gain many considerable advantages, 
 and finish more completely this most useful part 
 of my education. I propose these doubts to you
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 27 
 
 only, and I beg, my dear uncle, you will not 
 betray to anybody the unlimited confidence I 
 have in your goodness and friendship. Write me 
 soon an answer. — T. Lyttelton. 
 
 " I beg you would excuse my ending so abruptly 
 my letter, but I was led on unawares to the end 
 of my paper. Accept my most grateful thanks 
 for the thousand favours I have received from you, 
 and believe me for ever attached to you. Direct 
 aux soins of John Birkbeck, Esq., a Marseilles." 
 
 The projected marriage with Miss Warburton 
 must have been broken off shortly afterwards, for 
 on the 1st of January, 17G5, his father wrote as 
 follows : " My son is in France, where, I believe, 
 he will stay till about the beginning of April. 
 His match is off. If you will ask the reason, I 
 can give it you in no better words than those of 
 Eochefoucault, who says that une fern/me est un 
 benefice qui oblige a la residence." He adds, in 
 another letter : " By his letters it appears that 
 there is a great energy and force in his under- 
 standing ; and as his faults are only those of most 
 of our young travellers, I hope his return to 
 England, and cool reflection on the mischief of 
 his past follies, will enable his reason to get the 
 better of any recent ill habits contracted by him 
 already, and that his natural goodness of heart
 
 28 TEE LIFE OF 
 
 will give a right turn to the vivacity of his 
 passions."* There is nothing in this extract to 
 show that the tinge given to young Lyttelton's 
 character by Italian manners and institutions was 
 deeper than was usually contracted by young men 
 on their travels ; but it can scarcely be doubted 
 that it was deeper than was then feared. 
 
 His resolution to avoid gambling was not 
 abiding. The disappointment of the hopes he had 
 so long indulged with regard to Miss Warburton 
 may have led him to seek the excitement of play as 
 a means of diverting his mind from it ; but he in- 
 formed Sir Richard Lyttelton, in a letter from Dijon, 
 dated the 15th of February, that it was an Italian, 
 not an English lady, who had been the innocent cause 
 of his moral aberration. He at first won largely, 
 and then had a run of ill-luck, which obliged him to 
 draw for £500 to satisfy his debts of honour, and 
 for £250 for his expenses at Marseilles and Aix. 
 
 "I will not presume," he wrote, "by any 
 excuse to endeavour to regain your favours and 
 affection. I am sensibly enough convinced that 
 I have the very great 'misfortune to have lost them 
 irrecoverably. I shall always remember with most 
 heartfelt gratitude the tenderness and confidence 
 reposed in me by the most generous of parents. 
 
 * " Memoirs and Correspondence of George Lord Lyttelton." 1845,
 
 THOMAS LOUD LYTTELTON. 29 
 
 The debt I owe you is too immense ever to be 
 repaid. In regard to the money I have spent, 1 
 will confess myself legally your debtor for all or 
 any part of the sum. In times to come I may 
 be able to discharge it." 
 
 His Continental tour had already been pro- 
 longed beyond the period originally fixed for it ; 
 and he did not return until the summer, when 
 the first thing that we hear of him is the part he 
 took in a masque at Stow©, for which he composed JicLqk-* 
 some tolerable verses, which were spoken by a 
 little girl in the character of Queen Mab, and em- 
 bodied a very graceful compliment to the character 
 and abilities of the host, Earl Temple. With the 
 exception of this pleasing little incident, the three 
 years succeeding his return to England are a 
 blank ; but his letters show that, during at least 
 a portion of this time, he was under the cloud 
 of paternal displeasure and social proscription, the 
 causes of which can only be inferred from the 
 manner in which his candour invariably led him 
 to speak of his own faults. The chronological 
 arrangement of his letters can be determined only 
 by internal evidence, which is often very slight or 
 wholly deficient ; but it appears from the eleventh 
 of the series * that he was in the position de- 
 
 * " Letters of tlie late Lord Lyttelton." 1806,
 
 30 THE LIFE OF 
 
 scribed in the spring of 1768, and it was probably 
 some time before that period that he wrote the 
 following letter to a friend who had accused 
 him of neglect, and reproached him with his 
 failings : — 
 
 "My dear Friend, 
 
 " You do me great injustice. I re- 
 ceive your letters with the greatest pleasure ; and 
 I gave your last the usual welcome, though every 
 line was big with reproaches to me. I feel myself 
 greatly mortified that you should have a suspicion 
 of any neglect on my part. When I cease to 
 answer your addresses you will be justified in 
 supposing me careless about them : till then, you 
 will, I hope, do me the justice, as far at least as 
 relates to yourself, to think well of me. I very 
 sensibly feel the advantage of your good opinion, 
 and the loss of it would greatly affect me. You 
 may be assured that my insensibility to reputation 
 is not such as some part of my conduct may 
 have given you reason to believe ; for, after all 
 his blustering and looking big, the heart of the 
 worst man cannot be at ease, when he forces a 
 look of contempt towards the ill opinion of man- 
 kind. In spite of all his bravadoes, he is a hypo- 
 crite twelve hours out of the four-and-twenty ; 
 and hypocrisy, as it is well said, is the homage
 
 THOMAS LOUD LYTTELTOX. 31 
 
 which Vice pays to Virtue : unwillingly, I con- 
 fess ; but still she is forced to pay it. 
 
 " I will most frankly acknowledge to you that 
 I have been as well disposed to turn my back 
 upon the good opinion of the world as any one 
 in it ; and that I have sometimes accomplished 
 this important business without confusion of face, 
 but never without confusion of heart. On a late 
 very mortifying occasion, it was not in my power 
 to possess myself either with one or the other. 
 At a public and very numerous meeting in the 
 county where my father lives, where great part 
 of his property lies, where his influence is con- 
 siderable, and his name respectable, I was not 
 only deserted, but avoided ; and the women 
 could not have discovered more horror on my 
 approaching them if I had been Tarquin himself. 
 I found myself alone in the crowd, and, which 
 is as bad, alone out of the crowd. I passed the 
 evening without company ; and two or three such 
 evenings would either have driven me to despair 
 or have reformed me. I was then convinced, as 
 I always am when I write to you, that there is 
 some particle of good still remaining in me : but 
 I flew from that solitary scene which gave such 
 a conviction, to renew that dissolute intemperance 
 which would destroy it. 
 
 " It is a great misfortune that vice, be it what
 
 32 THE LIFE OF 
 
 it may, will find some one or other to flatter it ; 
 and that there should be assemblies of people, 
 where, when public and honourable society has 
 hissed you from the stage, you may find, not 
 only reception, but applause — little earthly pan- 
 demoniums, where you meet with every means to 
 hush the pains of reflection, and to guard against 
 the intrusions of conscience. It requires a most 
 gigantic resolution to suffer pain when pa.ssion 
 quickens every sense, and every enticing object 
 beckons to enjoyment. I was not born a Stoic, 
 nor am I to be made a martyr. So much do I 
 hate and detest pain, that I think all good must 
 be dear that is to be purchased with it. Penitence 
 is a rack where offences have been grievous. To 
 sit alone and court reflection, which will come, 
 perhaps, every moment, with a swinging sin at 
 her back, and to be humble and patient beneath 
 the stripes of such a scourge, by heavens, it is not 
 in human nature to bear it ! I am sure, at least, 
 it is not in mine. If I could go to confession, 
 like a good papist, and have the score wiped off at 
 once, d la bonne heure ! But to repent like a sobbing 
 paralytic Presbyterian will not do for me ; I am 
 not flit enough to repent that way. George Bodens 
 may be qualified for such a system of contrition, 
 but my skinny shape will not bear mortification ; 
 and if I were to attempt the subdual of my carnal
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 33 
 
 lust by fasting and prayer, I should be soon fasted 
 and prayed into the family vault, and disappoint 
 the worms of their meals. 
 
 " I have had, as you well know, some serious 
 conversations with my father upon the subject ; 
 and one evening he concluded a Christian lecture 
 of a most unchristian length by recommending me 
 to address Heaven to have mercy upon me, and 
 to join my prayers to his constant and paternal 
 ones for my reformation. These expressions, with 
 his preceding counsels, and his affecting delivery of 
 them, had such an effect upon me, that, like the 
 king in Hamlet, I had bent the stubborn sinews 
 of my knees, when it occurred to me that my 
 devotions might be seen through the key-hole. 
 This drew me from my pious attitude, and, having 
 secured this aperture, so unfriendly to secret deeds, 
 I thought it would not be an useless precaution to 
 let down the window-curtains also ; and, during 
 the performance of that ceremony, some lively 
 music, which struck up in the street, caught my 
 attention, and gave a sudden flirt to all my devout 
 ideas ; so I girded on my sword, and went to the 
 Little Theatre in the Haymarket, where Mrs. Cole 
 and the Keverend Dr. Squintum soon put me out 
 of humour with praying, and into humour with 
 myself. 
 
 " I really began this letter in very sober 
 
 . D
 
 34 THE LIFE OF 
 
 seriousness ; and, though I have strayed from my 
 grave airs into something that wears a ludicrous 
 appearance, I beg of you not to give up all hopes 
 of my amendment. If there were but half-a-dozen 
 people in the world who would afford me the kind 
 encouragement I receive from you, it would, I 
 verily believe, work a reformation in the prodigal ; 
 but the world has marked me down for so much 
 dissoluteness as to doubt, at all times, of the sin- 
 cerity of my repentance. has already told 
 
 me, more than once, that I am got so deep into 
 the mud as to make it highly improbable that I 
 should ever get out ; that I am too bad ever to 
 be good ; and that my future lot is either to be an 
 open villain or an undeceiving hypocrite. Pretty 
 encouragement, truly ! Lady Huntingdon would 
 tell me another story ; but, however that may be, 
 I shall never give myself up for lost while I retain 
 a sense of your merit and a value for your friend- 
 ship." 
 
 George Bodens, whose name appears more than 
 once in the letters which must be frequently 
 quoted in these memoirs, has not left his name 
 on the records of the age ; but that he was one 
 of the associates, whose influence upon the character 
 and career of Thomas Lyttelton was feared by the 
 friends of the latter may be inferred from a letter
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 35 
 
 written at a subsequent period by Earl Temple, 
 and which will be given in its proper place. 
 
 There were probably alternate storms and calms 
 in the relations between Lord Lyttelton and his 
 scapegrace son, and the scene related in the fore- 
 going letter must have taken place during one of 
 the intervals of peace. Earl Temple seems always 
 to have used his influence in his young relative's 
 true interests ; and his counsels had probably their 
 due weight in the decision that was arrived at 
 in 1767, that the family influence should be used 
 to give the energies and abilities of Thomas 
 Lyttelton an useful and honourable field for their 
 exercise by obtaining him a seat in Parliament. 
 At the ensuing general election he became a can- 
 didate for the representation of Bewdley, a little 
 borough in which his family possessed considerable 
 interest, and which had been represented by a 
 Lyttelton on several previous occasions. Great 
 exertions were made to secure his return, but he 
 headed the poll by only a small majority over 
 Sir Edward Wilmington. He seems to have 
 attached much importance to the attainment of 
 this position, which would give him occupation, 
 and open a career for him ; but both himself and 
 friends were again doomed to be disappointed.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Politics of the Period— Men of the Commons— The Darners- 
 George Dnrant — Petition against Lyttelton's Eeturn — His 
 Maiden Speech— Complimented by Wellbore Ellis— Recon- 
 ciliation with his Family— Unseated— " Junius "—Hypothesis 
 that Lyttelton was the Author of the Famous Letters- 
 Second Continental Tour— Quarrel with George Ayscough— 
 Eeturn to England. 
 
 For nearly half a century, from the change of 
 dynasty which took place on the death of Queen 
 Anne until the accession of George III, the govern- 
 ment of this country had been almost constantly 
 in the hands of the Whigs. Sir Robert Walpole, 
 Pelham, the Duke of Newcastle, and the Earl of 
 Chatham had all been taken from this party, 
 which, as long as the national liberties seemed 
 to be threatened by the pretensions of the Stuarts, 
 had the support of the landed interest, as well as 
 the sympathies of the trading and industrial classes. 
 The cessation of this fear wrought a change in 
 the policy of the Crown and the aristocracy. 
 George III, who had the most exalted notions of 
 the royal prerogative, showed, from the beginning 
 of his reign, a strong desire to extend the power
 
 LIFE OF THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 37 
 
 of the Crown and to keep that of the people 
 within the strictest limits that the Constitution 
 rendered possible ; and hence the storm with which 
 the Crown and its advisers were assailed from the 
 first year of the Administration of the Earl of 
 Bute down to the dawn of the era of Parlia- 
 mentary reform. Grenville, who succeeded Bute 
 in 1763, left the Wilkes prosecution and outlawry 
 and the American Stamp Act as legacies to his 
 successors, under whom they bore bitter fruit. 
 The Stamp Act was repealed under the Whig 
 Ministry formed by the Marquis of Rockingham, 
 but the right to tax the colonies, which was the 
 matter in dispute between them and the mother 
 country, was reserved. 
 
 The Rockingham Administration did not long 
 continue in power, being supplanted by the second 
 Ministry of the Earl of Chatham, which was, how- 
 ever, less popular than the first. Indeed, all the 
 Cabinets of this period suffered from the popular 
 suspicion that they were composed of mere puppets, 
 moved at the will of the Crown, and the strings 
 of which were pulled by the Earl of Bute. The 
 Earl of Chatham was, unfortunately, prevented 
 by ill-health from taking an active part in the 
 business of the State, and, on the death of Charles 
 Townshend, who was, after the Premier, the most 
 able member of the Cabinet, he resigned. Early
 
 38 THE LIFE OF 
 
 in 1768, a new administration was formed by the 
 Duke of Grafton, and a general election took place. 
 Such was the state of affairs when Thomas Lyttelton 
 entered Parliament as the representative of Bewdley. 
 John and George Darner sat in the same 
 Parliament, the former for the now extinct borough 
 of Gatton, and the latter for Cricklade. Another 
 of his fellow-members was George Durant, who 
 sat for Evesham, and of whose history and connec- 
 tion with the Lyttelton family we have the follow- 
 ing account in a letter from Thomas Lyttelton to 
 a friend : — 
 
 " Your usual accuracy has failed you in your 
 suggestions concerning the rise and rapid progress 
 of Mr. [Durant 's] fortune. The history of that 
 gentleman's advancement to his present affluence, 
 if my immediate recollection does not fail me, is 
 as follows : That he was appointed to his first 
 employment in the service of Government by my 
 father's interest is true ; and it may, perhaps, 
 have been procured for him from the motives 
 which current opinion has assigned ; but of this 
 I do not pretend to be better informed than the 
 rest of the world. Thus placed in a situation of 
 little or no leisure, he was left, I believe, by our 
 family patronage, to look for any future promo- 
 tion from his own industry, the chance of sue-
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 39 
 
 cession, or the casual boon of fortune. The latter 
 was disposed to smile upon him, or, it may be 
 said with more propriety, to reward the prudent 
 modesty with which he retreated from her first 
 advances to secure her greater favours. In the 
 usual course of promotion he had an acknowledged 
 claim to succeed to a vacant place of no incon- 
 siderable profit. On this occasion Lord Holland, 
 for some particular reason which I have forgotten, 
 or perhaps never heard, wished to make an irre- 
 gular appointment in favour of some other person ; 
 and, to comply with his lordship's wishes, Mr. 
 [Durant] wisely waived his right of succession. 
 That nobleman, who never suffered a good office 
 to be long unreturned, soon after procured him 
 to be named commissary-general to the expedition 
 then preparing to attack the French West India 
 islands. The success which attended it, together 
 with the regular profits of his appointment, placed 
 him in a situation, with respect to fortune, with 
 which, it may be imagined, he was more than 
 satisfied; and I have been told that he then 
 looked no farther. 
 
 "But Lord Holland never thought he did 
 enough for any one that had obliged him ; and 
 I am greatly mistaken if his influence did not 
 name Mr. [Durant]- to the same employment in 
 the formidable armament which was sent against
 
 40 THE LIFE OF 
 
 the Havannali, and succeeded. The fortunes ac- 
 quired by that capture are well known, and Mr. 
 [Durant's] was among the largest of them. On 
 his return to England he soon began to display 
 a love of ostentation, which he displayed, however, 
 as I understand, without injuring his fortune; 
 for, though George has no small share of vanity, 
 it has seldom operated so far as to make him 
 inattentive to the summum bonum of life. He 
 built a fine house in Portman Square, and pur- 
 chased the very capital estate of Tong Castle, in 
 Shropshire, of the Duke of Kingston. He imme- 
 diately renewed, or rather improved, the ancient 
 form of the decayed edifice, adorned with the 
 venerable decorations of Gothic architecture, beau- 
 tified its surrounding lawns, and conducted through 
 them a long extent of fine water, which flows on 
 three sides of the stately edifice. The castle is 
 a very large building, contains many very capacious 
 apartments, and is furnished with a profusion of 
 pictures and splendid upholstery. Though it is 
 not situated in a fine part of the country, yet, 
 taken in all its circumstances, it may lay no small 
 claim to the character of magnificence. The 
 owner of it might have built a new and more 
 commodious house for much less money than has 
 been expended in the reparations of the old one ; 
 but the word castle is a sounding word. It was
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 41 
 
 in unison with Mr. [Durant's] notions of grandeur ; 
 and, apprehensive that this favourite title might, 
 by degrees, be forgotten with the lofty turrets and 
 stately battlements, he resolved to clothe them in 
 more than pristine grandeur, and thus secure their 
 ancient, honourable name, till time or chance 
 should destroy them for ever. Some of my old 
 neighbours positively assert that they remember 
 to have heard George [Durant] declare, when he 
 was a youth, that he hoped, one day or other, to 
 be possessed of a larger house than Hagley ; and 
 they insist upon it that he gives such great extent 
 to the limits of Tong Castle merely to fulfil his 
 own prediction. 
 
 " But this by the way. The world in general, 
 who were not acquainted with the ambition of 
 his early days, have thought that by this creation 
 of splendour he hoped to allure some lady of 
 noble birth and great connections to become the 
 mistress of it. The bait offered by so handsome 
 a man as he certainly is would, in all probability, 
 have been soon taken, but, in this particular, 
 expectation has been very much disappointed, for 
 he has actually made a kind of half-runaway 
 match with a little Quaker of eighteen years of 
 age, and educated in all the rigour of her sect. 
 She has no pretension to beauty (I write merely 
 from information), but possesses a very agreeable
 
 42 THE LIFE OF 
 
 person, with a most amiable simplicity, and loves 
 her husband to idolatry. I have heard your 
 friend, Councillor Day, speak in high terms of 
 her father, as a man of excellent understanding, 
 polite manners, and generous disposition. Since 
 this marriage, the superb service of plate very 
 seldom makes its appearance ; and the master of 
 the noble castle, as I am told, now lives in a 
 corner of it, with a small party of his relations, 
 and seems to be growing into a disregard of the 
 intrigues and fashions of public life. His brother""" 
 is the parson of my parish, and is called Doctor 
 John ; but the divine and the squire do not hold 
 a very friendly intercourse. 
 
 " I rather think that this little piece of bio- 
 graphy is pretty well founded : if, however, it 
 should possess any errors, I beg leave to assure 
 you that they are not of my invention. As to 
 Mr. [Durant's] unpopularity with the Lyttelton 
 family, it does not arise, perhaps, from what you 
 and the world may, with some reason, suppose; 
 but from a subsequent circumstance, of which 
 you and the world are, in general, ignorant. 
 When my [uncle] was governor of [Jamaica], he 
 received positive orders to raise and discipline 
 a regiment of negroes for the service of the 
 
 * Eev. John Durant, D.D., Yicar of Hagley.
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 43 
 
 Havannah expedition. As this supply did not 
 join the grand armament at the time appointed, 
 Mr. [Durant] was despatched to Jamaica by the 
 commander-in-chief, to chide the tardy levies ; 
 and, as report says, he found a very surprising 
 languor in obeying these very important orders 
 of Government. On such an occasion he was, 
 perhaps, instructed to threaten an accusation of 
 delinquency against the governor to the powers 
 at home ; and it is equally probable that he did 
 not forget his instructions. Whether this neglect 
 was repaired by subsequent exertions, or whether 
 it was forgotten in the successes which followed, 
 I do not know ; but I very well remember that 
 at the time my father was very uneasy about it, 
 and complained, in angry terms, to the clergyman 
 of Hagley of his brother's forwardness to disgrace 
 a branch of that family by which his own had 
 been so warmly protected. Here the matter 
 rested ; but that George [Durant] should have 
 been elevated to a situation wherein he could 
 repeat what was called an insolent menace to one 
 of the Lyttelton family will never be remembered 
 without much mortification, and therefore can 
 never be forgiven. Adieu." 
 
 This letter, with its revelations of irregular 
 appointments and fortunes made by commissaries-
 
 44 THE LIFE OF 
 
 general under a corrupt system of Government, 
 constitutes an appropriate commentary on the 
 results of that condition of the representative in- 
 stitutions of the country of which we have illus- 
 trations in the existence of such constituencies as 
 Gatton and Old Sarum, and the return of such 
 men as the Darners by means which were no secret. 
 The return of Thomas Lyttelton was petitioned 
 against, on the ground of fraud, it being alleged 
 that recourse had been had to the system of manu- 
 facturing " occasional burgesses," in order to secure 
 his election. But it is probable that he was quite 
 as much the choice of the electors of Bewdley as the 
 majority of the members of the Commons' House of 
 Parliament at that day were of the constituencies 
 of which they were the ostensible representatives. 
 
 Parliament assembled on the 10th of May, and 
 on the 1 8 th Thomas Lyttelton delivered his maiden 
 speech, the occasion being one of the many stormy 
 debates that arose out of the case of John Wilkes, 
 of North Briton and Essay on Woman notoriety. 
 Not a line of this first oratorical effort is to be 
 found in " Hansard," but we learn from the meagre 
 sketch of it in the " Cavendish Debates," that the 
 line of argument adopted by the speaker was, that 
 it was unwise to bestow so much time upon such 
 an insignificant subject, when the American colonies 
 were so disturbed on account of the fiscal measures
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 45 
 
 of the late Administration, and a strong Govern- 
 ment was so obviously and imperatively required. 
 The speech made a favourable impression upon 
 the House, and elicited a compliment from Wellbore 
 Ellis, who observed that the honourable member 
 for Bewdley had spoken with hereditary ability. 
 
 The compliment was sweet incense to the family 
 foible ; and its occasion brought about a temporary 
 reconciliation between young Lyttelton and his 
 offended relatives. The truce was as brief, how- 
 ever, as the future orator's possession of his seat. 
 The Committee to which the petition against his 
 return was referred reported unfavourably to him ; 
 and, on the 28th January, 1769, he was declared 
 not to have been duly elected, and the seat was 
 transferred to Sir Edward Winninerton. 
 
 It was at this time that the celebrated letters 
 of "Junius" began to attract that large share of 
 public attention which they received during several 
 years, and which has, from time to time, been 
 directed to them from that period to the present 
 day, through the efforts which have been made 
 to fix the identity of their author. Three-quarters 
 of a century afterwards, an attempt* was made 
 to assign the authorship of these famous letters 
 to Thomas Lyttelton, on the ground of certain 
 
 * Quarterly Beview, December, 1851.
 
 46 THE LIFE OF 
 
 expressions and turns of thought which are found 
 both in the letters of " Junius " and in those of 
 Lyttelton, and others which, in the opinion of the 
 writer, favour the hypothesis that Woodfall's mys- 
 terious correspondent was "a dissolute young man." 
 Wade had just taken equal pains to prove that 
 *- Junius " could have been neither a peer nor a 
 member of the House of Commons ; but, without 
 entering into the often-discussed question as to 
 who " Junius " really was, it will be sufficient here 
 to show that there are very small grounds for 
 identifying him with Thomas Lyttelton. 
 
 The similarities of thought and expression 
 which are found in the letters of " Junius " and in 
 those of Lyttelton are not remarkable enough to 
 warrant the inference that the two sets of corre- 
 spondence emanated from the same mind and 
 hand. Most of them are coincidences which are 
 almost certain to occur to any two writers of the 
 same period, regarding the same topics from the 
 same point of view, or from similar points ; and 
 though, unfortunately for his memory, it cannot 
 be contended that Thomas Lyttelton was not a 
 dissolute young man, there were so many young 
 men of the same character, in and out of Parlia- 
 ment, who were contemporary with " Junius," that 
 dissolute habits can scarcely be regarded as a 
 characteristic by which the authorship of the
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 47 
 
 letters in the Advertiser can be assigned to him. 
 He was only twenty-four years of age when the 
 letters signed " Junius " began to appear, and, 
 though he had given considerable attention to 
 the political questions of the day during the 
 short period that he sat in the House of Com- 
 mons, and, in the words of the author of the 
 theory under consideration, "those who knew 
 him intimately discerned very early the superiority 
 of his genius, and gave him credit, while yet 
 plunged in profligacy, for qualities which would 
 conduct him to eminence, should he ever resolve 
 on doing justice to himself," he can scarcely have 
 possessed the experience and knowledge of public 
 affairs evinced by "Junius." 
 
 In order to account for "the profound know- 
 ledge and matured political opinion he displayed 
 on his first appearance" in the House of Lords, 
 and to explain the " confidence in his powers that 
 distinguished his speeches, and surprised even more 
 than his eloquence," the writer in the Quarterly 
 Review states that, "for seven years previous to 
 his father's death he studiously shrouded his 
 motions, frequently concealing his residence from 
 his friends," and infers " that that time — despite 
 profligate habits — must have been spent in intel- 
 lectual exercises." That much of the time referred 
 to was thus creditably and profitably employed,
 
 48 THE LIFE OF 
 
 there is abundant evidence in his letters and 
 speeches to prove ; but the fact does not help us 
 very far to the conclusion that he was " Junius." 
 
 Seven years previous to the death of his father 
 carries us back to the summer of 1766, one year 
 after his return from his Continental tour, and 
 when he was in his twenty-second year. In 1768 
 he was in Parliament, and he seems, during the 
 short time that he held his seat, to have given 
 an exemplary attention to his legislative duties. 
 There is not much data as to the manner in which 
 the next three years were spent, but he was at 
 Ghent in 1769, and in Italy during the following 
 year ; and it seems probable that he left England 
 for a second Continental tour soon after he lost 
 his seat in Parliament, and remained abroad until 
 the end of 1771, or the beginning of 1772. 
 
 The misty veil that conceals his movements 
 during the interval is explicable without recourse 
 to the supposition that he withdrew from the world 
 for the purpose of forging in retirement the 
 weapons of future political controversy. His 
 public career had received a check that had dis- 
 appointed himself equally with his friends, and he 
 was, besides, under the ban of paternal and family 
 displeasure. No one was concerned as to where 
 he was or what he was doing. Hence it is that 
 there is not a line about him — not the merest
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTEITON. 49 
 
 mention of his name — either in the letters of his 
 father or in those of his noble relative, the Earl 
 of Chatham. What his relations with his family 
 were at this time can he seen from two letters 
 written shortly before his return to England, and 
 the first of which is as follows : — 
 
 
 
 So [George Ayscough] turns up his eyes and 
 significantly shrugs his shoulders when my name is 
 mentioned, and, to continue the farce, pretends to 
 lament me as a disgrace to his family ! I am 
 almost ashamed to acknowledge it, but this idle 
 history has given me a more stinging mortification 
 than I almost ever felt. How insignificant must 
 he become who is openly despised by insignifi- 
 cance ! and how loud must the hiss of the world 
 be when such a puny whipster insults me ! If 
 honourable men were to speak of me with con- 
 tempt, I should have submitted without resent- 
 ment, for I have deserved it. If they should 
 bestow their pity upon me, I should thank them 
 for giving me more than I deserve. If mankind 
 despise, I have only to resist, or fly from the 
 contempt ; but to be an object of supercilious airs 
 from one who, two years ago, would have wiped 
 the dust from oft* my shoes, and who, perhaps, 
 two years hence will be proud of the same office — 
 a puny prattler, who does not possess a sufficient 
 
 • E
 
 50 THE LIFE OF 
 
 degree of talent or importance to give dignity 
 either to virtue or crime — I say to be the butt of 
 such a one severely mortifies me. Were I on the 
 other side of the water, his back-biting looks and 
 shrugs should be changed in a moment to well- 
 made bows and suppliant postures. If I live, the 
 scurvy knave shall do me homage ! It really frets 
 me that I cannot in four-and-twenty hours meet 
 him face to face, and make his subservient atten- 
 tions give the lie to his humbling compassion 
 in the presence of those before whom he has tra- 
 duced me. The day of my revenge will come, 
 when he shall open his mouth for me to spit in 
 it, as he was wont to do, and perform every dirty 
 trick for which parasites were formed. His genius 
 is to fetch and carry — a very spaniel, made to 
 fawn and eat your leavings, whose whole courage 
 rises no higher than to ape a snarl. If I live to 
 outlive this sniffling pedagogue, I shall see him 
 make a foolish end of it. Mark my words, I am 
 a very Shylock, I will have Revenge ! 
 
 "The last word I have written puts me in 
 
 mind of telling you that has been with me 
 
 for some time. The rascal, who is a priest into 
 the bargain, carried aqua fortis in a syringe for 
 three months together, to squirt the fiery liquor 
 into the eyes of a fortunate rival. In this dia- 
 bolical design he succeeded, and the object of his
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTOX. 51 
 
 malice was for ever deprived of half his sight. I 
 have conversed with him on the horrors of this 
 transaction, but the Italian finds a consolation in 
 his own infernal feelings, and a justification in the 
 dying commands of his father, whose last words 
 composed this emphatic sentence : ' Remember, 
 my son, that revenge is sweet ! ' 
 
 " This man is capable of any villainy, if money 
 is to be got by it ; and I doubt not but he might 
 be bribed to undertake, without hesitation, robbery, 
 seduction, rape, and murder. However, my superior 
 virtue for once overawed his villainy ; for he most 
 certainly had it in his power to have robbed me of 
 a large sum of money without the possibility of a 
 discovery, and, if he thought it necessary, he might 
 have despatched me with as little danger. I have 
 since asked him what strange fit of virtue or fear 
 of the devil came across him when he had such an 
 opportunity to make his fortune ? The impudent 
 rascal replied at once that he had very powerful 
 suggestions to send me to the other world, and 
 that if, fortunately for him, I had possessed one 
 single virtue, he should, without ceremony, have 
 despatched me to my reward. This event will, I 
 think, make a complete Mandevillian of me. You 
 see, for your encouragement, that a bad life is good 
 for something ; and for the good example which 
 the world will receive from me in times to come,
 
 52 THE LIFE OF 
 
 it will be indebted to the very bad one I have 
 already given it. After this signal and providential 
 preservation, I cannot but think that Heaven has 
 something particularly great in store for me. 
 
 "As I tell it you, this history has the air of a 
 badinage, but you may be assured that it is a real 
 fact, and I am sorry that the circumstances of it are 
 too long and various to be inserted in a letter. I 
 believe you know something of the man, but if you 
 repeat what I have written to any one who is 
 acquainted with him, you will soon find that I have 
 had a very narrow escape. I have bribed him to 
 leave me, and he is gone for England. The story 
 of Lewis the Fourteenth and his barber is well 
 known, and you may, if you please, apply it to 
 your affectionate," &c. 
 
 George Edward Ayscough was the son of the 
 Eev. Dr. Francis Ayscough, who had been tutor to 
 Lyttelton's father at Oxford, and afterwards married 
 Anne Lyttelton, the peer's sister, and became Dean 
 of Bristol. George was, therefore, Thomas Lyttel- 
 ton's cousin, and held a lieutenant's commission in 
 the First Kegiment of Foot Guards. That in the 
 foregoing letter, and in the one that follows, he 
 has not been misrepresented, is shown by the 
 maimer in which he is treated by Nichols. " It 
 is painful," says that author, " to reflect on the
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 53 
 
 miscarriages of families, or the profligacy of indi- 
 viduals ; yet truth obliges me to observe, that 
 the honour of the respectable house of Lyttelton 
 derives little advantage from the conduct of this 
 unhappy member of it. Though a military man, 
 he submitted to be insulted by a gentleman* who 
 repeatedly treated him as a poltroon ; and, though 
 in no affluent circumstances, he gave up his com- 
 mission, to avoid doing his duty when called upon 
 by his Sovereign to fight in America, "f What 
 Nichols says of his vicious and debauched conduct, 
 may for the present be omitted. That it was to 
 him the following letter was addressed, there can 
 be no doubt : — 
 
 " You have certainly given yourself very un- 
 justifiable airs upon my subject : neither your 
 talents, knowledge, figure, courage, nor virtue, afford 
 you the shadow of that superiority over me which, 
 I understand, you affect to maintain. However 
 imprudent or bad my conduct may have been, 
 whatever vices I may unfortunately possess, be 
 assured I do not envy you your snivelling virtues, 
 which are worse than the worst vices, and give 
 an example of meanness and hypocrisy in the 
 
 * Swift, author of a poem entitled " The Gamblers." 
 t " Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century.''
 
 54 THE LIFE OF 
 
 extreme. Your letter is a farrago of them both ; 
 and since the receipt of it I despise you more 
 than ever. 
 
 "What, sir? Has my father got a cough, or 
 does he look thinner than usual, and read his 
 Bible ? There must be some certain symptoms of 
 his decay and dissolution that could induce you to 
 address yourself kindly to one who, to use your 
 own expression, is, as he ought to be, abandoned 
 by his family. You have dreamed of an hatch- 
 ment upon Hagley House, and seen a visionary 
 coronet suspended over my brow. You are a 
 simpleton and a parasite to let such weak reasons 
 guide you to wag your tail and play the spaniel, 
 and renew your offers to fetch and carry. Be 
 assured, for your comfort, that, if ever you and 
 I have any future intercourse together, it will be 
 upon such terms, or worse. 
 
 " I have heard it said, and I believe it to be 
 true, that you pretend to lament your poor uncle's 
 fate, and, with a more than rueful visage, prog- 
 nosticate the breaking of his heart from the wicked 
 life of his graceless son. Now, I will tell you a 
 secret, that, supposing such a canting prophecy 
 should take place to-morrow, you would be the 
 first to natter the parricide. I consider you with 
 a mixture of scorn and pity, when I see you so 
 continually pampered in difficulties from your
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 55 
 
 regard to the present and future Lord : though 
 you order your matters tolerably well, for there 
 is not one of our family to whom your hypocritical 
 canting will not answer in some degree, but to 
 myself. I know you, and I declare you to be 
 incapable of love or affection to any one, even to 
 a mother or a sister. You know what I mean ; 
 but to quit an idea abhorrent to human nature, 
 let me entreat you, if it is in your power, to act 
 with candour, and, if you must speak of me, tell 
 your sentiments openly, and not with those covert 
 looks and affected shrugs, which convey so much 
 more than meets the ear : and be so good, I pray 
 you, as to raise your merit upon your own mighty 
 stock of virtues, and not upon my vices. The 
 world will one day judge between us, and I must 
 desire you to be content with the acknowledged 
 superiority you will receive from the arbitration in 
 your favour. 
 
 " ' Oh, stvltvm nuiiis est, cum tu pravissima tentes, 
 Alterius censor id vitiosa notes ! ' 
 
 " I have not yet sung a requiem to my own 
 honour ; and, though you and some others of my 
 good friends may have chaunted a dirge over the 
 grave you have yourselves dug for it, it does not 
 rest, however, without the hopes of a joyful and 
 speedy resurrection. To have done with you for
 
 56 THE LIFE OF 
 
 the present, I have only to desire you to be an 
 open enemy to me, or a real friend, if you are 
 capable of either ; the halting between two opinions 
 on the matter is both disgraceful and contemptible. 
 Be assured that I give you these counsels more for 
 your own sake than for that of your humble servant, 
 
 " [Thomas Lyttelton.]" 
 
 It is probable that Lyttelton, leaving England 
 in disgrace with his family, and almost an outcast 
 from reputable society, left debtors unsatisfied; 
 and that to this circumstance must be ascribed the 
 attempt to conceal his movements on his return, 
 which elicited the friendly remonstrance to which 
 the following letter is a reply, and Avhich seems 
 to constitute the slender foundation upon which 
 the writer in the Quarterly Review built up the 
 theory that he secluded himself from the world to 
 study politics and write letters to the Advertiser: — 
 
 " You accuse me of neglect in not informing 
 you that I was in London. Believe me, I had 
 every disposition in the world to do it, but was 
 opposed by circumstances, which, among other 
 mortifications, prevented me from seeing you. I 
 came to England in so private a manner that I 
 imagined no one would, or, indeed, could know 
 of my arrival ; but, by a combination of unlucky
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTOX. 57 
 
 circumstances, the secret was discovered, and by 
 those who were the most likely to make a very 
 unpleasant use of their knowledge. I was, there- 
 fore, obliged to shift my plan, and to beg H 
 
 to give me an asylum in his house, where he very 
 kindly received and entertained me. My abode 
 was not suspected by any one ; and I remained 
 there till certain people were persuaded that I had 
 never left the Continent, or was again returned 
 to it; and till the hell-hounds which were in 
 pursuit of me had relaxed their search. 
 
 "You must certainly have heard me mention 
 something of my host and hostess ; they are the 
 most original couple that ever were paired together, 
 and their singularity effected what, I believe, no 
 other amusement could have attained — it made 
 me forget the disagreeableness of my situation. 
 He possesses a strange, wild, rhapsodic genius, 
 which, however, is not uncultivated ; and, amid a 
 thousand odd, whimsical ideas, he produces original 
 bursts of poetry and understanding that are charm- 
 ing:. She is a forei«;ner, assumes the title of 
 countess, and, without knowing how to write or 
 read, possesses, in the circumstances of dress, 
 behaviour, &c, all her husband's dispositions. She 
 is fantastic, grotesque, outre, and wild ; never- 
 theless, at times, there are very pleasing gleams 
 of propriety in her manners and appearance.
 
 58 THE LIFE OF 
 
 " I cannot describe so well as you may con- 
 ceive the striking and odd contrast of these two 
 characters, and what strange sparks are produced 
 by the collision of them. When she imagines 
 that Cytherea acknowledges her divinity, and he 
 grasps in his hand the lyre of Apollo ; when the 
 goddess unfolds herself to view with imaginary 
 millions at her feet, and when the god chides 
 the chairs and tables for not being awakened 
 into a cotillion by his strains ; in short, when 
 the sublime fit of madness is on, it is an august 
 scene ; but if the divinities should rival each 
 other, heaven changes instantly to hell, Venus 
 becomes a trull, and Phoebus a blind fiddler. It 
 is impossible to describe the riot ; not only re- 
 flections, but things of a more solid nature are 
 thrown at each other. Homer's genius is abso- 
 lutely necessary to paint celestial combats. But 
 it ends not here : this superb opera, which was 
 acted at least, during my stay, three times a week, 
 and rehearsed generally every day, for the most 
 part has an happy conclusion. The contest requires 
 the support of nectar, which softens the edge of 
 resentment, puts the parties in good humour, and 
 they are soon disposed to acknowledge each 
 other's merit and station, with a zeal and fond- 
 ness superior, if possible, to their late rage and 
 opposition. A number of collateral circumstances
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 59 
 
 serve as interludes to the grand piece, and though 
 less sublime, are not less entertaining. 
 
 " You will now, probably, be no longer dis- 
 pleased with me for making my hiding-place a 
 secret. One hour's attendance upon our orgies 
 would have done for you ; on the contrary, they 
 suited me. I wanted something to hurry my 
 spirits, to dissipate my thoughts, and amuse my 
 mind ; and I found it in this retreat. You know 
 enough of the parties to enter into my description. 
 I hope it will make you laugh ; but, if my pen 
 should fail, I will promise to make your sides 
 ache when we meet again, a pleasure which I 
 look to with a most sensible impatience." 
 
 He had not, it may be safely assumed, passed 
 the period of his second Continental sojourn in 
 scenes or with companions conducive to moral 
 amendment. For ever making resolutions for 
 the future, which he had not firmness enough to 
 keep, he returned to England in a state of mind 
 which forcibly illustrates the Zoroastrian creed, 
 the powers of good and evil contending for 
 mastery over the heart of man, and each in turn 
 gaining the advantage over the other. Weary 
 of his wandering life, surfeited with sensual 
 pleasures, disgusted with the degradation of his 
 surroundings, feeling with all the bitterness of
 
 60 LIFE OF THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 
 
 his passionful nature his exclusion from the family 
 circle, and from the society of his best friends, 
 he came back to England with contrition on his 
 lips ; and who shall say that it was not in his 
 heart ? But at the bottom of that mysterious 
 well-spring of human passions were pride and 
 vanity, and an inordinate love of pleasure — the 
 pride of intellect, the love of power, the thirst 
 for applause, the worship of the flesh ; all these, 
 cast down for the moment, were ready to spring 
 up and renew the struggle with every better 
 feeling of the heart, every higher aspiration of 
 the soul.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Overtures for Domestic Reconciliation — Lord Chatham congratu- 
 lates Lord Lyttelton on his Son's Return — Lord Lyttelton"s 
 Reply — Thomas Lyttelton's Letters to his Friends — The 
 Miseries of having nothing to do — Regret at the Loss of his Seat 
 in Parliament — Dialogues of the Dead — His own Version of 
 the Causes of his Disgrace — Claude Anet — Story of the 
 Quaker and his Dog — Bishop Lyttelton and the French 
 Horn-blowers — Comparison with Mirabeau. 
 
 There can be 110 doubt that Thomas Lyttelton 
 returned to England with a sincere desire for 
 restoration to the family relations, which, by 
 various circumstances, had been ruptured. He 
 wrote to the principal members of his family, 
 expressing regret for his past misconduct, assuring 
 them of his contrition, and asking for their inter- 
 cession with others on his behalf. Only one of 
 these letters has been preserved.* It was probably 
 
 addressed to Earl Temple, and is as follows : — 
 W /tic "ft** l<-*ft 
 
 " It is so long since I received your letter that 
 I am almost ashamed to answer it ; and be assured 
 that, in writing my apology, and asking your 
 
 * " Letters of the late Lord Lyttelton." 1806.
 
 62 THE LIFE OF 
 
 pardon, I act with a degree of resolution that I 
 have seldom experienced. I hardly expect that 
 you will receive the one, or grant the other. I 
 do not deserve either, or indeed any kindness 
 from you of any sort, for I have been very un- 
 grateful. I am myself very sensible of it, and 
 very much apprehend that you will be of the 
 same opinion. I was never more conscious of 
 my follies than at this moment ; and if you 
 should have withdrawn yourself from the very 
 few friends which are left me, I shall not dare 
 to complain ; for I deserve the loss, and can only 
 lament that another and a deeper shade will be 
 added to my life. The very idea of such a mis- 
 fortune is most grievous ; and nothing can be 
 more painful than the reflection of suffering it 
 from a fatal, ill-starred, and abortive infatuation, 
 which will prove my bane. I have written letters, 
 since I received yours, to many who have never 
 done me any kindness, to some who have betrayed 
 me, and to others whose correspondence adminis- 
 tered no one comfort to my heart, or honour to 
 my character ; and for them, at least engaged 
 with them, I have neglected you, to whose dis- 
 interested friendship I am so much indebted, 
 and which is now become the only point whereon 
 to fix my anchor of hope. 
 
 " But this is not all ; if it were, I have some-
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 63 
 
 thing within me which would whisper your 
 forgiveness; for you know of what frail materials 
 I am made ; and have ventured, in the face of 
 the world's malice, to prognosticate favourably 
 of my riper life. But I fear that you will think 
 meanness added to ingratitude when I tell you 
 that I am called back to acknowledge your past 
 goodness to me, and to ask a repetition of it, 
 not from any renewed sentiment of honour or 
 gratitude, but by immediate and wringing dis- 
 tress. In such a situation your idea presented 
 itself to me — an idea which was not encouraged 
 in seasons of enjoyment : it never wished to share 
 my pleasure, but, like the first-born of friendship, 
 it hastened to partake my pain. Though it came 
 in so lovely a form, I dared not bid it welcome ; 
 and I started, as at the sight of one whom I had 
 severely injured, whose neglect, contempt, and 
 revenge I might justly dread, while I did not 
 possess the least means of resistance, nor had a 
 covert left where I might fly for refuge. 
 
 "This is a very painful confession, and will, 
 I hope, plead my cause in your bosom, and win 
 
 you to grant my request. I have written to 
 
 for some time past, and have never been favoured 
 with one line of reply. Indeed, it has been 
 hinted that he refuses to read my letters. How- 
 ever that may be, he most certainly does not
 
 64 THE LIFE OF 
 
 answer them. In order, therefore, that I may 
 know my fate and be certain of my doom, I most 
 earnestly and submissively entreat you to deliver 
 the enclosed letter into his hands. If I should be 
 deserted by you both, the consequences may be of 
 such a nature as, in the most angry paroxysm, you 
 would neither of you wish to your most obliged," &c. 
 
 It is doubtful whether the person mentioned 
 in this letter as not answering his appeal was his 
 father or Sir Richard Lyttelton, and the blanks 
 in the next epistle throw no light upon the point. 
 The latter was evidently addressed to a friend 
 who was entirely in his confidence, the previous 
 commission referred to in the first sentence re- 
 lating to inquiries which he had asked his cor- 
 respondent, while in Paris, to make concerning 
 a lady whom he had met there. He respected 
 the lady as much as he admired her, but he says 
 that, of ten calls he had made upon her, he had 
 been admitted only thrice, "when there was a 
 great deal of company. This," he continues, "is 
 a very superior woman ; for, while she conducts 
 herself in such a manner towards me as to tell me 
 plainly, that the respect she has for my family is 
 the only inducement to give me the reception she 
 does, there is not a single look suffered to escape 
 her from which any person might form the most
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTUX. 65 
 
 distant suspicion of her sentiments concerning me." 
 He had been unable, from indisposition, to bid her 
 farewell in person, and had consoled himself " by 
 writing her a letter, which was half serious, more 
 than half gallant, and almost sincere." He wished 
 to know whether, and in what manner, the lady 
 had spoken of him ; but his friend had been unable 
 to learn, and Lyttelton thought it probable that his 
 epistle had been consigned to the fire-grate. 
 
 " I have another commission for you, in which 
 I flatter myself you will be more successful than 
 in your last. You must know, then, that I am 
 in a bad plight, and there is no good ground of 
 expectation that matters will go better with me : 
 on the contrary, the prospect is a dark one, and 
 the gloom increases every step I take. To ex- 
 tricate myself, if possible, I wrote to , who 
 
 has not answered my letters, and, I am disposed 
 to think, never opens them. I was, therefore, 
 under the necessity of addressing a very pitiful, 
 
 penitential epistle to . I have used him 
 
 scurvily, and made such an ill return to all his 
 zeal to serve me, that I have too much reason to 
 apprehend his resentment. He passed through 
 
 about six weeks ago, without inquiring after 
 
 me. However, without appearing to know any- 
 thing of that circumstance, I ventured to tell a 
 
 F
 
 CG THE LIFE OF 
 
 miserable tale to him, and to beseech his kindness 
 would once more interest itself in my behalf, by 
 
 delivering: a letter into 's own hands. It 
 
 would be an easy matter, I should imagine, to 
 discover if he has complied with my request. 
 
 T will inform you if he has been lately, and 
 
 when, in Street. Perhaps he may have 
 
 scented out something more ; and whatever you 
 can discover I should be glad to know with all 
 possible despatch. They will probably be slow in 
 their operations, whatever they may be ; and your 
 information will direct my hopes, or confirm my 
 fears, — will either give a sunshine to the present 
 shade, or prepare me for the worst." 
 
 He seems to have been some time in London 
 before his return was known to the family, for 
 Lord Chatham, in a letter to his father,* speaks 
 of his return and the reconciliation as events more 
 nearly connected in point of time than they appear 
 to have been. The letter is dated February 1G, 
 1772, and is as follows : — 
 
 "My dear Lord, — The sincere satisfaction I 
 feel on what I hear of Mr. Lyttelton's return, with 
 all the dispositions you could wish, will not allow 
 
 * " Correspondence of the Earl of Chatham.'' 1838.
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTOX. 67 
 
 me to be silent on so interesting an event. Accept, 
 my dear Lord, my felicitations upon these happy 
 beginnings, together with every wish that this 
 opening of light may ripen into the perfect day. 
 I know what it is (thank God!) to be happy hitherto 
 in my children ; and I grieve for those who meet 
 with essential disappointment in that vital part 
 of domestic happiness. May you never again know 
 anguish from such a wound to your comfort, but the. 
 remainder of your days derive as much felicity from 
 the return as you suffered pain from the deviation." 
 
 Lord Lyttelton replied to these felicitations and 
 good wishes as follows: "I give you a thousand 
 thanks for your very kind felicitations on the 
 return of my son, who appears to be returned, not 
 only to me, but to a rational way of thinking, and 
 a dutiful conduct, in which if he perseveres, it will 
 gild with joy the evening of my life." 
 
 There are letters which appear to have been 
 written by Thomas Lyttelton about this time, 
 which afford further insight into his strangely com- 
 pounded character, and throw light upon the causes 
 of his long estrangement from his family. " There 
 is nothing," he savs in one of them, "so miserable, 
 and, I may add, so unfortunate, as to have nothing 
 to do. The peripatetic principle, that Nature 
 abhors a vacuum, may be applied, with great pro.
 
 08 THE LIFE OF 
 
 priety, to the human intellect, which will embrace 
 anything, however criminal, rather than be without 
 an object. It is a matter of indubitable certainty 
 with me that, if I had kept my seat in Parliament, 
 most of the unpleasant predicaments in which I 
 have been involved since that time would have 
 been avoided. I was disposed to application in 
 the political line, and was possessed of that ready 
 faculty of speech which would have enabled me to 
 make some little figure in the senate. I should 
 have had employment ; my passions would have 
 been influenced by a proper animating object, and 
 my vanity would have been sufficiently satisfied. 
 During the short time I sat in Parliament, I found 
 myself in the situation I have described : I was 
 pleased with the character ; I availed myself of its 
 privileges while I possessed them ; I mingled in 
 public debate, and received the most flattering 
 testimonies of applause. If this scene had con- 
 tinued, it would have been very fortunate for 
 myself, and have saved my friends great anxiety 
 and many alarms : you, among the rest, would 
 have been spared the pain of much unavailing 
 counsel and disregarded admonitions. 
 
 "You know me well enough to be certain 
 that I must have a particular and not a common 
 object to employ my attention ; it must be an 
 object Avhich inspires desire, calls forth activity,
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 69 
 
 keeps hope upon the stretch, and has some sort 
 of high colouring about it. Power and popular 
 reputation are of this kind, and would greatly 
 have engrossed my thoughts and wishes ; they 
 would have kept under the baser passions ; I 
 should have governed them at least ; and my 
 slavery, if I was destined to be a slave, would 
 have been more honourable. But, losing a situ- 
 ation so suitable to me, I fell back, a prey to 
 that influence which had already proved so fatal, 
 and yielded myself a victim to an habitual dis- 
 soluteness which formed my only pleasure. 
 
 "I do not mean to write a disrespectful 
 thought of my father ; I would not offend you 
 by doing it ; but, surely, his ignorance of man- 
 kind is beyond all conception. It is hardly 
 credible that a man of his understanding and 
 knowledge, whose life has been ever in the world, 
 and the most polished societies of it, who writes 
 w r ell and ably on its manners, should be so 
 childish in its concerns as to deserve the coral 
 that amused, and the go-cart that sustained him 
 sixty years ago. I write in confidence, and you 
 know what I assert to be true. Indeed, I miorht 
 go further, and trace the errors of my own life 
 from the want of that kind of paternal discern- 
 ment which sees into the character of his child, 
 watches over its growing dispositions, gently
 
 70 THE LIFE OF 
 
 moulds them to his will, and completes the whole 
 by placing him in a situation suitable to him. 
 
 "I have been the victim of vanity, and the 
 sacrifice of me was begun before I could form a 
 judgment of the passion. You will, probably,, 
 understand me; but if there should be the least 
 gloom in my allusions, I will, with your leave, 
 explain the matter more clearly in some future 
 letter. There is a great deal of difference between 
 a good man and a good father. I have known 
 bad men who excelled my father as much in 
 parental care as he was superior to them in real 
 virtue. But more of this hereafter." 
 
 He continued the subject in the letter from 
 which extracts are given in the first and second 
 chapters of these memoirs, and which concludes as 
 follows : — 
 
 "You know as well as myself what happened 
 during my travels, as well as after my return ; 
 and I trust that you will impute my misconduct, 
 in part at least, to its primary cause. 
 
 " In this short sketch of the matter, which 
 consists rather of hints than descriptions, you 
 will see the drift of my reasoning, and know 
 how to apply it to a thousand circumstances in 
 your remembrance. You were present at my
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTOX. 71 
 
 being received into the arms of nry family with 
 a degree of warmth, delight, and triumph, which 
 the brightest virtue could alone have deserved ; 
 and you recollect the cause of all this rapturous 
 forgiveness, which, I believe, penitence itself would 
 not, at that time, have effected ; it was my having 
 made a speech in Parliament, flowery, indeed, and 
 bold, but very little to the purpose, and at a 
 time when, as I was certain that I should lose 
 my seat, it would have been prudent in me to 
 have remained silent. However, Mr. Ellis thought 
 proper to compliment me upon the occasion, and 
 to observe that I spoke with hereditary abilities ; 
 and this circumstance instantly occasioned the 
 short-lived family truce that succeeded. 
 
 " That my relations may have cause to com- 
 plain of me, I do not deny ; but this confession 
 is accompanied with an opinion, in which I doubt 
 not of your acquiescence, that I, on my side 
 also, have no small cause of complaint ; and, 
 however black the colour of my future life may 
 be, I shall ever consider that the dusky scenes 
 of it are occasioned by the vanity of my family, 
 and not by any obdurate or inflexible dispositions 
 inherent in my own character." 
 
 He had written at this time two " Dialogues 
 of the Dead," one between Jesus and Socrates,
 
 72 THE LIFE OF 
 
 the other between David and Caesar Borgia, from 
 hints given him at Turin by a free-thinking 
 Frenchman. They are said to have been ex- 
 tremely irreverent and profane ; but the suspicion 
 that they were intended to ridicule the similar 
 compositions of his father is declared by him to 
 be without foundation. " Bad as they may be," 
 he observes, " they were not writ for so bad 
 a purpose ; and, if I had considered the possibility 
 of such an idea becoming prevalent, they would 
 never have been exposed to inspection. I WTote 
 them originally in French, and never, to my 
 recollection, gave them an English dress, but 
 when I read them to some one who did not 
 understand the former language. I was nattered 
 into the suffering of some copies to be taken by 
 the declaration of a respectable literary company 
 that they were superior to Voltaire's tragedy of 
 Saul ; and these copies must have been greatly 
 multiplied to have made it possible that one of 
 them should have reached you. I am very sorry 
 for it ; for you have already more than sufficient 
 reason to fill your letters to me with reproaches, 
 and I to curse the chance that has thrown another 
 motive in your way to continue a train so dis- 
 agreeable to us both. 
 
 "It is true that my father is a Christian, and 
 has given an ample testimony of his faith to
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 
 
 the world by his writings ; but it was long after 
 lie attained to my age that he became a convert *^ 
 to that system which he has defended. It is * 
 painful to me, and hardly fair in you, to occasion 
 our being brought together in the same period ; 
 it takes from me the means of justification where 
 I could use them, and of palliation where a 
 complete defence might not be practicable. As 
 to my right reverend uncle, I shall consider him 
 with less ceremony. He also may be a good 
 Christian ; but I recollect to have heard him 
 make a better discourse upon the outside orna- 
 ments of an old Gothic pulpit — I think it was 
 at Wolverhampton — than he ever delivered in 
 one throughout the whole course of his evangelical 
 labours. He seems much more at home in a 
 little harangue on some doubtful remnant of a 
 Saxon tombstone than in urging the performance 
 of Christian duties, or guarding, with his lay 
 brother, the Christian fortress against infidel 
 invasion. I well remember, also, to have heard 
 his right reverence declare that he would willingly 
 give one of his fingers (that was his expression) 
 to have a good natural history of Worcestershire. 
 What holy ardour he may possess as an anti- 
 quarian, I cannot tell ; but, in my conscience, I 
 think he would make a sorry figure as a Christian 
 martyr, and that a zeal for our holy religion
 
 74 THE LIFE OF 
 
 would not inflame him to risk the losing of a 
 nail from his finder. 
 
 " I repeat to you, upon my honour, that I 
 did not wish these jeux cV esprit should have gone 
 beyond the limits I had prescribed for them. 
 The very few persons to whom I gave them were 
 bound, by a very solemn promise, not to circulate 
 their contents or to name their author. If they 
 have forfeited their word, I am sorry for it; but 
 the failure of their engagement cannot be imputed 
 to me, and the severest judge would not think me 
 guilty of more than chance-medley on the occasion. 
 In your breast, I hope there is a complete and full 
 acquittal for your most sincere and obliged," &c. 
 
 This letter, and others, show that he had 
 read many of the deistical works of the period, 
 and that he was suspected of having imbibed 
 the sceptical views of revealed religion which 
 were then beginning to pervade all classes of 
 society in every civilised country. He is credited, 
 however, in a passage of one of Pennington's works, 
 which has been quoted by almost every subse- 
 quent writer by whom he has been mentioned,* 
 
 * " With great abilities, generally very ill apjflied — with a 
 strong sense of religion, which he never suffered to influence his 
 conduct — his days were mostly passed in splendid misery, and in 
 the painful change of the most extravagant gaiety and the deepest
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELT(L\. 75 
 
 with "a strono- sense of relioion ;" and such a 
 sentiment is not incompatible, as some of the most 
 celebrated divines of the present day have shown, 
 with views of the divine inspiration and literal 
 interpretation of the Scriptures which, a century 
 uq;o, were considered inconsistent with the belief 
 of a Christian. Thomas Lyttelton, whatever else 
 he was, was not a hypocrite ; and his letters and 
 speeches must be accepted, therefore, as evidence 
 that he never ceased to be a Christian, though 
 he may have had reasonable doubts upon some 
 matters which it was then held to be impious to 
 doubt. He lived in an age of active thought, 
 when the minds of all who were capable of 
 thinking were, at some period of their lives, 
 more or less disturbed, as even his father's had 
 once been, as he acknowledged on his death- 
 bed to Dr. Johnstone.* 
 
 The revolt of the intellect against old forms 
 of religious belief was accompanied by a corre- 
 sponding movement against the restraints of eustom 
 
 despair. The delight, when lie pleased, of the first and most 
 select society, he chose to pass his time, for the most part, with 
 the most pi'ofligate and abandoned of both sexes. Solitude was 
 to him the most insupportable of all torments, and to banish 
 reflection he flew to company whom he despised and ridiculed. 
 His conduct was .a source of bitter regret both lo his father and 
 to all his friends." — Memoirs of Elizabeth Garter. 
 
 * " Memoirs and Letters of George Lord Lyttelton.'' 1815.
 
 76 THE LIFE OF 
 
 and convention, and society was threatened with 
 the loss of its cohesion. It was heaving already 
 with the comino; throes of revolution. Young- 
 men like Thomas Lyttelton, endowed with active 
 intellects and ardent temperaments, breaking the 
 chains which had bound the minds of past genera- 
 tions, were dazzled by the illumination into 
 which they rushed, and groped about as blindly 
 as those who remained in the dark. They found 
 the fences and landmarks of the moral world 
 thrown down, and they wandered about in it, 
 without guides, scoffing at warnings of their 
 danger, and absorbed in the triumphs of the 
 intellect and the pleasures of the senses. 
 
 It is impossible to understand the character 
 of Thomas Lyttelton, and to do justice to it, 
 without understanding the character of the age in 
 which lie lived. It was not a religious age ; still 
 less was it a moral age. The evidence afforded 
 by contemporary memoirs, letters, and journals 
 is conclusive upon this point. Religion was dead, 
 morality at the lowest ebb ; and the creeds, 
 customs, and conventionalities which are their 
 mere husk, and which alone remained, and passed 
 current for them, were everywhere struggling to 
 maintain themselves against the rising tide of new 
 ideas. There was necessarily a large amount of 
 hypocrisy in the world ; for an outward rever-
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 77 
 
 ence for religion and regard for morality was 
 enforced by the example of the Court, and self- 
 interest was a potent agent in prompting men 
 who cared nothing about either to be loud in 
 their professions of attachment to the Church, 
 and unquestioning belief in the Articles of Reli- 
 gion. 
 
 Thomas Lyttelton was at least no hypocrite ; 
 whatever his other faults may have been, he was 
 one of the most candid of mankind. " Open and 
 ingenuous in his disposition," says one who knew 
 him well,* "he soon became disgusted at the 
 
 hypocrisy of mankind Less cautious 
 
 in his amours than a more prudent, though not 
 less guilty, man would be, it is not at all extra- 
 ordinary that his lordship should have met with 
 obloquy and reproaches, since there is no situation 
 in life which will admit of an avowed contempt 
 of vulgar prejudices." In several of his letters 
 he attributes his bad reputation to these features 
 of his character ; and no one who has studied it, 
 and the times in which he lived, can doubt that 
 many worse men have enjoyed a better repute, 
 
 * The author of the character of Thomas Lyttelton, prefixed 
 to the volume of poems attributed to him, and jiublished after 
 his death. This brief essay is anonymous, but Roberts, who 
 edited the volume, and wrote the preface, states that it was 
 Written by a gentleman who had been intimate with him.
 
 78 THE LIFE OF 
 
 simply because they took more care to seem better 
 than they were, and put on the semblance of a 
 piety and a virtue which they did not really 
 
 possess. 
 
 " The world at large," says lie, in a letter to 
 a friend, " is so disposed to generalise, that it is 
 seldom right when it descends into the detail of 
 opinion. It has so many eyes and objects that, 
 in the act of particularising the sources of its 
 favour or disapprobation, the rectitude or error of 
 its conclusions are both the effect of hazard. I, 
 as you too well know, have been the subject of 
 its severest censure; but, with all my faults, I 
 have much reason to complain of its precipitate 
 injustice. 
 
 : ' Among other instances of its premature in- 
 disposition towards me, the circumstance to which 
 you have alluded with so much humour is in proof 
 of my assertion; and, to heighten my mortifica- 
 tion at that time, my own family joined the 
 popular cry, so that, in pronouncing all possibility 
 of amendment/" the devoted prodigal was driven 
 to a situation which absolutely precluded him 
 from it. 
 
 * There seems a slip of the pen here, unless we suppose a 
 typographical blunder to have been made ; the writer must have 
 intended to say, " all amendment impossible."
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTOX. 79 
 
 " My father, in a long detail of my unworthi- 
 ness, which, with his usual tenderness, lie dealt 
 forth to Harry de Salis, as a climax to the amiable 
 history, concluded the list of my enormities with 
 declaring that I actually intrigued with three 
 different women of fashion at one and the same 
 time ! Without making any comment on the very 
 creditable account given of me, and the favourable 
 picture which his pious lordship displayed of our 
 first-rate females, permit me to assure you that 
 neither my prowess with the ladies, nor any foolish, 
 unworthy deed of mine, occasioned the paternal 
 displeasure of that moment. The subject of an 
 occasional morning's reading was the true, but 
 unacknowledged, cause of my disgrace. I shall do 
 myself the justice of relating the fact to you in all 
 its circumstances. 
 
 "You must have heard of the celebrated 
 sceptical writer, Claude Anet. His works, and the 
 prosecution which they brought upon him, have 
 conspired to give his name no small share of public 
 notoriety. It will be also necessary to inform you 
 that, after the sacred writings, Lord Lyttelton 
 lias directed his partial estimation to two popular 
 theological productions. The one details, explains, 
 and observes upon the resurrection of Christ ; 
 and the other defends the character and conduct 
 of the Apostle Paul. The former was written by
 
 80 THE LIFE OF 
 
 his dearly beloved friend, Mr. West ; the latter by 
 himself. The infidel, Claude Anet, among other 
 matters, thought proper to give these two pub- 
 lications a particular and separate consideration. 
 He had the abominable impudence to declare, that 
 they were not only deficient in their principles, 
 but that they were logically defective in the means 
 they took to support them ; nay, he undertakes to 
 give them arguments superior to any they have 
 used, and then to confute them. 
 
 " On this ground he opens his battery, and 
 makes his attack ; nor is he without his partisans 
 among men of learning and talents, as I have been 
 informed, who do not hesitate to assign him the 
 victory. Of this I do not pretend to determine ; 
 I have, in truth, no genius for that line of criticism. 
 The mode of proceeding, however, must be acknow- 
 ledged to have been accompanied with an air of 
 insolence and contempt which might have been 
 the cause of mortification to men of a less sensible 
 fibre than one, at least, of those against whom it 
 was directed. It had this effect in the extreme : 
 for the pity of the Christian gave way to the pride 
 of the author, and the damnable sceptic, instead 
 of being the object of fervent prayer that he might 
 be converted from the error of his way, was wafted, 
 in a moment, by his pious antagonist, to the howl- 
 ing portion of the devil and his angels.
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 81 
 
 " In an unlucky hour it was discovered that 
 this offensive volume was in my possession, and 
 the subject of my occasional meditation ; and from 
 hence arose that unexpected burst of displeasure 
 that fell with so much weight upon me, and which 
 had instant recourse to my graceless life as the 
 pretended reason for its justification. I do not 
 know a quality of the human mind that is of such 
 an absorbent nature as vanity ; in one disappointed 
 moment it will suck up the virtue of years. If 
 Claude Anet had levelled his shafts in another 
 direction, or I had increased my caution in tracing 
 their course, I might have intrigued with a whole 
 seraglio of women of fashion, without drawino- 
 upon me an atom of that vengeance of which I 
 was the victim. I could not tell the true cause, 
 as it would have increased, if possible, the irrita- 
 tion against me, without doing any good ; and, 
 besides, my authority would have been lighter 
 than a feather, in the public opinion, when put in 
 competition with the power that persecuted me : — 
 for, religious opinions apart, the whole was an 
 abominable persecution. 
 
 " I never felt so sensibly the inconvenience 
 of a bad character as at this period. Impudence 
 could do but little ; hypocrisy, which is so thick 
 a garb for half mankind, was not a veil of gauze 
 to me ; and, as for repentance, that was not in 
 
 G
 
 82 THE LIFE OF 
 
 the reach of ordinary credibility. I was really in 
 the situation of the Quaker's dog, who, being 
 caught in the fact of robbing the pantry, was 
 told, in all the complacency of revenge, by his 
 amiable master, ' I will not beat thee, nor kill 
 thee for thy thieving ; but I will do worse, for I 
 will give thee a bad name ; ' and immediately, on 
 driving him from the house, alarmed the neigh- 
 bourhood with the calm assurance that he was a 
 mad dog ; so that the poor animal was pursued 
 with the unreflecting brutality usual on such occa- 
 sions, which soon put an end to his existence. 
 You may truly apply this story to your affectionate 
 friend, 
 
 " [Thomas Lyttelton]." 
 
 He offended his uncle, Bishop Lyttelton, in a 
 similar manner, according to the version of his 
 disgrace with that prelate which he gives in a letter 
 to a friend, of which the following is the greater 
 and concluding portion : — ■ 
 
 " Some years ago I had formed an unlucky 
 plan to mortify my right reverend uncle, who 
 had taken some authoritative liberties with me, 
 without giving him a fair opportunity to express 
 his resentment. This was no less than an attack 
 upon the temporal privilege of episcopacy, in
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 83 
 
 possessing a seat in the House of Lords. I had 
 some thoughts of my own upon the subject, but 
 I had fortunately added to their number and 
 importance from the accidental perusal of a re- 
 published tract on the conduct of our bishops 
 through upwards of twenty reigns, which un- 
 answerably proved that, during so long a period, 
 they had almost uniformly manifested themselves 
 to be foes to rational liberty. I took up the 
 argument in a very general view, urged it with 
 modesty, and, what was better, with security, as, 
 in case it had been returned with anger, I was 
 armed with the opinion of my father, who was 
 present, and, in his Persian Letters, has written 
 to the same purpose. In short, I enjoyed all the 
 triumph that my malicious expectation could have 
 framed. The prelate grinned with vexation, but 
 was forced to acquiesce in silence ; and I had 
 my revenge. 
 
 " But, not many days after, when my resent- 
 ment towards this reverend relation had been 
 lost in its fruition, a trifling circumstance hap- 
 pened, which his vigilant anger gladly seized, 
 in order to heap upon me every indignity which 
 his truly Christian spirit was capable of pro- 
 ducing. As a family party of us were crossing 
 the road on the side of Hagley Park, a chaise 
 passed along, followed by a couple of attendants
 
 84 THE LIFE OF 
 
 with French horns. 'Who can that be?' said 
 my father. ' Some itinerant mountebank,' replied 
 I, 'if one may judge from his musical followers.' 
 I really spoke with all the indifference of an 
 innocent mind ; nor did it occur to me that the 
 Right Reverend Father in God, my uncle, had 
 sometimes been pleased to travel with servants 
 accoutred with similar instruments. 
 
 " But evil on itself will soon recoil," 
 
 and my recollection was soon restored to me by 
 a torrent of abuse, which was, in length, violence, 
 and, I had almost said, in expression, equal to 
 any sacred anathema of popish resentment. In 
 short, I was cursed, damned, and sent to the 
 devil, in all the chaste periphrasis of a priest's 
 implacability. The whole of the business was of 
 a very singular nature : he availed himself of an 
 inoffensive occurrence to let loose his resentment 
 at a past offence ; while I, in a state of actual 
 innocence, sunk beneath the consciousness of past 
 guilt. 
 
 "But, to conclude with a serious observation, 
 be assured, my friend, that, however rich, great, 
 or powerful a man may be, it is the height of 
 folly to make personal enemies of any, but par- 
 ticularly from personal motives ; for one unguarded 
 moment — and who could support the horrors of
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 85 
 
 a never-ceasing, suspicious vigilance ! — may yield 
 you to the revenge of the most despicable of 
 mankind. From a very unpleasant experience 
 of my own, I should most sincerely counsel every 
 young man who is entering on the theatre of the 
 world to merit the good opinion of mankind by 
 an easy, unaffected, and amiable deportment to 
 all, which will do more to make his walk through 
 life respectable and happy, than those more 
 striking and splendid qualities which are for 
 ever in the extremes of honour or disgrace. 
 Adieu!" 
 
 There is a strong resemblance between the 
 position of Thomas Lyttelton at this period, and 
 that of Mirabeau ten years later. Mirabeau, in 
 1781, plunged in profligacy and in debt, had re- 
 turned to France after self-expatriation forced 
 upon him by his misconduct, corrected and re- 
 pentant, willing to amend, and longing to be 
 reconciled to his family. But he knew not what 
 to do with himself, nor did his father know what 
 to do with him. The old marquis appealed to 
 his brother, the Commander of the Order of 
 Malta. " Have pity," he wrote, " on thy hurri- 
 cane-nephew ; he acknowledges, and with good 
 reason, that the intellect and talent he employed 
 in committing his follies are surprising ; he ad-
 
 86 THE LIFE OF 
 
 mits this, like all the rest, for he is the greatest 
 confessor of faults in the universe It is impossible 
 to possess greater intelligence and facility. With 
 every attribute, or nearly so, of the sky-rocket, he 
 is a thunder-bolt of labour and expedition. Ex- 
 ample, knowledge, and superiority correct him 
 of themselves; but he has an immense want of 
 being governed. He knows that he owes his 
 return to you ; he knows that you have always 
 been pilot and compass to me, and that you 
 must be the same to him ; and he puts his vanity 
 in his uncle. I tell you he is a rare subject for 
 the future. You have all the Saturn necessary 
 for his Mercury. But if once you hold him, do 
 not let him go ; should he even perforin miracles, 
 keep your hold of him, and pull him by the 
 sleeve, for the poor devil requires it." 
 
 " I will not have him," replied Commander 
 Mirabeau. " If, at thirty-two years of age, he 
 requires to be ridden with a curb rein, his under- 
 standing will never ripen. ... If, at his age, 
 he is not sufficiently master of himself to avoid 
 running his head against a post, it is madness to 
 attempt to make anything of him."" Ten years 
 after this correspondence, the name of Mirabeau 
 was a potent spell to conjure with in the politics 
 
 * " Memoirs of Mirabeau." 1842.
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTOX. 87 
 
 of his country. Thomas Lyttelton was four years 
 younger, when he returned to his native country 
 under similar circumstances, than the great 
 Frenchman was when this correspondence passed 
 between his father and his uncle. If Mirabeau's 
 future was not to be despaired of at thirty-two, 
 still less was Lyttelton's at twenty-eight.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Morals of the Eighteenth Century — Gambling and Gallantry — 
 Mania for Card-playing and Betting — Singular Wagers — 
 Lyttelton's Wager with Blake — Elopement of Sally Harris 
 with Lyttelton — Letter about George Ayscough — John 
 Courtney — Mrs. Dawson — Letter on the Passions— Mrs. 
 Peach — Lyttelton's Account of his Courtship and Marriage — 
 Letters to his Father on the Subject — Anecdote of Lord 
 Lyttelton — Letter from Lord Chatham to Lord Lyttelton — 
 Lord Lyttelton's Reply — A Contrast. 
 
 The most superficial reader that ever skimmed 
 the cream of Horace Walpole's letters must rise 
 from the perusal of that interesting mass of 
 correspondence with the impression that the 
 Georgian era was a most immoral one. Moral 
 debasement and political corruption seemed to vie 
 with each other for an odious and disgusting 
 supremacy. Court and Cabinets, Lords and Com- 
 mons, were all alike tainted with corruption and 
 immorality. Those who were pointed out as 
 vicious men were merely worse than the others ; 
 and it was one of the greatest misfortunes of the 
 age that its affairs had to be conducted, as a rule, 
 by bad men, because an Administration of the
 
 LIFE OF THOMAS LORD LYTTELTOX. 89 
 
 virtuous was rendered impracticable by the too 
 frequent conjunction of mental dulness with moral 
 purity. 
 
 Gambling and gallantry were vices from which 
 few public men were free. The social pictures 
 painted by Hogarth had not ceased to be truthful 
 representations of a considerable section of English 
 life and manners, though a little — perhaps a very 
 little — abatement may have to be made from their 
 grossness. The passion for cards and dice, and for 
 betting, had received an enormous development. 
 Lyttelton and the Darners, the Foxes and the 
 Foleys, did not perhaps seek the perilous excite- 
 ment of cards and dice in such dens as Hogarth 
 painted, where there was no ballot for the admis- 
 sion of gamblers with pedigrees, to the exclusion 
 of gamblers without, and where George Barrington 
 and Jack Eann could make a wager or throw the 
 ivory cubes, without fear of interruption by Bow 
 Street "runners," or those guardians of virtue, 
 the parish constables. But high play went on 
 nightly at all the clubs, and the best minds and 
 hearts of the age were drawn into the fatal vortex. 
 Fox, the school-fellow of Lyttelton and the Darners 
 at Eton, and one day to be Prime Minister of 
 England, equalled them in his rage for play, and 
 exceeded them in the amount of his losses. Before 
 he had attained his twenty-fourth year, his debts
 
 90 THE LIFE OF 
 
 to Jew money-lenders amounted to the almost 
 incredible sum of £100,000 ! He never won a 
 large stake but once, when he gathered up £8,000 
 in crisp notes and bright guineas. But no loss 
 ever ruffled his equanimity. Topham Beauclerk, 
 a good-natured roue and ill-natured wit, calling 
 upon him one morning, after a night of terrible 
 losses at the card-table, found him calmly reading 
 Herodotus. " What would you have me do," said 
 Fox, on his visitor expressing surprise at the 
 manner in which he bore his losses, " when I have 
 lost my last shilling ? " 
 
 Lord Coleraine and his two brothers squandered 
 their patrimony at the gaming-table, and then 
 cajoled or swindled their mother out of the 
 £1,600 a year, which was all their demands upon 
 his purse had allowed their father to bequeath to 
 her, leaving her helpless and destitute, so that she 
 became dependent upon a friend even for a bare 
 subsistence. Then, as we learn from Horace 
 Walpolc, they sent for the poor lady, saying that 
 her presence was necessary to some affair of busi- 
 ness. "It was to show her to the Jews," says 
 Walpole, " and convince them that hers was a good 
 life, unless she is starved. You must not sup- 
 pose that such- actions are disapproved ; for the 
 second brother is going minister to Brussels, that 
 he may not go to jail, whither he ought to go."
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 91 
 
 Betting ruinously supplemented tlie chances of 
 cards and dice. The betting-books of White's and 
 Brookes's contain bets on every conceivable sub- 
 ject — on the length of a life, the duration of a 
 ministry, the result of an election, the sex of an 
 unborn child, a convict's risk of the halter, or the 
 truth about the latest scandal. Lord Nugent made 
 a bet with Earl Temple that he would spit in the 
 Earl of Bristol's hat ; and the nasty wager was as 
 nastily won, though it was very nearly resulting 
 in a duel.* Lord Mountford bet Sir John Bland 
 twenty guineas that Beau Nash would survive 
 Colley Cibber. The same nobleman, when asked, 
 soon after his daughter's marriage, whether she 
 was in a condition to add to the number of his 
 Majesty's subjects, replied, "Upon my word, I 
 don't know ; I have no bet upon it." Walpole 
 says of him, that he "would have betted any man 
 in England against himself for self-murder," so 
 dominant was the passion for reducing everything 
 to a calculation of chances. " There is a man about 
 town," writes Walpole in 1768, "a Sir William 
 Burdett, a man of very good family, but most 
 infamous character. In short, to give you his 
 character at once, there is a wager entered in the 
 
 * Sir Nathaniel Wraxall's "Memoirs of my own Times," 
 vol. i.
 
 92 THE LIFE OF 
 
 bet-book at White's, that the first baronet that 
 will be hanged is this Sir "William Burdett." 
 
 One day, a man fell down insensible before 
 White's, and was carried into the house, where 
 odds were immediately offered and taken as to 
 whether he was dead or in a swoon. It was 
 proposed to bleed him ; but those who had betted 
 that he was dead protested against the use of the 
 lancet as affecting the fairness of the bet ! 
 Walpole tells a story of a clergyman, who, enter- 
 ing White's on the morning of the earthquake 
 of 1750, and hearing bets laid whether the shock 
 was caused by a natural convulsion of the earth, 
 or by the explosion of a powder-mill, went away 
 in horror, declaring that the members of the 
 club were such an impious set that he believed, 
 " if the last trump were to sound, they would 
 bet puppet-show against judgment." 
 
 "You have won both your wagers," says 
 Thomas Lyttelton, writing to a friend. " In speak- 
 ing of the inhabitants of China, I do make use of 
 the word Chineses; and I borrow the term from 
 Milton. As to your first bet, that I used such 
 an expression, your ears, I trust, will be grateful 
 for the confidence you had in them. But your 
 second wager, that, if I did use it, I had a good 
 authority, is very flattering to myself; and I 
 thank you for the opinion you entertain of the
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTOX. 93 
 
 accuracy of my language. My memory will 
 not, at this moment, direct you to the page, but 
 you will readily find the word in the index of 
 Newton's edition of Milton." 
 
 He made a singular bet with a gentleman 
 name Blake, touching the virtue of a young 
 woman named Harris, who was a waitress at an 
 inn,"" and whose beauty, wit, and coquetry had 
 gained her many admirers, among whom were 
 both the wagerers. Blake bet Lyttelton a hundred 
 guineas that he would induce this girl to elope 
 with him, and offered her all the money for her 
 compliance. The offer was refused ; and the 
 girl's reputation for virtue seems to have been 
 so high, that the refusal excited less surprise than 
 her subsequent element with Lyttelton, who 
 was probably aware of her preference for himself, 
 and, therefore, the least surprised of the circle in 
 which she was known. It is Sarah Harris who is 
 referred to, under the name of Pomona, in the 
 followino; letter : — 
 
 " [Ayscough] by no means deserves your pity ; 
 and the conduct which I have of late used, and 
 shall continue to use, towards him, arises from 
 
 * "Bolton's inn at Hockrel." — Preface to The Rape of Pomona. 
 Thomas Lyttelton, in a letter presently to be quoted, calls the placo 
 Hocknel. It is not to be found by either name in any gazetteer.
 
 94 THE LIFE OF 
 
 my perfect knowledge of his character, and the 
 remembrance of his former treatment of myself. 
 I told you long ago, when my bulrush hung its 
 head, that, high as this gentleman then bore 
 himself, the time would come when he would 
 hang his head in his turn, and bend his back 
 for me to tread upon. All this and more is now 
 come to pass. 
 
 "You express your surprise that he does not 
 discover some degree of resentment on the occasion 
 of his last journey to Hagley. The fever of that 
 business flushed him with no small hope, and 
 the succeeding ague shook him with disappoint- 
 ment ; but he had the prudence to conceal his 
 symptoms, and I left him to cure himself. He 
 may bluster in a guard-room with new com- 
 missioned ensigns, and, in the leisure of a tilt- 
 yard duty, may weave fanciful wreaths of future 
 fame ; nay, he may venture to give his name 
 to the world in a newspaper, or the title-page 
 of a miserable poem ; but the prowess of our 
 hero will go farther.*"" If I were to bid him go to 
 the Pomona of Hocknel for a pippin, he would not 
 hesitate a moment, and would burn his fingers 
 
 * It seems probable tbat tbe word " no " has been inadver- 
 tently omitted before " farther," either by the writer or the 
 printer.
 
 THOU AS LORD LYTTELTON. 95 
 
 willingly in roasting it ; and, when I had eaten 
 the pulp, he would content himself with the core. 
 
 " ' All this my little Greek exactly knows, 
 And bid him go to hell, to hell he goes.' 
 
 " If, however, your obstinate humanity should 
 look towards such an object, have a little patience, 
 and he will give you an opportunity for the full 
 exercise of it. I am in the secret, but I shall 
 not gratify his vanity by betraying it. After 
 all, I find him convenient, and to my purpose. 
 He is ready, submissive, and not without amuse- 
 ment. If he were to die, I should say with Shake- 
 speare, ' / could have better spared a better man.' 
 
 "At this moment, he is sitting on the other 
 side of my table, in the act of making some of 
 his own bad poetry worse, in which agreeable 
 business I may, perhaps, be kind enough to give 
 him some assistance. You would not, probably, 
 have suspected him in so close a vicinity to me, 
 but it is a fact; and when I have folded up my 
 letter, he shall enclose it in its envelope, and set 
 the seal to this certificate of his own good quali- 
 ties ; nay, I will make him direct it into the 
 bargain. Your pence, it is true, will suffer for 
 this whim of mine, but the revenue will be a 
 gainer — a circumstance which must satisfy you 
 as a patriot, on the truly political idea of
 
 96 THE LIFE OF 
 
 H [jlS^je+^ 
 
 making follies productive to the State. You may 
 observe, however, and with some reason, that every- 
 one should pay for his own. To such a remark 
 I have nothing to answer, but that I am," &c. 
 
 His amour with Sarah Harris was made the 
 subject of a ribald and indecent poem, entitled 
 " The Rape of Pomona," which the compiler of the 
 catalogue of the library of the British Museum 
 attributes to him, though it is stated, in the pre- 
 face, to be the production of a Cambridge student,, 
 whose passion for the beautiful waitress had in- 
 duced him to locate himself under the same roof 
 with her, in the humble capacity of a waiter. 
 However this may be, the poem is written 
 in the assumed character of Bolton's waiter, and 
 edited by John Courtney, a gentleman who then 
 represented the little borough of Tamworth in 
 Parliament, and was probably a worthy associate 
 of the Darners, the Foleys, the Foxes, and other 
 tavern-haunting, dice-throwing nominees of the 
 owners of rotten boroughs. If Courtney was not 
 himself the author of the doggerel, it may have 
 been written by Combe, who, having dissipated 
 his fortune by gambling, was, in 1771, found by 
 a friend at an inn at Swansea, in the position of 
 waiter. Combe, however, completed his education 
 at Oxford, not at Cambridge. There is an allusion
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 97 
 
 in the poem to a lady named Dawson, who is de- 
 scribed in a note as "a foolish widow who chose 
 to make Mr. L — tt — n the guardian of her person 
 and fortune, and enjoys the fruits of her credulity." 
 It is incredible that this would have been written 
 by Lyttelton himself, even if he could be proved 
 to have been capable of writing, and giving to 
 the world, such a ribald and obscene composition. 
 The extract is given here because it fixes the date 
 of an amour to which public attention was subse- 
 quently called by Sir Nathaniel Wraxall,* in his 
 usual blundering manner, as will hereafter be 
 shown. 
 
 The following letter, on the comparative in- 
 fluence of reason and the passions, may most 
 appropriately be introduced in this place : — 
 
 " My dear Friend, — Your letter, which I re- 
 ceived no longer ago than yesterday, would do 
 honour to the most celebrated name amonp- the 
 moral writers of any period. It is the most sensible, 
 easy, and concise history of the passions I have 
 ever read. Indeed, it has never been my lot to 
 have given any great portion of my time to such 
 studies. These powers have kept me too much 
 in the sphere of their own tumultuous whirlwinds 
 
 * " Memoirs of My Own Time." 1836. 
 
 H
 
 98 THE LIFE OF 
 
 to leave me the leisure of examining them. I 
 have been, am, and I fear shall be, their sport 
 and their slave ; and when I shall acquire that 
 serenity of character which will enable me to ex- 
 amine them with a philosophical scrutiny, I cannot 
 tell. My expectations are at such a distance on 
 this point, that I am almost ashamed to mention 
 my apprehensions to you. It is, however, treating 
 you with the confidence you deserve, to tell you 
 that from my soul I think the very source of them 
 must be dried up before they will lose their empire 
 over me. In the lively expression of the poet, 
 ' they are the elements of life,' without which man 
 would be a mass of insensible and unintelligent 
 matter. Now, it is that happy compound of these 
 elementary particles of intellectual life that you 
 so well describe, so thoroughly understand, and so 
 happily possess, which I despair of attaining. I 
 have the resolution to make resolutions, but it 
 extends no farther — I cannot keep them ; and to 
 escape from the misery brought on by one passion, 
 I have so habituated myself to bathe in a branch 
 of the same flood, that I cannot look for any other 
 relief. 
 
 " You very naturally ask me where all this must 
 end ? I know not ! — and to similar interroga- 
 tories I have sometimes madly replied, I care not ! 
 But I shall not offend you with such a declaration;
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 99 
 
 and when I am writing to you, I do not feel dis- 
 posed to do it. In answering yon, therefore, I 
 shall adopt the language of the ruined gamester, 
 who addressed his shadow in the glass : — ' Je vous 
 ai dit et redit, Malheureux ! que si vous, continuez 
 dfaire de pared tours, vous iriez a VhdpitaU 
 
 " You lay great stress upon the powers of reason, 
 and, in truly philosophical language, heightened 
 by the most proper and affecting imagery, present 
 this sa^e directress of weak mortals to mv atten- 
 tion. I receive her at your hand ; respect her as 
 yonr friend ; and venerate her as the cause of 
 your superiority over me ; hut whether she per- 
 ceives that my respect is insincere, or remembers 
 how shamefully I have neglected her, so it is that 
 she slides insensibly from me, and I see her no 
 more. My bark rides steady for a moment, but 
 it is not long ere it again becomes the sport of 
 winds and billows. But after all, and without any 
 blasphemous arraignment of the order of Pro- 
 vidence, permit me to ask you, why is this principle 
 — implanted in our natures for the wise and happy 
 regulation of them — so weak in itself, so slow in 
 its progress, and so late in its maturity ? If it 
 is designed to control our passions, why does it 
 not keep pace with them ? Wherefore does it not 
 groiv ivith their groivth, and strengthen with their 
 strength? And what cause can be assigned that
 
 100 THE LIFE OF 
 
 the one are ripe for gratification before the other 
 has scarce bursted into blossom ? 
 
 " Let us, however, take a long stride from the 
 imbecility of youth to the firmness of mature age, 
 and we shall see that the passions have only 
 changed their form ; that reason still totters, is 
 frequently driven from her throne, and even deserts 
 those who have most cultivated her friendship and 
 acknowledged her power. The contest frequently 
 continues through life, and the superiority as often 
 ends, where it always begins — on the side of 
 passion. We may be said even sometimes to out- 
 live reason ; while passion of some kind, and 
 many times of the worst kind, will preserve its 
 influence to the last. To conclude the matter, how 
 often does the lamp of human reason become ex- 
 tinct, yielding corporal nature a prey to passion 
 in the extreme, whose tortures are rendered more 
 fierce by the iron restraints of necessary policy and 
 medical interposition ! 
 
 "If it were possible to trace the course of rea- 
 son in the mind of the best man that ever lived, 
 from its first budding to a fulness of maturity, 
 what a mortifying scene would be unveiled ! What 
 checks and delays, what tranquillity and tumult, 
 what frequent extinction and renovation, what 
 rapid flights and sudden downfalls, what contest 
 and submission, would compose the operations of
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 101 
 
 this rightful mistress of human actions ? Men 
 of cold tempers, and habituated to reflection, may 
 cry up this distinctive faculty of man ; they 
 may chaunt its apotheosis, and build temples to 
 its honour : such were Lord Shaftesbury and Mr. 
 Addison ; aud they may be joined by those whose 
 fortunate education and early connections have 
 given to their warmer dispositions the best objects ; 
 in that confined but happy society I must place 
 my friend, whose kind star preserved his youth 
 from temptation, and blest his bloom of manhood 
 with the ample and all-satisfying pleasures of vir- 
 tuous love. You will not suspect me of wishing 
 to diminish the reality of that merit which I so 
 much admire, or of a desire to damp the glow of 
 that virtue whose lustre cannot be diminished by 
 my envy, or heightened by my praise ; but, in 
 the course of human affairs, time and chance 
 have so much to do, that I cannot suppose even 
 your worth to be without some obligations to 
 them. 
 
 " To conclude this very, very long letter, I 
 must beg leave to observe that I do not under- 
 stand why reason, that divinity of philosophers, 
 should be cooped up in the confined region of the 
 brain, while the passions are permitted to range 
 at large, and without restraint, through every other 
 part of the body, I see you smile ; but be assured
 
 102 THE LIFE OF 
 
 that these two jarring powers are, for a moment, 
 both united in me, to assure you that I am, with 
 a real sincerity, yours, &c." 
 
 There was living at this time, at the Leasowes, 
 that rural paradise of Shenstone, a lady named 
 Peach, to whom had been given at her baptism 
 the unique name of Apphia. She was the second 
 daughter of Broome Witts, a gentleman residing 
 at Chipping Norton ; and the widow of Joseph 
 Peach, late Governor of Calcutta. Still young, 
 and according to contemporary accounts, as amiable 
 as she was beautiful, she attracted the attention 
 of Thomas Lyttelton, and seems to have encou- 
 raged it under the delusion fostered by the old 
 adao;e — " A reformed rake makes the best hus- 
 band." It may be gathered from the following 
 letter, that, on his part, the preference amounted 
 to no more than the absence of dislike ; and 
 that he was impelled to the thought of marriage 
 by the insufficiency of the allowance he received 
 from his father : — 
 
 " Have you ever by chance looked into a book 
 on the science of cookery ? If so, have you not 
 observed that the culinary disciple is instructed, 
 when certain quantities of gravy, or essence, or 
 cob serves, are prepared, to put them by for use ?
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 103 
 
 Now, if we could manage our ideas in the same 
 manner — if we could lock up our acquired thoughts 
 and knowledge in a kind of intellectual store-room, 
 from whence they might be drawn forth for appli- 
 cation — we should no longer be the slaves of a 
 capricious recollection, which at this hour offers 
 its treasures with intuitive readiness, yields them 
 on the morrow with sullen reluctance, and on the 
 succeeding day may refuse them to our most arduous 
 researches. The active events of life, however, 
 seldom die on the remembrance : and you must 
 certainly be mistaken in associating with me the 
 circumstance you mention in your letter, which is 
 at this instant before me. It is morally impossible 
 that I should have forgotten it. My memory, 
 perhaps, is the only faculty I possess which has 
 not at one time or other deceived me ; nay, so firm 
 is its texture, that the oblivious hours of court- 
 ship do not affect its wonted cajKicities — though, 
 to say the truth, mine is a very drowsy progress. 
 Assiduity without love, tenderness without sin- 
 cerity, and dalliance without desire, afford the 
 miserable, the hopeless, but the faithful picture of 
 my sluggish journey to the temple of Hymen. 
 However, to give something of colour to the in- 
 tervening hours between consent and fruition, his 
 lordship performs wonders, and sighs and natters 
 for his heedless son ; nay, he tunes his lyre, and
 
 104 THE LIFE OF 
 
 sings the power of those charms which, by an 
 anti-Circean fascination, are destined, by his fancy, 
 to recall my vagrant footsteps to the paths of 
 virtue. But, alas ! I know not the resolution of 
 the Greeks ; I cannot resist the song of the syrens, 
 and, partial as I may be to paternal music, it will 
 prove, in its influence upon me, far inferior to 
 theirs. 
 
 "But all is not torpor and inanimation, and 
 what love could not produce, vanity has inspired. 
 Two of the brethren of the house of my Dulcinea 
 made her a visit last week, with the design of 
 turning her from the expectation of a coronet, 
 and from me. I need not tell you that they are 
 honest, simple bourgeois, or they would not have 
 meditated such a fruitless errand to their ambi- 
 tious sister. I was well assured that they would 
 not convert her ; and the fancy came across me 
 to aim at converting them. In this business I so 
 exerted myself in every form of attention, flattery, 
 and amusement, that I verily believe they returned 
 to their home at Chipping Norton, without en- 
 forcing that remonstrance which was the object 
 of their journey. 
 
 " That Chipping Norton — in whose neighbour- 
 hood I passed with my grandmother many of my 
 youthful days, and to which I had never associated 
 any idea but that of pigs playing upon organs —
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 105 
 
 that chilly Chipping Norton should yield one of 
 its former toasts to be the cara sposa of your 
 friend ! What can your fertile fancy deduce from 
 the union of Hagley's genius and the widowed 
 protectress of the more than widowed Leasowes ? 
 If offspring there should be, what a strange demi- 
 theocrite will owe its being to such a Hymen ! 
 Alas ! my friend, this is but a dream for your 
 amusement ; the reality will offer to your com- 
 passionate experience the marriage of infatuation 
 and necessity, whose legitimate and certain issue 
 will be a separate maintenance, and perhaps a 
 titled dowry. 
 
 " I have many and various communications to 
 make to you, but they must be reserved for personal 
 intercourse. In the meantime, when you shall see 
 me announced as being added to the Benedicks of 
 the year, save me, I beseech you, save me your con- 
 gratulations. Nothing is so absurd as the tide 
 of felicitations which How in upon a poor newly- 
 married man, before he himself can determine 
 — and much less the complimenting world — upon 
 the propriety of them. Marriage is the grand 
 lottery of life ; and it is as great a folly to exult 
 upon entering into it, as on the purchase of a 
 ticket in the State wheel of fortune. It is when 
 the ticket is drawn a prize that we can answer to 
 congratulations. Adieu ! "
 
 106 THE LIFE OF 
 
 There is no act of Thomas Lyttelton's life that 
 presents so many difficulties to the biographer as 
 his marriage. The contrast between the tone of 
 the foregoing letter and that of the more brief 
 epistles which he addressed to his father just before 
 his union, and on his wedding-day- — the contra- 
 diction to the suspicion of hypocrisy which is 
 afforded by the openness and candour displayed in 
 his acts, and in the expression of his thoughts 
 and feelings on every other occasion — the sudden- 
 ness with which the event was brought about, 
 during his visit to the Leasowes — the agreement 
 of the result with the dark vaticinations of the 
 letter just given, constitute a problem in the 
 science of the human heart which will probably 
 never be solved. 
 
 It is certain, however, that Lord Lyttelton re- 
 presented the match to his friends as the result 
 of an ardent and reciprocal attachment, from which 
 everything was to be hoped ; and that similar 
 representations were made to him both by his 
 son and by Mrs. Peach. Some light might per- 
 haps be thrown upon the matter if we knew the 
 duration of Thomas Lyttelton's stay at the Lea- 
 sowes before the marriage took place ; what took 
 place between the parties and the brothers of Mrs. 
 Peach ; and what caused the marriage to take 
 place suddenly, and without the knowledge of
 
 THOMAS LOUD LYTTELTOX. 107 
 
 Lord L)'ttelton. But upon these points we are 
 in the dark, and the family archives at Hagley 
 Hall have unfolded for me only the following con- 
 tributions to their elucidation : — 
 
 " My dear Lord, — It is unnecessary for me 
 to tell you I am as happy as it is possible for 
 me to be : if anything could add to my present 
 felicity, it would be your lordship's company. 
 Lord Temple's letter was equally agreeable to 
 Mrs. Peach and myself. I own I ever was proud 
 of his presentiment in my favour. My dearest 
 little woman is everything to me — the sweetest 
 companion, the most sensible friend, and will make 
 the best of wives. She unites almost contradic- 
 tory excellencies. Adieu, my dear lord. I remain, 
 ever your most dutiful and most obliged son, 
 
 "T. H. Lyttelton. 
 " Leasowes, June 18th, 1772." 
 
 At the back of this, Mrs. Peach wrote as fol- 
 lows : — 
 
 " Mr. Lyttelton persuades me that your lord- 
 ship will receive, as a mark of my entire respect, 
 this hasty and irregular assurance of the ten- 
 der and unutterable affection that my improved 
 acquaintance with the amiableness of. his manners
 
 108 THE LIFE OF 
 
 and the ten thousand dormant virtues of his 
 heart have excited in my mind. It will he the 
 delightful employment of my life to preserve his 
 love and enlarge his happiness — fortunate beyond 
 expression should I succeed — since it may secure 
 to me the additional blessing of your lordship's 
 approbation, and draw a veil over the many weak- 
 nesses and imperfections that the candour of your 
 noble family does not allow them to attribute to, 
 my lord, your lordship's most faithful and most 
 obliged servant, 
 
 " Apphia Peach." 
 
 Eight days afterwards, on the 26th of June, 
 1772, they were married in the parish church of 
 Hales Owen, the bridegroom betraying an absence 
 of mind on the occasion, which must have been 
 as mortifying to the bride as it was ominous of 
 the future. The story is told by Lyttelton himself 
 as follows : — 
 
 'If I am not very much mistaken, your 
 library table is always furnished with an inter- 
 leaved Bruyere, on whose blank pages you amuse 
 yourself with extending the ideas of that celebrated 
 writer, or directing them to modern applications. 
 I am, therefore, to offer my name as an addition 
 to your collections, and to desire that in your
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 109 
 
 scholia on that excellent work, I may furnish a 
 trait to his admirable character of the absent man. 
 
 " On the day of my marriage, a day — but no 
 more of that ! After the nuptial benediction was 
 over, and we were returning to our equipage, in- 
 stead of beinof the gallant Benedick, and conducting 
 the new-made Mrs. [Lyttelton] to her coach, I 
 slouched on before, and was actually getting into 
 the carriage, as if I had been quite alone ; but, 
 recollecting myself as my foot was upon the step, 
 I turned round to make my apology, which com- 
 pleted the business, for I addressed the bride in 
 her widowed name, with ' My dear Mrs. [Peach], I 
 beg ten thousand pardons,' and so on. This fit 
 of absence was as strange as it proved ridiculous — 
 an omen, perhaps, of all the ungracious business 
 which is to follow. You may first laugh at this 
 little foolish history, and then, if you please, apply 
 it to a more serious purpose. 
 
 " But this species of absence is an hereditary 
 virtue. A virtue ! say you ? Yes, sir, a virtue j 
 for it is a mark of genius, and my right honour- 
 able father possesses it in a most flattering degree. 
 I will present you with a most remarkable ex- 
 ample, which you may also add to the composition 
 of your modern Theophrastus. His lordship was 
 about to pay a' morning sacrifice at the shrine of 
 M , and a large bunch of early pinks lay upon
 
 110 THE LIFE OF 
 
 his toilette, which were to compose the offering of 
 the day. With those antique or professional beaux 
 who wear the tie or large flowing wig, it appears 
 to be convenient, in the ceremony of their dress, 
 that the head should bring up the rear, and 
 be covered the last. The full-trimmed suit was 
 put on, the sword was girded to his side, the 
 chapeaic de bras was compressed by his left arm, 
 the bunch of pinks graced his right hand, and 
 his night-cap remained upon his pate. The ser- 
 vant having left the room, the venerable peer, 
 forgetful of his perukean honours, would actually 
 have sallied forth into the street in full array, 
 and en bonnet de unit, if his valet de chambre 
 had not arrived, at the critical moment to prevent 
 his singular exit. I was present, but my astonish- 
 ment at his figure so totally suspended my facul- 
 ties, that he would have made the length of Curzon 
 Street before I should have recovered any power 
 of reflection. I was accused, as you may suspect, 
 of a purposed inattention, in order to render his 
 lordship ridiculous ; and, I was told upon the 
 occasion, that, although this kind of occasional 
 absence of mind might furnish folly with laughter, 
 it generally arose from that habitual exertion of 
 thought which produces wisdom. You may con- 
 gratulate me, therefore, on the prospect of my 
 advancement to the title of sage.
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. Ill 
 
 "I am already married, and what is to follow, 
 God alone knows. Strange things daily happen 
 dans ce has monde, and things more strange may 
 be behind. I have such a budget to open for you ! 
 but that discovery must be reserved till we meet. 
 Suffice it to say at present — 
 
 " Qucedam parva quidem, sed non toleranda metritis ." 
 
 This unrestrained communication of the feel- 
 ings with which the writer entered upon married 
 life evinces a state of things most unpromising for 
 the domestic felicity of the young couple. What 
 could be hoped for from an union of which one 
 of the parties had, before marriage, predicted that 
 the result would be a separation ? The event was 
 announced to Lord Lyttelton by his son on the 
 same day, in the following letter : — 
 
 " Leasowes, 26th June, 1772. 
 
 "My dear Lord, — I was this day so fortu- 
 nate as to lead Mrs. Peach to the altar. I need 
 not tell your lordship that the impatience and 
 ardour of a lover was one chief cause that deter- 
 mined my fair bride ; your Lordship's letter was 
 another motive that operated on her gentle mind. 
 She is a woman of exceeding generosity of spirit 
 and principle. Nothing, my dear lord, is wanting
 
 112 THE LIFE OF 
 
 to perfect my felicity but your company ; nothing 
 
 else is wanted to complete her happiness. I wait 
 
 with eagerness for the moment when I shall have 
 
 the honour of presenting Mrs. Lyttelton to her 
 
 father. Adieu, my dear lord. In all states and 
 
 circumstances of my life, believe me to be, with 
 
 unfeigned affection, your lordship's most dutiful 
 
 son, and most obliged servant, 
 
 "T. Lyttelton. 
 
 " I shall again write to your lordship by to- 
 morrow's post." 
 
 The promise conveyed in the postscript was 
 redeemed in the following letter : — 
 
 "Leasowes, 27th Jane, 1772. 
 
 " My dear Lord, — I promised your lordship 
 yesterday to write to you by this day's post, as I 
 thought you would be desirous of knowing what 
 articles had been drawn, and what promises I had 
 entered into. The only article settled by me 
 previous to my marriage was the settlement of a 
 jointure on my wife in case she survived me, so 
 far as I was enabled to settle it, which is only 
 from the time of your lordship's decease. This 
 settlement is £1,000 a year, which is all that is 
 in my power to appoint. 
 
 " I remain, therefore, exactly in the same situa-
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 113 
 
 tion as before my marriage took place, with the 
 addition of her fortune. Concerning the disposi- 
 tion of it, I have entered into no agreement, but 
 have (previous to my marriage) explained to my 
 wife, and to the gentleman who married us, and 
 who is an intimate friend of hers, what were my 
 intentions. They both approved of them, and it 
 is my desire to carry those intentions into execu- 
 tion as soon as possible ; but my respect and duty 
 to your lordship make me wish to lay the plan 
 before you, and I hope it will in all particulars 
 meet with your approbation, and that, though I 
 am free to act as I think proper, you will find that 
 I mean to do everything consistent both with my 
 honour and interest, which terms, if well under- 
 stood, are synonymous. 
 
 " I wait, therefore, with impatience, for your 
 lordship's arrival to ratify and confirm my happi- 
 ness, and I flatter myself I shall every day make 
 myself more worthy of your regard and affection. 
 Adieu, my dear father. Believe me ever your 
 most dutiful son and obliged and obedient servant, 
 
 "T. Lytteltox. 
 
 "Mrs. Lyttelton desires her dutiful respects 
 to your lordship." 
 
 The Earl of Chatham conveyed his congra-
 
 114 THE LIFE OF 
 
 tulations on the event to Lord Lyttelton in the 
 following terms : — 
 
 " My dear Lord, — I have a most longing 
 wish to be able to be the bearer of my warm 
 felicitations to your lordship and the happy 
 pair on the completion of an union which 
 knits you all together for life in the sweet triple 
 bonds of paternal, filial, conjugal love and 
 domestick happiness ; may the virtues of your 
 race guard the pious work, and fix the felicity 
 of your family on that fortuna domus et avi 
 numerentur avorum! I could not but smile to 
 hear that Cupid knew his Hagley for true 
 Paphian ground, and had taught his slow brother 
 Hymen to mend his pace in so delightful a 
 race, and am sure your lordship has more than 
 forgiven your flesh and blood this amiable 
 impatience. From all I hear of Mrs. Lyttelton, 
 I have not the least doubt that Hymen now will 
 have his turn, and lead Love for his inseparable 
 companion. Lady Chatham desires to be in- 
 cluded in the same cordial sentiments with 
 myself on whatever interests your lordship's 
 happiness, and that of your family." 
 
 Lord Lyttelton says in his reply, after thank-
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 115 
 
 ing his noble correspondent for his felicita- 
 tions : — ■ 
 
 "My son stole a march upon me, which I 
 shall not complain of if he continues as sensible of 
 the prize he was in such haste to take as he 
 was when he took it ; and I do not despair that 
 he will. For my own part the more I see of 
 the lady the more I esteem and love her. They 
 both desire me to present their most respectful 
 compliments and thanks to your lordship and 
 Lady Chatham, and to all their amiable young 
 friends at Burton Pynsent." 
 
 What a contrast between these letters and 
 those of the bridegroom ! The congratulations of 
 Lord Chatham seem like the sunshine that gilds 
 the waves, after a storm in which some noble 
 vessel has been submerged, while the dusky sea- 
 plants wave beneath above the corpses of the 
 drowned mariners. While the two peers are 
 exchanging compliments, we seem to hear, through 
 the hum of friendly felicitations and a haze of 
 orange blossoms and white lace, the ominous 
 words, — " assiduity without love, tenderness with- 
 out sincerity, dalliance without desire ! "
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Separation — -Journey to Paris — Death of Lord Lyttelton — Letter 
 on the Event — Return to England — Letter of Condolence 
 from the Earl of Chatham — Correspondence with Earl 
 Temple — Letters on his New Position — Hopes of Moral 
 Amendment — Dissatisfaction with Hagley — Letter to Sir 
 Richard Lyttelton — Political Views — The American Troubles 
 —His Estimate of Public Men — Hopes and Aims for the 
 Future. 
 
 Thomas Lyttelton's ante-nuptial anticipations 
 proved prophetic. His married life was of very 
 brief duration. After a few months' cohabitation 
 at his father's house in Hill Street, he and his wife 
 separated for ever. The event can scarcely have 
 surprised those of his friends who were acquainted 
 with the feelings he had entertained on the sub- 
 ject before his marriage. None of the published 
 letters of himself or his father throw any further 
 light on the causes of the separation, nor can the 
 remotest glimpse of the state of affairs in Hill 
 Street during his brief experience of the matri- 
 monial state be found in the correspondence of 
 Lord Chatham ; while, of the unpublished letters 
 placed at my disposal by the courtesy and kind-
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 117 
 
 ness of the present Lord Lyttelton, only two are 
 of subsequent date to the inauspicious honeymoon, 
 and these relate to other subjects. But probably 
 more is said in his own letter, just before his 
 marriage, to account for the separation than was 
 written by anyone else. 
 
 He left London when the rupture occurred, 
 and proceeded to Paris, where he was staying 
 when, in the August following, he received the 
 news of his father's death. He does not appear 
 to have been summoned to Hagley during his 
 father's illness ; for, though there is a passage 
 in the letter of condolence which he subsequently 
 received from the Earl of Chatham, which would 
 favour the supposition that he was there at the 
 time of his father's death, this must evidently be 
 construed otherwise, as only his sister and her 
 husband, Lord Valentia, appear to have been pre- 
 sent on the mournful occasion. There is no doubt 
 that he received the sad intelligence while yet in 
 Paris, for he concludes a letter written on the 
 occasion with the mention of a duel, adding : 
 " I was very near being hampered in the affair ; 
 but my sable suit and funeral duties excused 
 me from the employment, and I suppose the first 
 news I shall hear of the event will be in 
 England." 
 
 The following is the first portion of his letter,
 
 118 THE LIFE OF 
 
 in which he records his early impressions of his 
 changed position : — 
 
 " I awoke, and behold I was a lord ! It was 
 no unpleasant transition, you will readily believe, 
 from infernal dreams and an uneasy pillow, from 
 insignificance and dereliction, to be a Peer of 
 Great Britain, with all the privileges attendant 
 upon that character, and some little estate into 
 the bargain. My sensations are very different 
 from any I have experienced for some time past. 
 My consequence, both internal and external, is 
 already greatly elevated ; and the empressement 
 of the people about me is so suddenly increased 
 as to be ridiculous. 
 
 c Without meaning anything so detestable as 
 a pun, I shall certainly lord it over a few of 
 those who have looked disdain at me. My coronet 
 shall glitter scorn at them, and insult their low 
 souls to the extreme of mortification. I have 
 received a letter from [Ayscough], that dirty 
 parasite, full of condolence and congratulation, 
 with a my lord in every line, and your lordship 
 in every period. I will make the rascal lick the 
 dust, and, when he has flattered me till his tongue 
 is parched with lies, I will upbraid him with his 
 treason, and turn my back upon him for ever. 
 There are a score of bugs, or more, of the same
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 119 
 
 character, whom the beams of my prosperity 
 will warm into servility, and whose names will 
 be left at my door, before I have been ten days 
 in town ; but may eternal ignominy overtake 
 me if I do not make the tenderest vein in their 
 hearts ache with my reproach ! Whether the 
 world will be converted into respect towards me, 
 I do not pretend to determine ; its anger will, 
 at all events, be softened ; but, be that as it 
 may, I can look it in the face with less fear 
 than I was wont to do, and make it smile upon 
 my political career, though it may still hold 
 a frowning aspect towards my moral cha- 
 racter. 
 
 " Permit me, however, to assure you that, 
 whatever change may appear in me towards others, 
 I shall ever be the same to you. The acquisition 
 of fortune, and an elevation to honours, will not 
 vary a line in my regard to those whose friend- 
 ship has been so faithful to me as yours has 
 been ; nor shall you ever have cause to repent 
 of your assiduous kindness to me. There is a 
 balance in the human passions ; and the mind that 
 is awake to a spirit of revenge is equally inspired 
 by the sentiments of gratitude. There is a dirty 
 crew who shall experience the former, while you 
 may confide in my solemn assurance to you of a 
 most ample exertion of the latter."
 
 120 THE LIFE OF 
 
 He returned to England immediately, and, 
 hastening to Hagley, received there the following 
 letter from the Earl of Chatham, which has been 
 already referred to : — 
 
 " Dear Sir, — The most unexpected and afflict- 
 ing account of the sad event at Hagley has filled 
 all here with deep concern. Lady Chatham and 
 I truly feel how great a loss you, my dear sir, 
 in particular, and all the family and friends of 
 our departed truly virtuous friend, have sustained 
 in the death of Lord Lyttelton. The Lest con- 
 solation his friends can receive is from the re- 
 flection that those virtues which endear his memory 
 rendered his last moments tranquil and full of 
 comfort. The melancholy news found Mr. and 
 Mrs. Hood here, whose feelings on this unhappy 
 occasion their own letters will express. Your pre- 
 sence in the mournful scene at Hagley must be 
 of the greatest utility to your whole family, however 
 severe the trial. Lady Chatham desires to express 
 by me her wishes, very sincerely united with mine, 
 that your health may receive no impression from 
 the loss you have sustained and the sad offices 
 in which you are engaged. I am ever, with truest 
 esteem, my dear sir, your faithful and affectionate 
 humble servant, 
 
 " Chatham."
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 121 
 
 It is to be regretted that we have not the 
 young lord's reply to the great statesman, nor 
 the letter, which he wrote about the same time, 
 to Earl Temple, and which elicited the following- 
 kind response : — 
 
 "My Lord, — You do justice to my feelings 
 in the expression of your own concerning the loss 
 of one so justly dear to us all, and whose memory 
 will do honour to his family and country as long- 
 as they exist. You have an hereditary right, not 
 only to my affection, but to every real service it 
 could be in my power to show you ; the great 
 figure you may yet make depends upon yourself. 
 Harry the Fifth had been Prince of Wales ; he 
 knew how, with change of situation, to shake off 
 the Falstaffs * of his age, and all those forlorn 
 accomplishments which had so long stifled and 
 depressed his abilities. Forgive an old man, and 
 by affection a kind of parent, the hint he takes 
 the liberty of giving ; and be assured he ardently 
 wishes to see what your lordship calls his partiality 
 justified by conduct which will make him happy 
 in calling himself, my dear lord, your most affec- 
 tionate and obedient servant, 
 
 "Temple." 
 
 # George Bodens, who seems to have been of Falstaffian pro- 
 portions and proclivities, is probably here alluded to.
 
 122 THE LIFE OF 
 
 Though his letters to Chatham and Temple 
 on this occasion have not been preserved, their 
 tone and substance may be inferred from the fol- 
 lowing epistle to a friend, whose identity has not 
 been determined : — 
 
 " My dear Friend, — Your letter reached me 
 with a large packet of others, which my father's 
 death had occasioned. How altered is the lan- 
 guage of them upon the occasion ! Yours, indeed, 
 is exactly the same, or, if anything, bears the 
 tincture of more than usual severity. Flattery 
 is a strain altogether new to me, and by the last 
 two posts I have had enough to surfeit the most 
 arrant coquette upon earth. It is true, I cannot 
 compliment your letter with possessing an atom 
 of adulation ; nevertheless, it is the only one 
 which has given me real pleasure, because it is 
 the only one which bears the characters of real 
 friendship. Though I have acted in such a direct 
 opposition to your cautions and remonstrances, I 
 am not the less sensible to that generous passion 
 which produced them, and has now taken the 
 first opportunity to give me the essence, as it 
 were, of all your former counsels, in thus calling 
 my attention to real and permanent honour. How- 
 ever I may offend you hereafter, you shall never 
 again have cause to reproach me with a forfeiture
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTOX. 123 
 
 of my word. I have at present lost that con- 
 fidence in myself which would justify me in offering 
 assurances to you : the hopes of regaining it, how- 
 ever, are not entirely vanished, and when they 
 are fulfilled, which I trust they will one day be, 
 you shall receive the firstfruits of my renova- 
 tion. 
 
 " I understand the purpose of your observa- 
 tion, that the generality of men employ the first 
 part of life in making the remainder of it miserable. 
 I feel its force and consider it as an indirect 
 caution to me not to pursue a conduct which 
 must be attended with such a lamentable con- 
 sequence. But, alas ! credula turba sumus ; 
 though I have paid dearly for my credulity, 
 unless it should be immediately followed by the 
 fruits of an wholesome experience. We despise 
 the world when we know it thoroughly ; but we 
 give ourselves up to it before we know it, and 
 the heart is frequently lost before it is illuminated 
 by the irradiations of reason. 
 
 "1 have now succeeded to the possession of 
 those privileges which are a part, and perhaps 
 the best part, of my inheritance. Clouds and 
 darkness no longer rest upon me. My exterior 
 of things is totally changed ; and, however un- 
 moved some men's minds may be by outward 
 circumstances, mine is not composed of such cold
 
 124 THE LIFE OF 
 
 materials as to be unaffected by them. Such an 
 active spirit as animates my frame must have 
 objects important in their nature, inviting in 
 their appearance, and animating in their pursuit. 
 No longer forced to drown sensibility to public 
 disgrace and private inconvenience in Circean 
 draughts, my character, I trust, will unfold 
 qualities which it has not been thought to possess, 
 and finally dissipate the kind apprehensions of 
 friendship. My natural genius will now have 
 full scope for exertion in the line of political 
 duty ; and I am disposed to flatter myself that 
 the application necessary to make a respectable 
 figure in that career will leave me but little time 
 for those miserable pursuits which of late have 
 been my only resource. But I must desire you 
 not to expect an instant conversion ; the era of 
 miracles is passed, and, besides, the world would 
 suspect its sincerity. It is true I am sinner 
 sufficient to call down the interposition of heaven, 
 but the present age has no claim to such celestial 
 notices. My amendment must be slow and 
 progressive, though, I trust, in the end, sincere 
 and effectual. But be assured that, however the 
 completion of your good wishes for me may be 
 deferred, I am perfectly sensible that there is 
 something necessary besides title, rank, and 
 fortune, to constitute true honour. With this
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 125 
 
 sentiment I take my leave of you, and am, with 
 real truth, yours very truly, 
 
 " Lyttelton." 
 
 The remainder of the summer and a portion 
 of the autumn following his father's decease were 
 passed at Hagley, in carefully investigating his 
 financial position and forming plans for the future. 
 The country had few attractions for him, however, 
 and Hagley had little of his regard. In a letter 
 which he addressed to &ir Biohaid Lyttelton in W v< ***** 
 October, he thus describes the situation in which T 
 
 he found himself and the estate : — 
 
 " I thank you, my dear sir, for your three 
 letters, for, unanswered as they have been, I must 
 not lay the fault upon the post, but upon my 
 own indolence, or rather ennui ; for I have 
 suffered great ennui at seeing the vast expense 
 that Hagley runs me into, and the little pleasure 
 it affords me. I love the country at times, but 
 I consider it as a place for retirement, and am 
 surprised to find myself 130 miles from the 
 metropolis in an immense palace without company, 
 and surrounded, like a deposed nabob, by a set 
 of blackguards. I have just made up the last 
 year's housekeeping accounts, and have signed 
 them with an unwilling hand. Under the adminis-
 
 12G THE LIFE OF 
 
 tration y of that wise economist, Lady Lyttelton, 
 they amounted to just two thousand and ninety 
 pounds sterling ! 
 
 " I hope you have made here a full stop, and 
 have expressed marks of wonder and admiration ; 
 but you will be more astonished when I assure 
 you that the expenses have in other years been 
 nearly as great ; nor do I see how they are to 
 be lessened, tho' I am fully determined they shall. 
 But such bills are every day brought in for 
 pails, pitchers, perry, wine, cyder, porter, strong 
 beer, straw, hay, oats, barley, coals, candles, 
 liveries, rabbits, hams, hot-house, mourning, mop 
 squeezers, tythes, tinkers, and tradesmen, that 
 I have been forced to fly for it, and shall set out 
 for Bath next Saturday. 
 
 " But, jesting apart, Hagley is to me a gulpli 
 that swallows up all my estate. The expense of 
 keeping it up, together with the servants that 
 necessarily remain there, amount to £500 per 
 annum. Then follow the charges for journeys, 
 transporting of servants, goods, plate, &c. ; so that 
 Mr. Bayliss was accustomed to pay away all the 
 produce of the estate half a year before it became 
 due. There is not at this time a shilling remain- 
 ing of the Michaelmas rents, there are a great 
 many bills unpaid, and I owe him £130. This 
 was .the state of things at the death of my poor
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 127 
 
 father, by whose conduct we learn that, tlio' a 
 man be possessed of the greatest abilities, and 
 endued with the most exalted virtues, it shall 
 (in this world) avail him nothing without 
 prudence. 
 
 " I fear, my dear sir, I have fatigued you 
 with my losses and crosses ; but I write to you 
 as to my friend, and treat you with friendly 
 familiarity. I shall be at Bath on Tuesday, and 
 expect there a letter from you, directed to me 
 at the hotel. Adieu, dear sir. I thank you for 
 your news, and remain, with sincere attachment, 
 your most affectionate and faithful nephew and 
 
 servant, 
 
 " Lyttelton." 
 
 The great abilities of Lord Lyttelton, the 
 foretaste of his powers as a debater and orator 
 which he had oiven while in the House of 
 Commons, and his family connection with the 
 Earl of Chatham, made the probability of his 
 enacting a conspicuous part in the political world 
 a matter of considerable interest. The Duke of 
 Grafton had at this time retired, and Lord North 
 was in the third year of a lease of power under 
 which the American colonies were lost and a 
 hundred millions added to the national debt. 
 George III., for the first time, had a minister
 
 128 THE LIFE OF 
 
 after his own heart, who required no prompting 
 from the Earl of Bute to work out the royal 
 will, but maintained the cause of prerogative, 
 " the right divine to govern wrong," spontaneously 
 and steadfastly. Whether Lord Lyttelton would 
 give a general support to a minister whose views 
 were, on many important questions, opposed to 
 his own, was doubtful ; and the attempts made 
 to elicit from him an unqualified avowal of Tory 
 principles were unsuccessful. He was inclined 
 to an independent course, and while he expressed 
 his own views openly and explicitly, as the 
 following letter shows, he would not pledge 
 himself to support Lord North before seeing his 
 measures : — 
 
 " Without any violent exertion of my natural 
 vanity, I can easily imagine that the eye of 
 mankind looks towards my political career, and 
 that, for want of a better subject, there may be 
 some amonff them who amuse themselves with 
 forming conjectures concerning it. The ministry 
 have attempted to feel my pulse upon the occasion, 
 but without success ; though I will tell you in 
 confidence that they have nothing, at present, 
 to fear from me. In the great subject of this 
 day's politics, which seems to engulph every other, 
 I am with them. I shall never cease to contend
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 129 
 
 for the universality and unity of the British 
 empire over all its territories and dependencies in 
 every part of the globe. I have not a doubt 
 of the supremacy of Parliament over every part 
 of the British dominions in America, the East 
 and West Indies, in Africa, and over Ireland 
 itself. 
 
 " I cannot separate the ideas of legislation 
 and taxation : they seem to be more than twins ; 
 they were not only born, but must co-exist and die 
 together. The question of right is heard of no 
 more ; it is now become a question of power ; 
 and it appears to me that the sword will deter- 
 mine the contest. The colonies pretend to be 
 subject to the King alone ; they deny subor- 
 dination to the State, and, upon this principle, 
 have not only declared against the authority of 
 Parliament, but erected a government of their 
 own, independent of British legislation. To 
 support a disobedience to rights which they 
 once acknowledged, they have already formed 
 associations, armed and arrayed themselves, and 
 are preparing to bring the question to the issue 
 of battle. This being the case, it becomes highly 
 necessary for us to arm also ; we must prepare 
 to quench the evil in its infancy, and to ex- 
 tinguish a flame which the natural enemies of 
 England will not fail to feed with unremitting
 
 130 THE LIFE OF 
 
 fuel, in order to consume our commerce and 
 tarnish our glory. If wise measures are taken, 
 this business will be soon completed, to the 
 honour of the mother country and the welfare 
 of the colonies, who, in spite of all the assistance 
 given them by the House of Bourbon, must, 
 unless our Government acts like an idiot, be 
 forced to submission. 
 
 " For my own part, I have not that high 
 opinion of their Koman spirit as to suppose that 
 it will influence them contentedly to submit to 
 all the horrors of war, to resign every comfort 
 in which they have been bred, to relinquish every 
 hope with which they have been flattered, and 
 retire to the howling wilderness for an habitation ; 
 and all for a dream of liberty, which, were they 
 to possess it to-morrow, would not give them 
 a privilege superior to those which they lately 
 enjoyed ; and might, I fear, deprive them of 
 many which they experienced under the clement 
 legislation of the British Government. 
 
 "I do not mean to enter at large into the 
 subject ; but, if Ministers know what they are 
 about, the matter may be soon decided : and in 
 every measure which tends to promote such a 
 desirable end they shall receive all the poor 
 helps I can give them ; I will neither sit silent,
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTOX. 131 
 
 nor remain inactive. But if, by neglect, ignorance, 
 or an indecisive spirit — the latter of which I rather 
 suspect from them — they should let the monster 
 grow up into size and strength, my support 
 shall be changed into opposition, and all my 
 powers exerted to remove men from a station 
 to which they are unequal. Eemember this 
 assertion — preserve this letter — and let it appear 
 in judgment against me, if I err from my present 
 declaration. " 
 
 In another letter, which may have been 
 written about this time, he expresses his opinion 
 of some of the political and literary celebrities 
 of the day in the following terms, which show 
 that he had opportunities of enjoying their 
 society : — 
 
 " Charles Fox is highly gifted ; his talents 
 are of a very superior nature ; and, in my opinion, 
 Fitzpatrick is scarcely behind him ; in the 
 article of colloquial merit, he is at least his equal: 
 but they neither of them possess that attic 
 character which, while it corrects, gives strength 
 to imagination, and, while it governs, gives 
 dignity to wit. The late Earl of Bath and Mr. 
 Charles Townsliend were blessed with no incon-
 
 132 THE LIFE OF 
 
 siderable share of it ; and it is an intemperate 
 vivacity of genius that confounds it in Mr. 
 Edmund Burke. But the man who is in the 
 most perfect possession of it has figured in so 
 high a line of public life as to prevent the 
 attention of mankind from leaving his greater 
 qualities to consider his private and domestic 
 character : — I mean Lord Chatham, whose familiar 
 conversation is only to be excelled by his public 
 eloquence. Perhaps Lord Mansfield was born, if 
 I may use the expression, with every attic 
 disposition ; but the shackles of a law education 
 and profession, and some other circumstances 
 which I need not mention, have formalised, and, 
 in some degree, repressed the brilliance of his 
 genius. With respect to this great man, I 
 cannot but pathetically apostrophise with Pope — 
 
 " ' How sweet an Ovid was in Murray lost ! ' 
 
 " George Selwyn is very superior to Chase 
 Price, but very inferior to Charles Townshend, 
 against whom, however, he used, as I am told, 
 continually to get the laugh ; but this proves 
 nothing, for good-humoured George Bodens would 
 have gained the prize from them both in the 
 article of creating laughter. I may be wrong,
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 133 
 
 perhaps, but it has ever appeared to me that 
 Mr. Selwyn's faculty of repartee is mechanical, 
 and arises more from habit than from genius. 
 It would be a miserable business indeed if a 
 man who had been playing upon words for so 
 many years should not have attained the faculty 
 of commanding them at pleasure. 
 
 ' Garrick is himself upon the stage, and an 
 actor everywhere else. Foote is a mimic every- 
 where ; excellent, delightful, on the theatre and 
 in private society, but still a mimic. No one 
 can take more pains than Mrs. Montagu to be 
 surrounded with men of wit ; she bribes, she 
 pensions, she flatters, gives excellent dinners, is 
 herself a very sensible woman, and of very 
 pleasing manners ; not young, indeed, but that 
 is out of the question : and, in spite of all these 
 encouragements, which, one would think, might 
 make wits spring out of the ground, the con- 
 versations of her house are too often critical and 
 pedantic, something between the dulness and the 
 pertness of learning. They are perfectly chaste, 
 and generally instructive ; but a cool and quiet 
 observer would sometimes laugh to see how 
 difficult a matter it is for la belle presidente to 
 give colour and life to her literary circles. It 
 surprises me that you should leave Windham
 
 134 THE LIFE OF 
 
 out of your list, who (observe my prophecy) 
 will become one of the ablest men and shining 
 characters that the latter part of this age will 
 produce. I hazard little in such a presentiment ; 
 for his talents, judgment, and attainments will 
 verify it. 
 
 " The gibes and jests that are wont to set 
 the table in a roar promote the cheerful purposes 
 of convivial society, but they have nothing to 
 do with that attic conversation which is the 
 highest enjoyment of the human intellect. Wit, 
 believe me, is almost extinct ; and I will tell you, 
 among other reasons, why I think so : — because 
 no one seems to have any idea of what wit is, 
 or who deserves the title of it. To think little, 
 talk of everything, and doubt of nothing ; to 
 use only the external parts of the soul, and 
 cultivate the surface, as it were, of the judg- 
 ment ; to be happy in expression, to have an 
 agreeable fancy, an easy and refined conversation, 
 and to be able to please, without acquiring 
 esteem ; to be born with the equivocal talent 
 of a ready apprehension, and, on that account, 
 to think one's self above reflection ; to fly 
 from object to object, without gaining a perfect 
 knowledge of any ; to gather hastily all the 
 flowers, and never allow the fruit time to arrive
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 135 
 
 at maturity : all these, collected together, form 
 a faint picture of what the generality of people 
 in this age are pleased to honour with the name 
 of wit." 
 
 With a brilliant career opened to him in 
 the Senate, he prepared himself once more for 
 oratorical triumphs, and seems to have aimed 
 at original and lofty flights of thought. Though 
 he regarded the Earl of Chatham and the Earl 
 of Mansfield as the two greatest orators of the 
 period, he was careful not to frame himself on 
 ■either as a model ; and, though he thought 
 that Burke's speeches derived dignity from the 
 application of Biblical language, he would not 
 follow his example. " For the life of me," he 
 says, " I cannot read sermons even with Lord 
 Chatham ; and my hands are too unhallowed 
 to unfold the sacred volume : but I find in 
 Milton's poems everything that is sublime in 
 thought, beautiful in imagery, and energetic in 
 language and expression. To attain a reputation 
 for eloquence is my aim and ambition : and 
 if I should acquire the art of clothing my 
 thoughts in happy language, adorning them with 
 striking images, or enforcing them by com- 
 manding words, I shall be indebted for such
 
 136 LIFE OF THOMAS LOED LYTTELTON. 
 
 advantages to the study of our great British 
 classic." 
 
 And so we take our leave of him on the 
 eve of the opening of Parliament for the session 
 of 1774, restored to society, giving hopes of 
 moral amendment, dreaming of political dis- 
 tinction, and studying Milton.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Parliamentary Session of 1774 — Appeal to tlie Lords in Becket v. 
 Donaldson — Speech on Literary Property — Letter to Earl 
 Temple— Speech on the Booksellers' Copyright Bill — Dedi- 
 cation of his Father's Works to him by George Ayscough — 
 Letter on the Subject — Thoughts about Maids of Honour- 
 Speech on the Government of Quebec Bill — Meeting of the 
 New Parliament — Debate on the Address — Speech on the 
 American Question — Secrecy of the Lords' Debates — Motion 
 on the Subject — Rejection of the Motion — Successful Second 
 Attempt — Project of Selling or Leasing Hagley. 
 
 Parliament assembled on the 17th of January, 
 1774. The public mind was still excited upon 
 the question of the right of election, raised by 
 the resolution of the House of Commons exclud- 
 ing Wilkes from his seat ; but the Ministry 
 adhered to its policy of regarding that matter 
 as finally settled, and passed over in silence 
 the protests of Whig peers and the petitions 
 of popular assemblages. The agitation died out 
 under this treatment, and the policy of the 
 Government was greatly assisted by the growing 
 seriousness of the American difficulty, which 
 every day assumed a more grave aspect. Lord
 
 138 THE LIFE OF 
 
 Lyttelton had given great attention to this 
 question, and took every occasion of making 
 it understood that his support of the Govern- 
 ment depended upon the firmness and vigour 
 which they might display in restoring order, 
 and the wisdom of the measures which they 
 might afterwards adopt for reviving loyalty, in 
 the disturbed colonies. 
 
 The first occasion, however, on which he 
 addressed the House of Lords was the debate 
 on the appeal of a bookseller named Donaldson 
 from a decree of the Court of Chancery, by 
 which lie had been restrained from the sale of 
 a piratical reproduction of a work published by 
 another bookseller, named Becket. Lord Lyttelton 
 evinced the sympathy with the literary profession 
 which he had inherited from his father by sup- 
 porting the decree, urging that literature, though 
 intangible, was property, and must receive a 
 very sensible shock from the reversal of the 
 decree, should that be the decision of the House. 
 His speech was somewhat discursive, however, 
 much of it being occupied in tracing the arts 
 and sciences from Greece to Kome, and their 
 progress in this country, and in eulogising 
 George III. and the King of Prussia as the 
 only Sovereigns who were lovers and patrons 
 of literature. It must be recorded to his honour,
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTOX. 139 
 
 however, that no other peer displayed so much 
 sympathy with literature and the literary profes- 
 sion, the question before the House being argued 
 chiefly by the law lords, and on legal grounds, 
 and the debate resulting in the reversal of the 
 decree. 
 
 The next occasion on which he addressed 
 the House was when the American question was 
 brought before it by one of the Ministerial 
 measures affecting it, which, as usual, called up 
 the Earl of Chatham in opposition to it. There 
 is no report of this speech of Lord Lyttelton's 
 in Hansard's Parliamentary History ; but it is 
 referred to in the following letter to Earl Temple, 
 dated May 17th, which indicates that the Ministry 
 were disposed to accord him a certain degree of 
 confidence, though as yet he held the position 
 of an independent member : — 
 
 " My dear Loed, — I snatch this minute to 
 tell your lordship that the Ministry seem desirous 
 that Lord Chatham should again rise, though* 
 as they hope, not in his fury, for, if he does, 
 they are annihilated. It will not be possible to 
 delay those bills that are now before the House ; 
 but there is another American bill which will 
 serve Lord Chatham's purpose, and that they will 
 put off on his account till Wednesday. It is
 
 140 THE LIFE OF 
 
 of no great consequence, indeed, but, as a part 
 of the great whole, it will be sufficient to 
 warrant his lordship's appearance. It is a bill for 
 quartering and regulating the troops in the colonies. 
 " I have the pleasure to assure your lord- 
 ship that all the comments upon that part of 
 my speech which regarded that great statesman 
 convince me that at present all parties feel 
 the necessity of his interference. Some great 
 little people opened themselves very freely on 
 that head. The politics of France are changed, 
 and consequently the politics of England. The 
 commonwealth calls loudly for a dictator, and 
 you cannot be mistaken in the man. I will 
 wait upon your lordship to-morrow at half after 
 two, and communicate my thoughts viva voce. 
 In the meantime, give me leave to rejoice Avith 
 your lordship at the French king's death, as 
 perhaps it will be the means of awakening, 
 and therefore of saving, this miserable country."" 
 
 He had another opportunity of expressing 
 his views on the question of literary property 
 on the motion for the second reading of the 
 Booksellers' Copyright Bill, which was made on 
 the 2nd of June. The rejection of the bill 
 
 * " Correspondence of the Earl of Chatham," vol. iv., p. 344.
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 141 
 
 having been moved bv the Earl of Denbigh, 
 Lord Lyttelton supported the second reading, 
 reminding the House that the object of the 
 bill was not to set aside the decision arrived 
 at in the suit of Becket versus Donaldson, but 
 to relieve men who had invested sixty thousand 
 pounds in the purchase of copyrights since 
 1769, and who had shown, by the prices they 
 had paid for them, that they believed they 
 had a common law right to the exclusive use 
 of what they had purchased. He instanced 
 Hawkesworth's narrative of the exploring 
 voyages of Captain Cook, for which an un- 
 usually large sum had been paid by the 
 publishers ; and informed the House that he 
 had received letters from Robertson and Hume 
 in favour of the measure. The amendment of 
 the Earl of Denbigh was carried, however, by 
 twenty-one votes against eleven. 
 
 It was about this time that the first collected 
 edition of his father's works was published, 
 under the editorial supervision of George Ayscough, 
 who dedicated the volume to his noble cousin 
 in one of the leDgthy laudations of the period, 
 concluding as follows : — 
 
 " I must now beg leave to assure your lord- 
 ship that it is my desire that this work may
 
 142 THE LIFE OF 
 
 not only give satisfaction to the public, but 
 also be honoured with your lordship's particular 
 approbation. I am proud to confess that I 
 have ever had the highest veneration for your 
 refined taste, sound judgment, and ripened 
 abilities ; and at the same time permit me to 
 add my most ardent wishes that those great 
 talents, which are certainly equal to those your 
 father possessed, may, like his, be exerted with 
 indefatigable zeal in the service of your country, 
 and that, like him, your lordship may here- 
 after prove a shining ornament of the Senate, 
 and one of the firmest pillars of the Constitution. 
 — Sed quid verbis opus est ? Your lordship has 
 already forestalled my hopes ; and my wishes, 
 even at this early period, are nearly accom- 
 plished." 
 
 How the nephew, instead of the son, came 
 to be appointed to the task of editing the late 
 lord's works, and what Lord Lyttelton thought 
 of the matter, is stated in the following 
 letter : — 
 
 " I must acknowledge, notwithstanding I am 
 treated with some degree of civility in it, that 
 the dedication you mention is a wretched business, 
 and disgraces the volume to which it is j)refixed.
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 143 
 
 You wonder I did not write a better for him 
 myself : and I would, most assuredly, have dom- 
 it ; but among many excellent qualities which 
 this dedicator possesses, he is a blab of the 
 first delivery, and I dared not venture to trust 
 him. 
 
 " The testamentary arrangement which ap- 
 pointed him to the honourable labours of an 
 editor took its rise from two motives ; — first, 
 to wreak a degree of parental resentment against 
 an ungracious son ; secondly, from an opinion 
 that a gracious nephew's well-timed flatteries 
 had created of his own understanding ; and, 
 thirdly, from a design of bestowing upon this 
 selfsame gracious nephew a legacy of honour 
 from the publication, and of profit from the 
 sale, of the volume. He is as proud of the 
 business as a new-made knight of his title ; is 
 never easy but when he is receiving incense 
 from booksellers and their journeymen, and loves 
 to be pointed at as a child of science. I wish 
 he may be contented with his present celebrity ; 
 though, if I know him aright, this editorial 
 business will awaken ideas of his having talents 
 for a superior character, and that he is qualified 
 to publish his own works with as much eclat 
 as he has done those of another. If he attempts 
 to climb the ladder of ambition in any, but
 
 144 THE LIFE OF 
 
 particularly in a literary way, lie must fall. 1 
 have counselled him to be content : and the 
 booby gives it out that I am envious of his 
 reputation. Poor silly fool ! I only wish the 
 daw may keep the one poor feather he has 
 got ; for, if he attempts any addition to his 
 plumage, the vanity will draw him into a scrape, 
 in which he will be stripped as bare as Nature 
 made him." 
 
 The following is the only letter of Lord 
 Lyttelton in which Junius is mentioned. His 
 disclaimer of any talent for irony, which he never- 
 theless indulged in occasionally with considerable 
 success, is unusually free from any indication of 
 the family foible ; but his powers of perception 
 and discrimination were acute, and experience was 
 gradually correcting the mistakes of his earlier 
 life :— 
 
 " Indeed, my dear friend, you mistake the 
 matter : irony is not my talent. It is a fine 
 rhetorical figure ; and, if there were a chance of 
 attaining the manner in which Junius has em- 
 ployed it, its cultivation would be worth my at- 
 tention. But you add an harsh injustice to real 
 error when you suppose that I have employed any 
 powers of raillery I may possess on the subject 
 
 ■i
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 145 
 
 of her most excellent Majesty. I recollect the 
 conversation which produced this report to my 
 disadvantage, and, if it were true, to my dishonour. 
 I can easily despise the malice of those who 
 understand and misrepresent me ; but that igno- 
 rance which both misunderstands and misrepre- 
 sents is mortifying in the extreme. I should 
 really think it little less than blasphemy to speak 
 ill of a princess who deserves so well. The Queen 
 does honour to the British throne ; she has a right 
 to the place she possesses in the breast of every 
 reflecting Englishman ; and it has ever been my 
 opinion that her character unites the royal virtues 
 of her station with the most amiable qualifica- 
 tions of her sex. Nor have I ever been disposed 
 to speak unfavourably of the ladies who attend 
 her person or compose her suit. There are, I 
 must own, half-a-dozen figures of her household 
 who are objects of my pity ; and the strain of 
 commiseration which broke from me on their 
 subjects has been represented, I find, as a con- 
 temptuous raillery of their royal mistress. My 
 memory will serve me, I believe, to recollect the 
 general tenour of my discourse on the occasion, 
 which I shall offer to your candid interpretation. 
 "The Dowager Lady Townshend, as you well 
 know, divides the human species into men, women, 
 and Herveys ; and where is the crime, if I parody
 
 146 TEE LIFE OF 
 
 on her ladyship's logic, and apply it to the 
 division of her Majesty's household into men, 
 women, and maids of honour ? Nor will it be 
 difficult to justify this new line of distinction, if 
 we consider the peculiar offices which compose the 
 duty, and the singular privileges which reward 
 the service of these courtly virgins. 
 
 " To make up at least two court suits in a 
 year ; to dance as many court minuets in the 
 same space ; to sidle, on days of duty, through 
 the presence chambers at the tail of a royal 
 procession ; to take her place in an established 
 corner of the drawing-room ; to say, ' Yes, sir,' or 
 ' No, sir,' and curtsey, when she is noticed by the 
 King ; to say, ' Yes, madam,' and ' No, madam, 
 and curtsey, when the Queen does her the same 
 honour ; to make an occasional one of six large 
 hoops in a royal coach, and to aid the languor 
 of an easy party in a side-box at a royal play, 
 compose the principal labours of a maid of honour's 
 life. But they are not without their rewards. 
 A moderate salary, and a thousand pounds when 
 Miss gets a husband ; an apartment in a palace, 
 and, I believe, a dinner from a royal kitchen ; 
 in the rotation of six weeks, a seven days' pos- 
 session of a royal coach, a royal coachman, and 
 a shabby pair of royal horses, for the purpose 
 of shopping in the City, paying distant visits,
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 147 
 
 airing in the Kind's Koad, and the being set 
 down at the very gate of Kensington Gardens, 
 while women of the first fashion are obliged to 
 trip it over a hundred yards of green sward be- 
 tween their coaches and the place of admittance ; 
 to take place of baronet's daughters ; to go to 
 plays, operas, and oratorios gratis ; to have phy- 
 sicians without fees, and medicines without an 
 apothecary's bill ; to chat with lords and grooms 
 of the bed-chamber around the fire of an ante- 
 chamber ; to stroke the beardless face of a new- 
 made page ; and, perhaps, receive an heir-apparent 's 
 first effort at flirtation, constitute the various 
 privileges of a maid of honour. 
 
 (i This brief history, my dear friend, you well 
 know to be founded in fact, and will, therefore, 
 be ready to applaud the tender pity I feel for 
 these virgin automatons. I have never seen them 
 bringing up the rear of a royal train but each 
 of them has appeared to bear, in legible characters, 
 on her forehead, idIio will marry me ? Never- 
 theless, upon the most favourable average, not one 
 in three years, during the present reign, has been 
 rewarded by Hymen ; which, in their particular 
 situation, is as pitiable a circumstance as can 
 be found in the long catalogue of female mortifica- 
 tions. A lady of the bed-chamber is obliged only 
 to a partial duty ; and, during the short period 
 
 l 2
 
 148 THE LIFE OF 
 
 of her attendance, is, in some degree, the com- 
 panion of her royal mistress ; while the virgins of 
 honour are not admitted, as I have been in- 
 formed, to stick a pin in a royal handkerchief. 
 Even the women of the same department figure 
 in her Majesty's cast-off gowns only on royal 
 birthdays ; but these poor persecuted damsels are 
 the common hackneys of drawing-room parade ; 
 whether ill or well, in humour or out of humour, 
 by day-light or by candle-light, they are obliged, 
 through three parts of the year, to be on the 
 continual stretch of State official exhibition. 
 
 " I remember, when I was little more than 
 a boy, to have seen a young lady in training 
 for this important office ; and the whole of that 
 serious business consisted in nothing more than 
 a practical lecture on entrances and exits, the 
 language of courtesies, and the art of conducting 
 a large hoop in all modes and forms of possible 
 pliancy. I laughed then as boys laugh, and 
 had some unlucky thoughts in my head, which 
 were not arrived at maturity ; at this period I 
 would willingly give an opera subscription to be 
 present at a similar exercise. 
 
 " After this manner did I treat the honour- 
 able subject of her Majesty's honourable virgins ; 
 and little did I think that it would beget a 
 long admonitory epistle from you, to warn me
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 149 
 
 against speaking evil of dignities. My wit, such 
 as it is, has never directed a single glance at 
 the throne ; and I have received the welcome 
 testimony of your applause more than once, for 
 exerting the full force of my understanding to 
 support the wishes of it. You have my ready 
 leave, my dear friend, to laugh with me, and at 
 me — to reprove and to admonish me ; but I must 
 entreat you to relax your proneness to believe 
 every idle tale that is fabricated to my dis- 
 honour." 
 
 The first of his speeches on the American 
 question, which is recorded in Hansard, was 
 made on the 17th of June, when the Commons' 
 amendments to the Government of Quebec Bill 
 came before the Lords, and were opposed by the 
 Earl of Chatham. Lord Lyttelton, following the 
 Earl of Dartmouth, said that whatever fell from 
 Lord Chatham made the deepest impression upon 
 the House and the country ; but the noble lord's 
 opposition to the clause excusing the Canadians 
 from the oath of supremacy, and substituting an 
 oath of allegiance, induced him to give his 
 reasons for differing from him. So far from 
 thinking with Lord Chatham that no true Pro- 
 testant could give his consent to the clause, he 
 affirmed that no true Protestant could refuse it
 
 150 THE LIFE OF 
 
 his hearty concurrence, because it was conceived 
 in a spirit of moderation, candour, and toleration 
 of all religions which were not incompatible with 
 the precepts of morality and the general welfare 
 and happiness of mankind. To oblige Catholics 
 to deny the supremacy of the Pope was to compel 
 them forcibly to abjure their religion, and, in 
 reality, to commence a persecution of them. Op- 
 position always grew and strengthened under the 
 scythe of persecution, and fanaticism was never 
 formidable until it was oppressed. The Canadians 
 had, ever since the conquest of their country* 
 been good and peaceable subjects of Great Britain ; 
 and were, therefore, entitled to a beneficial code 
 of civil policy, and to the free exercise of their 
 religion. Though he had the greatest reverence 
 for the Protestant faith, he had no less respect 
 for the safety and good government of the State : 
 and to force the Canadians to renounce errors 
 which they had imbibed with their mothers 
 milk was to attempt to alter the constitution of 
 their minds, and, by so doing, to lay the founda- 
 tion for a resistance which, if it did not proceed 
 to rebellion, would at least tend to alienate their 
 minds from the allegiance which they had 
 adopted, and which, under the mild government 
 then exercised over them, would, he hoped, be 
 strengthened and matured by time. It was a
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 151 
 
 matter of triumph, he said, to this great and 
 free country to treat the inhabitants of a country 
 conquered from France with more lenity, and 
 to give them a better form of government, than 
 they had received from their mother country. 
 He supported the bill chiefly for its moderation 
 and lenity, because he deemed it sound policy 
 for a conquering nation to lay the yoke lightly 
 on the necks of those subjected to their do- 
 minion. 
 
 The Earl of Chatham having observed upon 
 the inclinations of the Canadians towards France, 
 Lord Lyttelton went on to say, that nothing 
 would be more likely to win them over to Eng- 
 land than the amelioration of their political and 
 commercial situation, and, above all, the giving 
 them liberty of conscience. In reply to the re- 
 mark that, if the bill passed, the bells might be 
 taken down from the steeples, and the steeples 
 from the churches, he observed that, even if 
 that were to happen, the evil would not be great ; 
 for Christians might meet in faith and charity 
 without those things, which, to the pure of heart and 
 the truly devout, were of little importance. They 
 were the externals of a religion, the internals of 
 which were charity and benevolence ; and in those 
 principles, he contended, the clause originated 
 which the Earl of Chatham had so uncharitably
 
 152 THE LIFE OF 
 
 censured. Having answered the religious anm- 
 ment, lie proceeded to show why he approved the 
 general policy of the bill, and insisted that the 
 code embodied in it was conformable to the genius 
 of the Canadians, and consistent with their political 
 notions and the form of government to which 
 they were accustomed. Forms of government, 
 he said, must always be suited to the disposi- 
 tions of the governed : the mild constitution of 
 England would be rejected with contempt by 
 Asiatics, and degenerate into licentiousness with 
 the Canadians. As to the idea of the Earl of 
 Chatham, that the political separation of Canada 
 from the rest of the British American provinces 
 would divide their interests, he did not apprehend 
 such a consequence ; but, if the other provinces 
 were determined to resist the lawful authority 
 of Great Britain, he saw no reason why the 
 loyal Canadians should not co-operate with the 
 rest of the empire in subduing them and bringing 
 them to a proper sense of their duty. He 
 thought that, in such case, the Canadians would 
 be a check upon the intractable spirits that were 
 bent upon the subversion of British power, and 
 the setting up of an independent republic. 
 
 It is clear from this speech that Lord Lyttelton 
 saw farther into the future, and had a better
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 153 
 
 conception of the tendencies of the dispute be- 
 tween the British Government and the North 
 American colonies, than even the veteran states- 
 man whom he so frequently eulogised. At a 
 later period of the contest, Lord Chatham was 
 still unable to see the direction in which events 
 were tending, and to which he and his party- 
 were, from various motives, consciously or uncon- 
 sciously assisting the leaders of opinion across 
 the Atlantic to guide them. The contrast shows 
 the keenness of Lord Lyttelton's mental per- 
 ception, and indicates a depth of knowledge of 
 the actual state of affairs which could only have 
 been acquired by an amount of inquiry and 
 study, of which none but those who knew him 
 best had deemed him capable. 
 
 Parliament was prorogued shortly afterwards, 
 and on the 30 th September was dissolved. The 
 new Parliament assembled on the 29 th of No- 
 vember, when the usual contest of those days 
 ensued upon the vote of the address to the king, 
 in reply to the royal speech. American affairs 
 furnished ample materials for a stormy debate. 
 Lord Lyttelton urged the necessity of asserting 
 the sovereign right of Great Britain over the 
 colonies by the most prompt and resolute 
 measures, and declared that it was no longer
 
 154 THE LIFE OF 
 
 the question whether the mother country should 
 relinquish the right of taxation, but whether the 
 commerce which had carried her through the 
 last war should be subject to the wise and 
 necessary regulations prescribed by the Navi- 
 gation Act, and confirmed by many subsequent 
 Acts, or be at once thrown open at the will of 
 factious Americans, who were now struggling 
 for free and unlimited trade, independent of the 
 mother country, and for powers inconsistent with, 
 and derogatory to, the honour and dignity of 
 the Crown. He maintained that, if the Govern- 
 ment should now in the least decree recede from 
 the position that had been taken, all would be 
 over, and America would give laws to England, 
 instead of receiving them from her. 
 
 The first year of his possession of senatorial 
 functions closed with their exercise in the cause 
 of that publicity which he constantly advocated, 
 as one of the best defences of civil freedom. The 
 House of Lords had at this time been closed 
 during four years against all who were not 
 members of that assembly, and the exclusion of 
 members of the House of Commons was regarded 
 by the latter with considerable dislike. Lord 
 Lyttelton moved for a call of the House on the 
 6th of December to consider a motion for dis-
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 155 
 
 pensing with the standing order so far as to 
 admit members of the House of Commons, and 
 gave many excellent reasons for the concession ; 
 but the motion was lost by thirty-six votes 
 against twenty-eight. Encouraged to persevere 
 by the smallness of the majority, he moved, on 
 the 15th, a resolution in favour of allowing each 
 peer to introduce a stranger ; and this proposition, 
 which was supported by the Duke of Manchester 
 and the Lord Chancellor, was acceded to with- 
 out a division. 
 
 He seems to have had at this time some 
 thoughts of selling his patrimonial possessions ; 
 for his uncle, Lord Westcote, wrote as follows, at 
 the close of the year, to a gentleman named 
 Champion : "If an Act of Parliament would 
 have been necessary to render [valid] a sale of 
 this fine place, this most enjoyable one to me in 
 all seasons, I presume that my consent must 
 have been obtained to such Act, which is a thing 
 I should not lightly have given. Sed nunc non 
 erit his locus, for the noble lord, before he went 
 to London, authorised his attorney here to offer 
 the place to anybody that would take it for a 
 term at the rent of £G00 per annum, which, 
 though it may seem high, is not much so when 
 it is considered that £300 or £400 might be
 
 156 LIFE OF THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 
 
 made of the land to be included in the lease. 
 I don't think a tenant will soon he found, but 
 this is his lordship's present idea." Lord Westcote, 
 it should be observed, was the presumptive 
 heir.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Lord Lyttelton*s Speech on the Earl of Chatham's proposal to 
 withdraw the troops from Boston — Speech on the Provisional 
 Bill for the Settlement of the American difficulty — Strictures 
 on Lord Camden — Complaints of the Duke of Kichmond and 
 the Duke of Manchester — Lord Lyttelton's exculpation — 
 Speech on the Administration of the Poor Law — Debate on 
 the Licensing of the Manchester Theatre — Speech on the 
 Quebec Act — Strictures of Horace Walpole — Visit to Bristol 
 —Parson Adams — Story of a Lost Sermon — The Lyttelton 
 pudding and the Parson's cradle — Scheme for relieving 
 Hagley of the jointures of Lady Lyttelton and the Dowager. 
 
 At the commencement of 1775 it was still hoped 
 by all parties that the American difficulty would 
 be adjusted without recourse being had to arms. 
 The Ministry hoped for submission, the Op- 
 position for the awakening of the Tories to the 
 conviction that the Americans would not submit, 
 and could not be coerced. Holding the mother 
 country to be in the wrong, the Earl of Chatham, 
 on the 20th of January, moved an address to the 
 king, praying for the withdrawal of the troops 
 from Boston. Lord Lyttelton on this occasion 
 adhered to the line of independent action he 
 had marked out for himself. He began by com-
 
 158 THE LIFE OF 
 
 plimenting his noble relative on his great political 
 wisdom and his various and extensive talents, the 
 fruits of which had been seen in the glorious suc- 
 cesses of the late war, which must deservedly 
 crown him with immortal laurels. His arguments 
 against the motion were based chiefly on his 
 favourite idea of the legislative supremacy of the 
 British Parliament. He ridiculed the idea of an 
 inactive right as absurd, when there was the 
 most apparent and urgent necessity for exercising 
 it. It would be the extreme of madness, he said, 
 not directly to assert it, or for ever to relinquish 
 it. He could not agree with the noble lord in 
 his encomiums on the proceedings of the Con- 
 gress at Philadelphia, and, so far from applauding 
 their wisdom, contended that they breathed 
 throughout the spirit of unconstitutional inde- 
 pendence and open rebellion. He pointed to the 
 language in which some of the resolutions were 
 couched, and endeavoured to prove that, if the 
 mother country should give way on the present 
 occasion, from mistaken motives of presumed ad- 
 vantage to trade, such a concession would inevitably 
 defeat its object ; for it was plain that the Naviga- 
 tion Act, and other regulatory statutes on which 
 those advantages rested, and the true interests 
 of both countries depended, would fall victims 
 to the interested and ambitious views of the
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 159 
 
 Americans. Every concession would produce fresh 
 demands, and in the end bring about a state 
 of traitorous independence, at which it was plain 
 the Americans were aiming. He lamented the 
 disgraceful and miserable condition of General 
 Gage's troops, daily wasting away by sickness 
 and desertion, destitute of clothing and rations, 
 their spirits broken, and themselves disheartened 
 by the insolent taunts and repeated provocations 
 of the rebellious rabble around them. He re- 
 flected severely on the conduct of those who had 
 placed the troops, and kept them, in such a dis- 
 graceful position. He desired to know by what 
 secret power or overruling influence the wishes 
 of Parliament had been defeated ; and, in con- 
 clusion, disclaimed all personal connection with 
 the Ministry, and declared that he supported 
 them only because he believed them in the 
 right. 
 
 The Earl of Chatham replied that, if he 
 could believe that Lord Lyttelton was correct in 
 his view of the ultimate aims of the Americans, 
 none would be readier than himself to resist and 
 crush them ; but he thought that their opinions 
 could not be known until they were treated with 
 justice, as subjects of the king, not as aliens or 
 traitors. The motion to withdraw the troops 
 from Boston was lost, the division showing
 
 160 THE LIFE OF 
 
 sixty-eight votes against it and only eighteen 
 for it. 
 
 Lord Lyttelton had prepared himself very 
 carefully for the speech which he made on this 
 occasion, but the impression which it produced 
 was not equal to his anticipations, and it satisfied 
 himself even less than his friends. In a letter 
 to a friend who had not heard it delivered, he 
 says : — 
 
 " I receive your congratulations with an un- 
 affected sensibility ; but, as your applause pro- 
 ceeds from the partiality of a favourable repre- 
 sentation, and not from your own immediate 
 experience, I may, without impropriety, or any 
 false show of modesty, to which I am not very 
 much habituated, observe, that the part I took 
 in the debate to which you so kindly allude 
 would not have been so favourably mentioned if 
 you had been one of its crowded audience. 
 
 " I will tell you, with great truth, that it 
 was an important object with me to exert the 
 full force of my mind and talents on the business 
 of that day. I had directed all my thoughts 
 to that purpose, and not only executed a very 
 unusual industry in acquiring the knowledge 
 necessary to give my opinions their due weight, 
 but had laboured the dress in which they were
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 101 
 
 to be clothed, and attentively composed the de- 
 corations which were to give the final embellish- 
 ment. In short, I omitted no mode of study, 
 reflection, or exercise which might enable me to 
 force conviction and ravish applause. But I suc- 
 ceeded in neither ; and, after a speech of some 
 length, I sat down, oppressed with disappoint- 
 ment and mortification. 
 
 " Several circumstances, unexpected in them- 
 selves, and untoward in their nature, co-operated 
 to the fall of my pride on that day. In the 
 morning, while I was rehearsing my part to 
 [Ayscough], by some mistake [Henley] was ad- 
 mitted to me, and not only interrupted my lesson, 
 but, by the ready communication of his eccentric 
 flights upon the same subject, threw my well- 
 marshalled band of ideas into irretrievable con- 
 fusion. But this was not all ; he desired to 
 accompany me to the House, and, in our way 
 thither, he seized upon the bugle ornaments of 
 my clothes as a subject for still more discom- 
 fiting singularities of thought ; so that I was 
 most heartily glad when my coach broke down 
 in Parliament Street, and produced a separa- 
 tion. 
 
 " The worst, however, remains behind. It was 
 my purpose to follow the Earl of Shelburne ; and, 
 in consequence of such a plan, I had necessarily 
 
 M
 
 162 THE LIFE OF 
 
 pre-supposed the line of debate he would take, 
 with the general turn of argument he might 
 adopt, and had prepared myself accordingly. But 
 all my conjectures proved erroneous ; for that 
 noble lord took a course so different from my 
 pre-suppositions, and displayed a degree of 
 political erudition so far beyond me, that, when 
 I arose, the confusion between my prepared 
 thoughts, and those which were suggested by the 
 able discourse of the foregoing speaker, was so 
 great that, although I was not thrown into hesi- 
 tation, I got so wide of the point before me 
 as to be called to order with great vehemence 
 and some propriety from the opposite side of 
 the House. This proved confusion worse con- 
 founded ; and, though I proceeded with some 
 degree of spirit and recovery, I sat down, at 
 length, with much self- dissatisfaction : nor had I 
 reason to think, from the succeeding part of the 
 debate, that I had made any impression on those 
 within the bar, whatever I might have done 
 among the tribe of curious listeners without it. 
 
 ''This is a true unvarnished state of the 
 case ; and, from the circumstances of it, I have 
 formed a resolution, which I trust you will ap- 
 prove, to make no more such studied preparation. 
 I will give the announced subjects all the con- 
 sideration they deserve, acquire all the know-
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 163 
 
 ledge of them in my power, form my general 
 principles, and leave their particular arrange- 
 ment, with the necessary shape, dress, and de- 
 livery, to the circumstances and impressions of 
 the moment. When a senator is to take the 
 lead in a debate, in order to introduce a pro- 
 jected motion of his own, or is engaged to second 
 that of another, he may enter upon his task with 
 the most minute verbal preparation ; but when 
 he is to take his casual turn, he must trust to 
 his feelings of the moment, operating upon the 
 knowledge of the moment. If a man, with the 
 common gifts of speech, possesses a good store 
 of the latter, he may be soon habituated to yield 
 himself to the former, with a certain assurance 
 of acquiring an important political reputation. 
 
 " In American affairs I have ever possessed a 
 perfect uniformity of opinion. My doctrine has 
 ever been that legislation involves in it every 
 possible power and exercise of civil government. 
 For this principle I shall never cease to contend ; 
 though I am forced unwillingly to acknowledge 
 that the Ministerial means of supporting it have, 
 at times, been very erroneous. But you may be 
 assured that, if some better plans for reinstating 
 Great Britain in the full dominion of her re- 
 volted colonies be not pursued (an event which 
 
 humanity at first, succeeded by misinformation 
 
 m 2
 
 164 THE LIFE OF 
 
 and later indecision, has so unfortunately de- 
 layed, but which is still practicable), Ministers 
 shall hear the deep-toned energy of my reproach. 
 I will lift up my voice against their timid and 
 indecisive counsels. My political career, at least, 
 shall not be marked with dishonour." 
 
 On the 1st of February the Earl of Chat- 
 ham's provisional bill for settling the troubles in 
 America was read the first time, and a motion 
 made by the Earl of Sandwich for its rejection. 
 Lord Lyttelton, seeing no prospect of wiser 
 measures on the part of the Government, sup- 
 ported the measure. He again warmly compli- 
 mented the Earl of Chatham, observing that the 
 noble lords knowledge was as extensive as his 
 intentions were good and great, and that, "in 
 a most trying situation, when the nation was 
 nearly reduced to despair, he stood forth alone, 
 and rescued it from ruin." For these reasons, 
 as well as for the merits of the bill, he thought 
 it deserved a more favourable reception. He 
 could not agree with Lord Chatham in some 
 points, particularly with regard to the Quebec 
 Act ; but he thought it extremely improper to 
 summarily reject a proposition which carried on 
 its face a plan of reconciliation, and made an 
 opening for substituting negotiation for the sword.
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 165 
 
 His views as to the supremacy of the British 
 Parliament had undergone no change, but he 
 would gladly see all the substantial fruits of that 
 supremacy enjoyed through the submission of the 
 Americans, instead of being wrested by force and 
 violence. He animadverted in strong terms on 
 the conduct of the Government in sending an 
 insufficient force to Boston, and was called to 
 order by the Earl of Sandwich, who, however, 
 was himself called to order by the Duke of 
 Richmond, who insisted that Lord Lyttelton ought 
 not to have been interrupted. Proceeding with 
 his speech, he reminded the House of the re- 
 mark of Augustus, when a Roman general, 
 leading an inadequate force against a German 
 host, was defeated, that the blame rested upon 
 those who had sent an insufficient force into the 
 field. The Ministerial amendment was carried by 
 sixty-one votes against thirty-two, and the Earl 
 of Chatham's bill was consequently lost. 
 
 On the 7th, when an address to the king on 
 the state of affairs in the American colonies was 
 moved, Lord Lyttelton repeated his arguments 
 for the unity and universality of British 
 empire, and was very severe upon Lord Camden 
 for his legal disquisition upon the different kinds 
 and degrees of treason. " Those little evasions 
 and distinctions," he observed, " are the effects
 
 166 THE LIFE OF 
 
 of professional subtlety and low cunning. It is 
 absurd to the last degree to enter into such 
 flimsy observations on words and phrases, to 
 draw from them deductions equally puerile and 
 inconclusive, that the colonies are not in re- 
 bellion. For my part, I shall not abide by such 
 far-fetched interpretations, but be guided by 
 common sense, and consult only the papers upon 
 the table. What ! will any noble lord in this 
 House rise and tell me seriously that a country 
 is not in rebellion when it openly disclaims all 
 obedience to the laws, all dependence on the 
 legislature ? — when they offer to appropriate public 
 monies to the means of resistance, — when they 
 prevent the courts of justice from assembling j 
 and the counsellors of the Crown from acting ? 
 Will any noble lord pretend to say that any or 
 all of these are not manifest acts of rebellion ? 
 — or that it is not treason in every obvious, sub- 
 stantial, and legal sense of the word to attack 
 one of the king's fortresses, make his troops 
 render it up, and convert the king's stores to 
 the direct purpose of resisting his lawful authority 
 by force of arms ? Are these acts of most 
 flagrant treason and rebellion, or are they, 
 according to the ingenious argument of the noble 
 and learned lord, to be construed as mere mis- 
 demeanour?" He then entered upon a very
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 167 
 
 spirited defence of the Earl of Mansfield, bestow- 
 ing the highest encomiums on his talents, integrity, 
 and political conduct, and charging his accusers 
 with being weak and evil counsellors, no less in 
 their general sentiments than in their personal 
 attacks. 
 
 His speech was severely animadverted upon 
 by the Duke of Eichmond for its remarks upon 
 Lord Camden, which the Duke of Manchester, 
 at a later period of the debate, stigmatised as 
 " indecent and unprecedented." Lord Lyttelton 
 endeavoured to exculpate himself, alleging that 
 his language was hypothetical. He added that 
 the more he heard upon the subject, the more 
 he was convinced that the Americans were in 
 rebellion ; and referred to the statutes relating 
 to treason, and to the authority of Lord Chief 
 Justice Foster. The address was carried by a 
 hundred and four votes against twenty-nine. 
 
 As the session proceeded, it became evident 
 that Lord Lyttelton had not merely mastered 
 the American question for the purpose of making 
 an oratorical display on great occasions, but had 
 prepared himself by diligent study to take an 
 useful part in the debates upon every important 
 question, political or economical, which might be 
 brought under the notice of the House. On the 
 4th of May he made a very able speech in
 
 168 THE LIFE OF 
 
 support of a bill for relieving and employing the 
 poor of the hundreds of Mitford and Launditch, 
 in Norfolk. The Act of Elizabeth for the relief 
 of the poor was, he said, a very excellent and 
 useful measure ; but the neglect and abuses 
 which had crept into its administration were as 
 deplorable as they were shameful. He dwelt 
 with great energy on the vast sums wasted in 
 parochial litigation about the settlement of paupers, 
 and on the corruption, cruelty, and interested 
 conduct of parish officers. " There is," he 
 said, "above three millions of money annually 
 raised in this country for the support of the 
 poor; and I solemnly believe that, with the 
 vast sums of money thrown away in suits relative 
 to parish settlements, and squandered by church- 
 wardens and overseers in their feasts and revel- 
 lings, with several other species of misapplication 
 and fraud, not a million and a half is applied to 
 the purposes for which it is granted." The 
 abuses of the system of pauper relief were too 
 gross, however, to be dealt with by sectional 
 measures, and the time had not come when a 
 comprehensive measure of reform could be brought 
 forward with any prospect of success. The 
 amendment of the Poor Law awaited that en- 
 largement of the popular representation which
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 169 
 
 was not effected until more than half a century 
 later. 
 
 There was at this time a bill before the 
 House for licensing: a theatre in Manchester, 
 which had been brought up from the House of 
 Commons. Of this bill Lord Lyttelton had un- 
 dertaken the charge, and the Earl of Radnor 
 had, for reasons incomprehensible at the present 
 day, determined to oppose it to the utmost of 
 his power. The episcopal bench was canvassed, 
 and promised, without exception, to give the bill 
 an uncompromising opposition. Lord Radnor 
 moved the rejection of the bill on its first reading, 
 but, on the previous question being put, he found 
 himself alone, all the bishops dividing against 
 him ! He thereupon recorded a strongly-worded 
 protest against the bill, in which its supporters 
 were stigmatised as encouragers of vice, immorality, 
 and profaneness. This was the extraordinary 
 position of the question when, on the 12th of 
 May, Lord Lyttelton moved the second reading 
 of the bill. It would strike the present genera- 
 tion as something odd — more odd even than 
 Lord Radnor's protest — that the Earl of Carlisle 
 supported the bill, on the ground that theatres 
 were an antidote to Methodism ; and that the 
 Bishop of London opposed it, not because he
 
 170 THE LIFE OF 
 
 thought, with Lord Radnor, that theatres were 
 necessarily conducive to vice and immorality, 
 but because the " Beggar's Opera " tended in that 
 direction. 
 
 Lord Lyttelton contended that the Bishop of 
 London, in admitting that theatres, properly 
 conducted, might serve to promote the cause of 
 virtue, had pleaded powerfully in favour of the 
 bill, though he would prohibit the representation 
 of Gay's opera. "I am pleased," he continued, 
 " to find that the right reverend prelate has 
 given me so fair an opportunity of satisfying him 
 on that head, and informing him that the in- 
 tended manager has given me the fullest assur- 
 ances that the * Beggar's Opera ' shall never be 
 played there. The right reverend prelate like- 
 wise tells your lordships that, if custom and the 
 current prevailing opinion of mankind had not for- 
 bidden it, he could with pleasure be present to 
 see the English Roscius appear in some of his 
 capital characters. I applaud the wish, and I 
 am sorry to observe that nothing but prejudice 
 and ignorance could lay the foundation of a dis- 
 tinction which is to preclude any set of men 
 from enjoying the fruits of so pleasing, instruc- 
 tive, and solid an entertainment. The right 
 reverend prelate endeavours to make a dis- 
 tinction between places where entertainments of
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 171 
 
 this kind ought or ought not to be permitted, 
 by which he would exclude all trading and manu- 
 facturing towns. But here I must beg leave to 
 dissent from him, and to draw the direct con- 
 trary conclusion ; for, in my opinion, there is no 
 place under proper regulation in which they 
 should be more encouraged, as people who labour 
 intensely require a proportionate recreation, and 
 the sixpence spent at the theatre is much better 
 laid out than at the alehouse." 
 
 He then turned to the protest of the Earl 
 of Kadnor. " It gives me great pain," said he, 
 " but my duty as a member of this House will 
 not permit me to pass over in silence a matter 
 of no small consequence which has been men- 
 tioned during this day's debate ; I mean the 
 protest signed a few days since by a noble earl 
 near me, which, give me leave to say, when pro- 
 perly and seriously considered, has a much more 
 direct tendency to corrupt the morals of the 
 lower orders of the people than all the theatrical 
 exhibitions ever represented in this country. The 
 right reverend bench, who are the great pro- 
 tectors of the interests of religion, the known 
 promoters of virtue and morality in their re- 
 spective dioceses, who in their own persons 
 enforce by example what they teach by precept, 
 who are the only set of men in the Christian
 
 172 THE LIFE OF 
 
 world of the same description that follow the 
 rigid doctrines of primitive Christianity, and 
 show themselves true disciples of the Saviour, — 
 this very respectable body are not only held out 
 to the present generation, but their names are 
 handed down to posterity, as the encouragers of 
 vice, immorality, and profaneness ; and, still 
 more to aggravate the charge, their own words 
 on a former occasion* are quoted and contrasted 
 with their recent conduct, in order to convict 
 them of hypocrisy, and surcharge the picture. 
 
 "This is the substance of the noble lord's 
 protest. Now, what will be the probable con- 
 sequence, as operating on the people ? First, to 
 increase that levelling spirit and contempt of 
 the higher orders of the State which I am sorry 
 to see is already too prevalent, and which is 
 known to be so destructive of all subordination, 
 order, and good government ; and, secondly, to 
 persuade mankind that religion and morality are 
 no more than empty words, taken up and echoed 
 for personal interested purposes, when it is proved 
 that the very protectors and guardians of both 
 have deserted their charge as unworthy of their 
 care and attention. This, my lords, will be the 
 
 * In 1771, when they protested against a bill for licensing a 
 theatre in Liverpool.
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 173 
 
 certain effect of the noble earl's protest in its 
 present form ; and it is on this ground that I 
 now presume to contend that it is highly in- 
 cumbent on his lordship to withdraw it, or to 
 modify it in such a manner as to prevent the 
 manifest evils it must otherwise be productive of. 
 " I know the noble earl's candour ; I am 
 satisfied of his love of truth and justice. His 
 religious tenets are too well known : indeed, his 
 ecclesiastical — I should say, his episcopal — cha- 
 racter for sanctity of life and purity of doctrine 
 are already so notorious that his lordship wants 
 no essential quality but a mitre and a pair of 
 lawn sleeves to make him a perfect bishop. I 
 therefore entreat that his lordship, from those 
 united motives, will undeceive the public, and 
 disabuse the public mind, by erasing the ex- 
 ceptionable parts of the protest, or consent to 
 withdraw it entirely. The explanation of the 
 right reverend prelate, the sentiments of the 
 whole bench, show beyond question that justice 
 rigidly demands what is now asked ; for surely 
 the noble lord could not Avish to have it go 
 abroad that the right reverend bench voted for 
 the bill when the fact was confessedly otherwise, 
 and that the cause of virtue, morality, and re- 
 ligion should suffer by means of any such mis- 
 representation ?
 
 174 THE LIFE OF 
 
 " On the whole, my lords, I appeal to the 
 candour and justice of the noble lord; I trust 
 to his care of the morals of the people, and his 
 love of truth, that he will devise some method 
 to set this matter on a right footing ; and I press 
 him more earnestly to the execution of this 
 request, because, otherwise, I must be under the 
 disagreeable necessity of moving to expunge from 
 your lordships' journals what truth will not permit 
 to remain there — what is in its nature so very 
 injurious to the personal character of so respectable 
 a part of this House — and, finally, what may be 
 so destructive to the morals of the people, and 
 the civil and religious interests of this country." 
 
 Some further debate ensued, the Earl of Eadnor 
 explained, and the bill was read the second time, 
 and committed by a majority of thirty-three votes 
 against twenty-five. 
 
 On the 17th a bill was introduced by Lord 
 Camden to repeal the Government of Quebec Act, 
 and was opposed by Lord Lyttelton, who showed 
 himself as well acquainted with the past and the 
 present condition of the Canadians, who were at 
 the time almost entirely of French descent or birth, 
 as he was with the state of affairs in New England. 
 Lord Camden having said that the Act was 
 " abhorrent to the British Constitution," Lord
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 175 
 
 Lyttelton reminded liim that it was not framed 
 for the meridian of England, but for the conquered 
 subjects of France, consonant to the faith of 
 treaties, and to stipulations agreed upon by the 
 conquerors, which were part of the solemn pact 
 between Great Britain and France, covenanted for 
 and ratified by both nations at the conclusion of 
 the war. 
 
 "And then, my lords," he continued, "I will 
 go a step further. I will meet the noble lord 
 on his own ground, and will uphold that the 
 general principles and policy of the Act were 
 founded on wisdom, — that the principles of it, 
 which his lordship affirms to be repugnant to 
 Christianity, emanated from the Gospel, and are 
 coeval with the religion of our Saviour, — that they 
 breathe forth the spirit of their Divine Master; 
 for they are neither principles of Popery or 
 servitude. They are principles, my lords, of 
 toleration, unrestrained by prejudice, and un- 
 fettered by absurd and odious restrictions. The 
 inhabitants of Canada were Catholics before they 
 were conquered by England ; they are Catholics 
 now, but under the jurisdiction of a Protestant 
 Parliament, and the cognisance of Protestant 
 bishops, who form part of that Parliament, and 
 who, I believe, were unanimous in allowing them
 
 176 THE LIFE OF 
 
 the free exercise of their religion. In regard to 
 the policy of the Act, I cannot but think it to be 
 indisputably excellent, because it tends, by the 
 beneficence of its aspect, to remove those rooted 
 prejudices which are carefully instilled into the 
 minds of all the subjects of France against the 
 laws and constitution of England. This Act, 
 my lords, has more effectually opened their eyes 
 than the perusal of all our statute books ; it has 
 given them, with the mild code of our criminal 
 law, a share of those blessings we derive from 
 freedom ; it has abolished the torture, it has raised 
 the people from the oppression and tyranny under 
 which they crawled, and has perpetuated in their 
 hearts that dominion which has so recently been 
 acquired by our arms. 
 
 " But, says the noble lord (and here he seems 
 to press triumphantly his argument), you have 
 by this Act affected the interests of commerce, — 
 those interests that ought to be most dear to Great 
 Britain. They ought to be so indeed, my lord ; 
 and so far are those interests from being hurt, 
 that it has been the chief purpose of the Act to 
 improve them ; they have flourished under it, even 
 beyond the most sanguine expectations ; for, my 
 lords, since the non-importation agreement has 
 been entered into by all the other provinces of 
 America, who but the Canadians have opened a
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTOX. 177 
 
 channel for British manufactures ? Who but Cana- 
 dians have kept alive jour drooping commerce, 
 by taking prodigious quantities of goods from 
 England, which, by their spirit and diligence have, 
 notwithstanding the unlawful combinations of the 
 Americans, penetrated and pervaded every part of 
 the continent ? Notwithstanding the factious reso- 
 lutions of the assemblies — notwithstanding the 
 inflexible enmity of Congress — the Canadians have 
 opened a way for the English trader : by their 
 means he has found a passage into America for his 
 various sorts of merchandise ; they have been 
 carried into all the provinces — they have even 
 crossed over the peninsula of Boston. These, my 
 lords, are the consequences you have derived from 
 this Act; reprobated, indeed, by the noble lord, 
 but most cordially received by loyal Canadians, who 
 take every occasion to show how sensible they are 
 of its utility, and how desirous of testifying their 
 gratitude. 
 
 " But the noble and learned lord has not con- 
 fined his opposition to the general principles and 
 policy of this Act ; he has, with the designing 
 subtlety of a lawyer, attacked the law part of the 
 bill. He has told your lordships that the intention 
 of it was to throw an unlimited power into the 
 hands of the Crown — that the design was manifest, 
 because they were denied the habeas corpus ; he
 
 178 THE LIFE OF 
 
 has assured you that, by excepting the Canadians 
 from the salutary influence of that excellent pro- 
 vision for the liberty of the subject, you have 
 altered the tenor of that wholesome policy which 
 has always induced, and should always compel, 
 Great Britain to give to all conquered countries 
 the full and perfect system of English freedom 
 in return for their allegiance. The noble lord has 
 instanced the case of Jamaica, of Barbadoes ; but, 
 above all, of Ireland. Has the noble lord forgotten, 
 then, that Ireland, though in possession of the 
 criminal law of England, has not the habeas corpus? 
 That Act, which is a special privilege monopolised 
 by Great Britain, is not even extended to Ireland ; 
 but Ireland has what is in fact equivalent to it, 
 and so has Canada. 
 
 "Would the noble lord desire, then, that 
 those new conquered subjects of England, against 
 whom he shows such strong and irreconcilable 
 hatred, should be indulged with a privilege which 
 even liberty herself seems to be jealous of, and 
 which has hitherto been denied to the loyal 
 inhabitants of Ireland ? My lords, he does desire 
 it ; he would do anything to answer his purpose, 
 to increase storms, to perplex, to distress the 
 Administration. Animated by these views, I am 
 not surprised that he hates the nobility of every 
 country ; they stand in his way ; he would rub
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 179 
 
 them out of his system of government ; he has told 
 your lordships that it is the noblesse and the 
 priests of Canada that are alone benefited by this 
 Act, and that it would be better for the province 
 if both prelates and nobility were whipped out 
 of it. These are his lordship's sentiments — re- 
 publican sentiments, my lords — which, with less 
 impropriety, might have come from the mouth 
 of a factious burgher of Geneva, but which are 
 foreign to the genius of the British constitution." 
 
 He concluded by asking the Ministry for in- 
 formation as to the intentions of the Spanish 
 Government in preparing armaments the magnitude 
 of which forbade the idea that they were designed 
 to act against Morocco, as had been represented. 
 The Earl of Eochford replied so lightly and 
 complacently to this question that the Earl of 
 Bristol endeavoured to impress its gravity upon the 
 House, and Lord Lyttelton rose again. 
 
 " I did not," he said, " press the noble earl 
 in office to betray the secrets of it, nor to divulge 
 matters of state. I wished only to give His 
 Majesty's Ministers, if they thought proper, an 
 opportunity of averting part of the censure which 
 might be deservedly thrown on them in case an 
 unexpected blow should be struck, and to prevent 
 
 N 2
 
 180 THE LIFE OF 
 
 the fraud and imposition people might be liable 
 to from a few among them who might have better 
 or earlier intelligence than the rest. I have, it 
 is true, no great opinion of Spanish politics, yet I 
 must abide by my former assertion, that I am 
 convinced that, however conscientious his Catholic 
 Majesty may be, and desirous of propagating the 
 Christian faith, and extirpating the enemies of 
 the Cross, His Majesty, much less his Ministers, 
 would not put the nation to the enormous expense 
 of the present armaments merely to make proselytes 
 in the wilds and deserts of Africa. The Spanish 
 Cabinet is composed, like those of other princes, 
 of men of different abilities and dispositions, and 
 business is transacted in it, as it is in all others 
 where there is no Prime Minister, by plurality of 
 voices. I can never, therefore, be persuaded to 
 think that a majority of men trained up to public 
 business could ever be led to adopt so preposterous 
 a measure. The noble earl in office seems to place 
 too great a reliance on the assurance given by the 
 Spanish Cabinet, and I will tell your lordships 
 whv I think so. It is because I am well informed. 
 I know it to be the current language of the several 
 branches of the House of Bourbon that they do 
 not look upon themselves as bound to give us 
 any previous information of their hostile intentions, 
 either by declaration of war or otherwise, on
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 181 
 
 account of our capture of the French ships before 
 the commencement of the last war. I therefore 
 call upon the noble earl at the head of the 
 Admiralty to inform the House what force we have 
 immediately ready to put to sea, should the first 
 accounts from that quarter bring us intelligence 
 that Gibraltar was attacked by the Spanish fleet ? " 
 
 The Earl of Sandwich said that he did not 
 think he was obliged to give the information, or 
 that Lord Lyttelton was authorised to ask it ; 
 he condescended, however, to inform the House 
 that the naval force ready to put to sea imme- 
 diately was superior to any that could be brought 
 against Gibraltar by Spain and France combined. 
 The House divided on the Earl of Dartmouth's 
 motion to reject the bill, when the amendment 
 was carried by eighty-eight votes against twenty- 
 eight. 
 
 Lord Lyttelton printed the speech delivered 
 by him on this occasion, and its publication 
 served Horace Walpole as a peg for one of those 
 ill-natured remarks which, from hereditary hos- 
 tility, he missed no opportunity of making."' The 
 
 * " Thank my stars, I have done hoth with authorship and nohle 
 authors, for my Lord Lyttelton has printed a speech. It is a poor 
 affair, void of argument, and grossly ahusive on Lord Camden.
 
 182 THE LIFE OF 
 
 Parliamentary session usually extended, at that 
 time, from the beginning of October to the end 
 of May or beginning of June, so that legislators 
 were in town, as well as in the country, during 
 the months when each was most enjoyable. It 
 was in the summer of 1775 that Lord Lyttelton 
 made the sojourn in Wiltshire, and the subse- 
 quent visit to Bristol, which are related in the 
 following letter : — 
 
 " We all of us grew suddenly tired of our 
 Wiltshire rustication ; and, without a dissentient 
 voice, voted a party to Bristol, where I ate 
 such excellent turtle, and drank such execrable 
 wine, that, with the heat of the weather into the 
 bargain, I was suddenly taken ill at the play- 
 house, almost to fainting, and was obliged to 
 hurry into the air for respiration. Believe me, 
 I did not like the business. Cold sweats and 
 shiverings, accompanied with internal sinkings, 
 gave me a better notion of dying than I had 
 before, and made me think so seriously of this 
 mortal life that, on my return home, I shall take 
 the opportunity of the first gloomy day to make 
 
 It will be as difficult for the Court to uphold his oratory as his 
 character, if he has recourse to the press." — Letter to the Rev. 
 William Mason.
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 183 
 
 my will, appoint executors, and harangue my 
 lawyer into low spirits on the doctrine of death 
 and judgment. 
 
 " I exhibited myself — for none of the party 
 would accompany me — at a public breakfast at 
 the Hot Wells, and sat down at a lono- table 
 with a number of animated cadavers, who de- 
 voured their meal as if they had not an hour 
 to live ; and, indeed, many of them seemed to 
 be in that doleful predicament. But this was 
 not all. I saw three or four groups of hectic 
 spectres engage in cotillions : it brought instantly 
 to my mind Holbein's ' Dance of Death,' and rne- 
 thought I saw the raw-boned scarecrow piping 
 and tabouring to his victims. So I proceeded 
 to the fountain ; but, instead of rosy, blooming 
 health, diseases of every colour and complexion 
 guarded the springs. As I approached to taste 
 them, 1 was fanned by the foetid breath of gasping 
 consumptions, stunned with expiring coughs, and 
 suffocated with the effluvia of ulcerated lungs. 
 Such a living Golgotha never entered into my 
 conceptions ; and I could not but look upon the 
 stupendous rocks that rise in rude magnificence 
 around the place as the wide-spreading jaws of 
 an universal sepulchre. 
 
 " Lord "Walpole told me he was there in attend- 
 ance upon a daughter. I was glad to turn my back
 
 184 THE LIFE OF 
 
 upon the scene ; but I had not yet come to the 
 conclusion of it, for, as I was waiting for my chaise, 
 two different persons put cards into my hand, which 
 informed me where funerals were to be furnished 
 with the greatest expedition, and that hearses and 
 mourning-coaches were to let to any part of 
 England. I immediately leaped into my carriage, 
 and ordered the postillion to drive with all possible 
 haste from a place where I was in danger of being 
 buried alive. 
 
 " After all, this tenancy of life is but a bad 
 one, with its waste and ingress of torturing; diseases, 
 which, not content with destroying the building, 
 maliciously torture the possessor with such pains 
 and penalties as to make him oftentimes curse the 
 possession. 
 
 " Man's feeble race, what ills await ! 
 
 Labour and penury, — the racks of pain : 
 Disease and sorrow's mournful train, 
 And death, sad refuge from the storms of fate. 
 
 "If I continue this kind of letter any further 
 
 you will tell me that I shall repent, found hospitals, 
 
 and die a Methodist, and that Rochester's funeral 
 
 sermons and mine will be bound up in the same 
 
 volume, to the edification and comfort of all sinners 
 
 of every enormity. Adieu, therefore, and believe 
 
 me very truly yours, 
 
 "Lyttelton."
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTOX. 185 
 
 Lord Lyttolton was not partial to rural sports, 
 and neither hunted or shot ; but he liked to 
 retire occasionally from the gaieties of London 
 society and pass a few weeks in the country, at 
 the houses of his friends. As he seldom dated 
 his letters, and never with the year, and the 
 names of the persons to whom those collected 
 by Combe were addressed were suppressed at 
 their particular request, they cannot always be 
 assigned to the year in which they were written, 
 nor can his correspondents always be conjectured ; 
 but the foregoing letter is stated, in the preface 
 to the collected edition of 1806, to have had 
 the date of the summer of 1775 assigned to it 
 by the person to whom it was addressed. Few 
 of the letters bear internal evidence of later date, 
 and it is to the Litter part of that year, therefore, 
 that those must be assigned which describe in so 
 amusing a manner the convivial gatherings 
 assisted at by the jovial clergyman whom he 
 calls Parson Adams, and whose true patronymic 
 cannot now be discovered. 
 
 " I take the opportunity of a sober hour, 
 while everyone of the society here, except myself, 
 is happy in the delirium of a fox-chase — to tell 
 you where I am, what I am about, and with 
 whom engaged. The spleen of a gloomy day
 
 186 THE LIFE OF 
 
 seized upon my spirits, so I ordered my chaise, 
 and sought the enlivening hospitality of this 
 mansion. To increase our satisfaction, who should 
 arrive, an hour after me, but your clerical friend, 
 whose blunt simplicity and rough, unpolished 
 benevolence afforded them unusual entertainment. 
 Parson Adams — for he has no other name within 
 these walls — came on Thursday to dinner, and 
 continued with us, in much joy and heart, till 
 Saturday afternoon, when, suddenly awaking from 
 a kind of snoring doze, he made a most vociferous 
 and unexpected demand if it was not the last 
 day of the week, and receiving, after some pause 
 of astonishment and laughter, an answer in the 
 affirmative, he arose in haste, examined his pockets 
 with a most anxious vivacity, and then broke 
 the cordage of the bell in the violence of riuoinor 
 it. Being requested to explain the meaning of 
 all this agitation, he observed, in a tone of 
 voice which betokened no small disappointment, 
 that as, in truth, it was Saturday, the morrow 
 must, in the natural order of time, be Sunday ; 
 and, as Sunday was the Sabbath day, it was 
 fitting he should immediately return home, to 
 prepare himself for the duties of it. The night 
 approached, and threatened darkness ; it was, 
 therefore, proposed to him to retake the pos-
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 187 
 
 session of his arm-chair, nor to think of business 
 till the next morning. 
 
 " 'My good friends/ replied the doctor, 'it 
 becomes me to inform you that my habitation 
 is fourteen miles distant, and that the church 
 where I am to officiate to-morrow morning is 
 exactly in the mid-way ; so that, if I remain 
 here till the time you propose, I must ride four- 
 teen miles to fetch a sermon, return seven of 
 the same miles to preach it, and then go over 
 those individual seven miles for the third time 
 to preach the same sermon again, which I take, 
 according to common arithmetic, to be no less 
 than twenty-eight miles ; and all this riding, 
 with double duty, will be too much both for 
 man and beast. I really thought,' continued our 
 divine, 'that I had equipped myself with a 
 sermon, in order to make the first church an 
 half-way house on my return to my own parish ; 
 but I have either forgot to clap my divinity in 
 my pocket, or I took it out accidentally with my 
 tobacco-box in my way, and have unfortunately 
 dropped it in the road.' 
 
 " He then emptied all his pockets, one by 
 one, not forgetting the side-pockets of his breeches, 
 turned them inside out, covered the floor with a 
 quantity of dry crumbs of bread and cheese, looked
 
 188 THE LIFE OF 
 
 into his tobacco-box, took his watch from his fob, 
 poked down two of his fingers, examined the 
 lining of his coat, and at length, with a deep 
 sigh, and a huge expectoration upon his handker- 
 chief, which he had thrown upon the ground, 
 he gave it up for lost. ' It was/ said he, ' the 
 best discourse I had to my back, and as pretty 
 a piece of supernaculum as ever was enclosed in 
 black covers. It was divided,' continued he, 
 ' into three parts ; the first was taken from Clarke, 
 the second from Abernethy, the third was com- 
 posed by myself; and the two practical ob- 
 servations were translated from a Latin sermon, 
 preached and printed at Oxford in the year of 
 our Lord 1735.' 
 
 " On my observing that his discourse had as 
 many heads as Cerberus, he grew warm, and told 
 me it was much better to have three heads than 
 none at all. ' But,' added the doctor, ' if you wish 
 to know more of the matter, it had four beginnings 
 and seven conclusions, by the help whereof I 
 preached it, with ecjual success, on a Christmas 
 Day, for the benefit of a charity, at a florists' 
 feast, an assize, an archdeacon's visitation, and a 
 funeral, besides common occasions.' On this 
 account, F. observed that it put him in mind of 
 the mention made in ' Tristram Shandy,' of a 
 text which would suit any sermon, and a sermon
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 189 
 
 which would suit any text. This the zealous 
 preacher loudly declared was a false insinuation, 
 for that his text was steady to its post, nor 
 had ever deserted it ; and that whoever took 
 him for a man who would hold out a false 
 flag, or change his colours, on any occasion, mis- 
 took his character, and did him a very sensible 
 injustice. 
 
 " At this period the master of the house 
 returned from a quiet, but fruitless examination 
 of his book-case, for the purpose of finding, per- 
 chance, some old printed sermon which might have 
 served the doctor s purpose, prolonged the pleasure 
 of his society, and saved him his dark and dan- 
 gerous journey. On this disappointment, I ventured 
 to remark that, as he had given us so many 
 agreeable specimens of his ready eloquence, it was 
 certainly in his power to treat his flock with an 
 extempore discourse ; and I strongly recommended 
 him to adopt my idea, when he struck me dumb 
 by hinting to me, in a loud significant whisper, 
 that I was mistaken in supposing it to be as easy 
 to preach a sensible discourse on a divine subject, 
 extempore, in a pulpit, as to talk a precipitate 
 hour of flowery, frothy nonsense, on a political 
 one, in the Parliament House. At this moment 
 of superiority his horse was announced, and we 
 all attended to hear, rather than to see, him
 
 190 THE LIFE OF 
 
 depart, which he did with much horse language, 
 and in a night of triple darkness. 
 
 " It was now seven o'clock ; our spirits were 
 fled with the parson : we gambled a little, but 
 not with sufficient spirit to keep us awake, till 
 at length supper fortunately arrived to change the 
 scene ; and I had scarce dissected the wing of a 
 capon, when we were all alarmed by a voice from 
 the court, which repeated the cry of * House ! 
 house ! ' with uncommon vehemence. We left the 
 table, and hurried to the hall-door, when the 
 same voice demanded, in the same tone, whether 
 that was the road to Bridgnorth ? On a reply 
 in the negative, it continued, ' I suppose, then, 
 I am at Davenport House.' On a second reply 
 in the negative, ' Then where the devil am I ? ' 
 returned the voice, for we could see nothing ; 
 but, the candles arriving, who should appear but 
 our unfortunate doctor, who, after wandering about 
 the commons for upwards of three hours, had, 
 by mere chance, returned to us again. 
 
 " We received him in triumph, placed him at 
 the head of the table, where, without grace or 
 apology, or indeed uttering a single word, he 
 seized on the best part of a fowl, with a pro- 
 portionable quantity of ham, and left us to laugh 
 and be merry, while he voraciously devoured his 
 meat, and held his tongue. At length, observing
 
 TE0MA8 LORD LYTTELTON. 191 
 
 that his clay wanted moistening, and that punch 
 was a fluid the best adapted of any other to 
 his soil, he did not delay an instant to quench 
 his thirsty frame from a large bowl of that re- 
 freshing beverage. The cords of his tono-ue were 
 now loosened, and he informed us that Providence 
 having, as he supposed, for wise and good pur- 
 poses, intimated to him, by a variety of obstruc- 
 tions, that he should not discharge his usual 
 functions on the morrow, it became him to show 
 a due resignation to the will of heaven, and, 
 therefore, he should send his flocks to grass on 
 the approaching Sabbath. In a similar strain he 
 continued to entertain us, till, weary with laughter, 
 we were glad to retire. The next morning it 
 was hinted to him that the company did not 
 wish to restrain him from attending upon the 
 divine service of the parish ; but he declared that 
 it would be adding contempt to neglect if, when 
 he had absented himself from his own churches, 
 he should go to any other. This curious etiquette 
 he strictly observed ; and we passed a Sabbath 
 contrary, I fear, both to law and gospel. 
 
 " In the fulness of his heart our divine has 
 given us an invitation to dine with him at his 
 parsonage, on Thursday next. I expect infinite 
 entertainment from the party ; and you may de- 
 pend, by the succeeding post, to receive the best
 
 392 THE LIFE OF 
 
 hash of it which the cookery of my pen can 
 afford you." 
 
 Lord Lyttelton fulfilled his promise, as the 
 following letter, evidently addressed to the same 
 person, shows : — 
 
 " The visit is paid, and more than answered 
 the warmest expectations which could be formed 
 in its favour. Our reverend host had insisted, 
 not a la mode de Scarron, that each of his guests 
 should bring his dish, but that they should indi- 
 vidually name it. This easy preliminary was 
 readily complied with, and it was my lot to give 
 birth to as excellent a plumb-pudding as ever 
 smoaked upon a table ; which, from my adoption, 
 he is resolved in future to call a Lyttelton. You 
 see what honours wait upon me, and to what solid 
 
 excellence my title is assimilated. F had 
 
 named a goose, which he immediately christened 
 after its godfather, who did not quite relish the 
 joke, and could hardly force a laugh, when the 
 rest of the company were bursting. The whole 
 meal was a very comfortable one ; and the doctor 
 produced us no small quantity of very tolerable 
 wine : his punch was grateful to the nostrils, but 
 he had made it in a large pewter vessel, so like 
 a two-handled chamber-pot, that my resolution
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 193 
 
 was not equal to the applying of it to my 
 palate. 
 
 " On its beino- observed that he must have 
 
 O 
 
 taken no small pains to procure all the good things 
 
 before us, he declared that no trouble had attended 
 
 any one article but the pudding, which, he said, 
 
 had almost destroyed a pair of black plush breeches, 
 
 in riding round the country to learn how it should 
 
 be made in perfection. ' You cannot be ignorant, 
 
 my lord,' continued our divine, addressing himself 
 
 particularly to me, 'that a plumb-pudding is nothing 
 
 more than a pudding, however it may be composed, 
 
 with plumbs added to other ingredients ; but, 
 
 apprehensive that the ordinary skill of our homely 
 
 kitchens, in this particular, might not be agreeable 
 
 to such refined palates as yours, I resolved to 
 
 traverse the whole neighbourhood, in order to 
 
 obtain all necessary intelligence. Every learned 
 
 person to whom I applied agreed, as your lordship 
 
 may suppose, in the essential articles of flour and 
 
 water, milk and eggs, suet and plumbs, or raisins ; 
 
 but the variety of other articles which were 
 
 severally recommended filled two pages of my 
 
 memorandum - book, and drove me almost to 
 
 despair. In the multitude of counsellors I did 
 
 not, according to the proverb, find wisdom, but 
 
 confusion. I was successively, alternately, and 
 
 separately advised the addition of rum, brandy, 
 
 o
 
 194 THE LIFE OF 
 
 wine, strong beer, spices of every sort, chopped 
 liver, and Hollands gin. "With this load of 
 multifarious intelligence, I hastened to the market- 
 town, furnished myself with every ingredient 
 my own little store-house did not possess, and 
 returned home jaded, fatigued, and my pockets 
 laden with the produce of all quarters of the 
 globe. But another important labour/ added the 
 doctor, ' succeeded, in the consultation about the 
 choice and due mode of applying the hoard of 
 grocery and variety of liquors which were dis- 
 played in form on the kitchen- dresser : it was a 
 solemn business, for the Lord had commanded 
 it. Consultation, however, begot difference of 
 opinion, and difference of opinion brought on 
 dispute ; so that I was at length obliged to 
 interpose my authority ; and, to shorten the 
 business, I ordered all the various articles, con- 
 sisting of more than a dozen in number, to be 
 employed without favour or affection. The 
 motley mixture was accordingly made ; and, as 
 every person consulted seemed to agree that the 
 longer it boiled the better it would prove, I 
 ordered it to be put into the pot at midnight, 
 and sent for a famous nurse in the neighbourhood 
 to sit up with it, and, with a vestal's vigilance, 
 to keep in the fire till the family arose. In this 
 state of concoction the pudding remained till
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTOX. 195 
 
 after the arrival of this good company, who, I 
 hope, will be so prejudiced in its favour, from 
 the Herculean labour which produced it, as to 
 attack its circumference with Herculean appetites.' 
 Here ended the culinary oration, and, as I before 
 observed, the subject of it contained unrivalled 
 excellence ; and, though we laughed at it and 
 over it, we did not fail to cause a very apparent 
 diminution of its ample dimensions. 
 
 " Thus, my dear friend, we ate and laughed, 
 and drank and laughed, till night stole imper- 
 ceptibly upon us ; when our hospitable host in- 
 formed us that he had two beds and a cradle 
 in his own house, and that he had prepared 
 three others at two neighbouring farmers : so that 
 we might be at rest as to our lodging, nor, like 
 him, encounter the perils of a darksome night. 
 ' The squires/ added he, ' must sojourn to my 
 neighbours ; my two beds will serve the peer 
 and. the baronet; and I myself will take the 
 cradle.' Now, this cradle, which caused us no 
 little mirth, and will, I presume, have a similar 
 effect upon you, who are acquainted with the 
 huge figure which was to occupy it, — this cradle, 
 I say, is a most excellent moveable for a small 
 house. It is made of sufficient size to hold an 
 infant six feet in length, can be placed anywhere, 
 and will enable an hospitable spirit to supply a 
 
 o 2
 
 196 THE LIFE OF 
 
 friend with a lodging when his beds are engaged. 
 If I had not been fearful of affronting our divine, 
 I should have indulged my curious fancy by 
 going to roost in it ; but the best bed was pre- 
 pared for me, and the fine Holland sheets, which, 
 probably, had not been taken out of the sweet- 
 scented press for many a month, were spread 
 for my repose : nor would my slumbers have 
 been suspended for a moment, if the linen had 
 not produced so strong an effluvia of rosemary 
 that I almost fancied myself in a coffin, and 
 wrapped in a winding-sheet. But fatigue soon 
 got the better of fancy ; and I awoke the next 
 morning to life and spirits, but not to immor- 
 tality. 
 
 "Before I bid you adieu, permit me to add 
 a singular example of complimentary repartee, 
 which our friendly host very unexpectedly ad- 
 dressed to me, previous to our departure. As I 
 was looking out of the parlour window, from 
 whence nothing is to be seen but a black dreary 
 heath, he asked me how I liked the prospect. 
 I answered that, from its wild appearance, if 
 Nebuchadnezzar had been doomed to pasture in 
 his environs, he must have died for hunger. 
 ' And if that prince,' replied the doctor, ' had 
 been sentenced to have passed his savage years 
 in your park at Hagley, he need not have re-
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 197 
 
 gretted the loss of a throne, or wished a return 
 to the enjoyment of his human functions.' At 
 this period of self-importance, which, in the very 
 description, returns upon me, you cannot be sur- 
 prised if I take my leave. Adieu." 
 
 There was probably a trip to the metropolis 
 between these rural visits and Lord Lyttelton's 
 return to Hagley, for which place he had little 
 affection. A brief sojourn in London may be 
 inferred from the fact that he won a large sum 
 of money at cards, which, after due consideration 
 of the matter, he determined to devote to the 
 relief of his estate from the jointures of Ins wife 
 and his step-mother. The following letter, in 
 which he communicated this intention to the 
 friend to whom the two preceding letters were 
 addressed, is the only one in which his love of 
 play is alluded to :— 
 
 " It gives me no small satisfaction to be assured 
 that my two last letters have afforded you the 
 satisfaction it was their office to communicate. 
 The rural divine plays a most admirable part w 
 the jovial interludes of provincial society. It is 
 a pleasant circumstance to meet occasionally with 
 a man whose humour, sense, and foible are so 
 blended that, while he possesses the pleasant
 
 198 TEE LIFE OF 
 
 mixture of simplicity and vanity which bars him 
 from distinguishing when you laugh with him 
 or at him, you may give a loose to the whole 
 of your mirthful dispositions without any restraint 
 from the fear of giving offence. Our reverend 
 
 friend told B that he is in no small disgrace 
 
 with his parishioners for entertaining so great 
 a sinner as I am, and that one of them, who 
 had seen me at Kidderminster, declares throughout 
 the neighbourhood that I have a cloven foot. I 
 am not without my expectations that equal 
 vouchers will be produced for my tail and horns, 
 and then the devil will be complete. 
 
 " At length the grave and anxious occupations 
 of worldly wisdom succeed to mirth and jollity. 
 The interest of money and the value of lives, 
 together with trusts and securities, are the subjects 
 of my present meditations. To explain myself, 
 I am considering a plan for easing my estate of 
 the jointures to the two Dowager Lady Lytteltons 
 — for they are both so, in fact — by making a 
 purchase of equivalent annuities for their valuable 
 lives. Fortune has been kind to me, and I will, 
 for once, win your applause by applying her 
 gifts to sensible purposes. To use a newspaper 
 species of portraiture, what think you of the 
 picture of a young nobleman offering the favours 
 of Fortune on the altar of Wisdom, by the present
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 199 
 
 Lord Lyttelton ? If this idea should be completed 
 — and I assure you the dead colouring is dis- 
 appearing apace — will you place the painting in 
 the cabinet of your mind, in the room of the 
 picture you designed, and have so often retouched, 
 of that self-same nobleman sacrificing the gifts 
 of nature to folly, vice, and intemperance ? 
 
 " I trust and believe that a sordid thirst after 
 money will never be added to the catalogue of 
 my failings. It is true that the love of play 
 proceeds from the desire of gain, and is, therefore, 
 said to be founded on an avaricious principle. If 
 this be fact, avarice is the universal passion ; for I 
 will venture to affirm that, more or less, we are 
 all gamesters by nature. But the desire of 
 winning money for the sake of spending it and 
 increasing the joys of life is one thing, and the 
 ardour of acquiring it in order to lock it up and 
 render it useless is another. 
 
 " Mammon, the least-erected Spirit that fell 
 From Heav'n : for e'en in Heav'n his looks and thoughts 
 Were always downwards bent, admiring more 
 The riches of Heav'n's pavement, trodden gold, 
 Than aught divine or holy else enjoy'd 
 In vision beatific." 
 
 It may appropriately be mentioned here, though 
 it would be unnecessary if Lord Lyttelton had 
 been less systematically abused, that he was never
 
 200 LIFE OF THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 
 
 suspected of playing otherwise than fair. " Scru- 
 pulously honest " are the words used in reference 
 to this point by the friend who wrote the sketch 
 of his character, which was prefixed to the 
 posthumous volume of poems which was published 
 by his friend and executor, Koberts, in 1780.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Opening of the Parliamentary Session of 1775-76 — Debate on the 
 Address— Speech of Lord Lyttelton — Speech on the Intro- 
 duction of Foreign Troops without the Consent of Parliament 
 — Change of Relations with the Ministry — Appointment as 
 Chief Justice in Eyre, north of the Trent, and a Privy 
 Councillor — Letter on his Appointment — Opposition to the 
 Duke of Grafton's Motion for Return of Troops in America — 
 Defence of the Prohibitory Bill — Vindication of his Conduct 
 against the Duke of Richmond — Calumnies of Horace 
 Walpole — Trial of the Duchess of Kingston. 
 
 Parliament re-assembled on the 26th of October, 
 actual hostilities having commenced in America 
 during the recess by the attack of the rebel 
 colonists on the troops at Concord, near Lexington, 
 followed by the engagement at Bunker's Hill, 
 in which the former gained the advantage. 
 Amendments to the Address having been moved 
 by the Marquis of Kockingham and the Duke of 
 Grafton, Lord Lyttelton condemned both the 
 address and the Rockingham amendment. Having 
 resented what he deemed an implied censure on 
 the Earl of Chatham in the speech of the Earl of 
 Sandwich, and eulogised his noble relative with
 
 202 THE LIFE OF 
 
 his usual warmth, he turned to the Address, and, 
 while maintaining the sovereignty of Parliament to 
 the fullest extent, strongly condemned the conduct 
 of Ministers. They had, he said, totally failed in 
 their promises, and were no longer to be trusted 
 or supported with safety. He alluded to his 
 conduct the preceding year, when he had voted 
 with them, how strenuously he had recommended 
 vigorous measures, and how frequently he had 
 pressed them on this head. Though he could not 
 vote for the amendment, because it did not declare 
 the Americans to be in rebellion, he totally 
 disapproved of the Address, and of the measures 
 recommended in it. 
 
 He described the situation as being now 
 entirely altered. Boston, he said, was turned into 
 a hospital, where more died by famine and neglect 
 than by the sword in the field. Great Britain had 
 probably not a foot of land in her possession on 
 the American continent. The expense and hazard 
 of reducing the rebels, and the little dependence 
 to be placed in men who had either been misled 
 themselves or had purposely misled others, 
 operated so strongly on his mind that he could no 
 longer give his support to the Government, and 
 he must consequently unite in opinion with the 
 Duke of Grafton in wishing that all Acts relating 
 to America which had been passed since 1763
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTOX. 203 
 
 might be repealed, as a ground for reconciliation, 
 the restoration of public tranquillity, and the 
 return of the Americans to their wonted obedience 
 and subordinate dependence on the mother country. 
 
 The Duke of Grafton's amendment was rejected, 
 however, by sixty-nine votes against twenty-nine ; 
 and the Address was carried by seventy-three 
 votes against thirty-three. It was as evident to 
 Lord Lyttelton as to the leaders of the Opposition 
 that the Ministry, supported by such a majority, 
 could carry whatever measures they might pro- 
 pose ; but he was determined to support no 
 Administration that would not act with vigour 
 against the rebellious colonists. He was sufficiently 
 free from party considerations and influences to 
 have accepted office under the Earl of Chatham, 
 if he could have converted that statesman to his 
 own views on the American question ; but such 
 a conversion was not to be expected, and, while 
 Lord North would neither make concessions to 
 the Americans, nor act with vigour against them, 
 he felt himself constrained by his conscience and 
 his political principles to maintain an independent 
 position. 
 
 The Government having made arrangements 
 at this time for raising troops in the Electorates 
 of Hanover and Hesse, the Duke of Manchester, 
 on the 1st of November, moved a resolution,
 
 204 THE LIFE OF 
 
 declaring the introduction of foreign troops into 
 any part of the British dominions, without the 
 consent of Parliament, to be dangerous and un- 
 constitutional. The Earl of Rochford met this 
 attack by moving the previous question, on the 
 ground that Lord North would ask Parliament 
 for an Act of Indemnity ; and, in the course of 
 his speech, showed a desire to fritter away the 
 Bill of Rights by fine-drawn distinctions, that 
 drew from Lord Lyttelton a warm rebuke. He 
 should prefer, he said, under the circumstances, 
 an Act of Indemnity to a vote of censure ; but 
 the arguments of the noble earl surprised and 
 alarmed him. 
 
 " Is," he asked, " our glorious Revolution, the 
 only sure foundation of all our liberties, — is the 
 Bill of Rights, a compact entered into at that 
 glorious period, — as well as the acknowledged 
 sense in which that modern Mama Charta has 
 been received for nearly a century, — to be done 
 away with by distinctions and explanations re- 
 pugnant to the intentions of its framers, to the 
 letter and the spirit, to both its legal and its 
 constitutional construction ? I was willing to 
 make every reasonable allowance, — to grant some- 
 thing for expediency, more for necessity, — in 
 short, was willing to accede to the propriety of
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 205 
 
 anything or everything which might be urged in 
 justification of the measure ; but that it is legal 
 or constitutional, is a proposition I can never 
 assent to, — a doctrine which, as an Englishman^ 
 I ' will never endure, Though a young man, I 
 am old enough to remember the conduct of a 
 great Minister, a steady friend to his country, — 
 I mean the Earl of Chatham, — upon a similar 
 occasion. I venture to call it a similar occasion, 
 but I believe that no noble lord in this House, 
 however sanguine for the present system of 
 measures, will assert that the present urgency 
 equals the one I am going to mention. 
 
 " It was in the very heat of the war, when 
 we required to recruit the army and navy with 
 from fifteen to twenty thousand men annually, 
 that that great statesman, feeling the necessity 
 of having recourse to foreign levies, resolved to 
 raise a certain number of foreigners to serve in 
 America. How did he carry the measure into 
 execution ? In the midst of a war, the widest 
 in extent, the most interesting in its conse- 
 quences, the greatest in its immediate importance, 
 the heaviest in point of expense, — when our 
 coasts were daily expected to be invaded by 
 dangerous and inveterate enemies, — while the war, 
 even in America, was yet doubtful, — the Earl of 
 Chatham, instead of pleading the great and justi-
 
 208 THE LIFE OF 
 
 fiable motive of necessity, — instead of cavilling 
 about this or that word, — in the full spirit of 
 the Constitution, in the full spirit of an English- 
 man, came to Parliament for its sanction. So 
 very careful was that great man, so tenacious of 
 everything that might be construed into the most 
 trifling infraction of the Act of Settlement, that 
 he inserted two clauses in the Act that enabled 
 the Crown to take those troops into its pay : — 
 one, that they should serve in America only ; 
 the other, that no foreign officer should hold a 
 higher rank than that of lieutenant-colonel." 
 
 Sir James Lowther moved, in the House of 
 Commons, a resolution in the same terms as that 
 of the Duke of Manchester ; but it was rejected in 
 both Houses. Six days afterwards, when the Duke 
 of Richmond proposed to call Penn, the governor 
 of Pennsylvania, to authenticate the petition of 
 Congress to the King, Lord Lyttelton opposed 
 it, on the ground of the inconvenience that would 
 result from such a course becoming a precedent, 
 and a lon^ debate ensued. The motion to examine 
 Penn at- the bar of the House was rejected by 
 fifty-six votes against twenty-two ; but it was 
 finally resolved, on the motion of the Earl of 
 Denbigh, that the governor should be examined 
 on the 10th, it being thought that the informa-
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTOX. 207 
 
 tion lie could give would be useful in guiding 
 the House to a decision upon the petition. Be- 
 tween the two debates there seems to have been 
 a rumour current in political circles that Lord 
 Lyttelton had taken office under the Government, 
 or would shortly do so ; and on the 10th, after 
 Penn had been examined, the Duke of Richmond, 
 supporting the petition as a basis for reconcilia- 
 tion, said : " Where are the troops to come from 
 that are to conquer America ? We have heard of 
 twenty thousand Russians. It may be a mere 
 report ; but Ministers give no information, and 
 there are such fluctuations of men, without any 
 change of measures, that nobody knows who to 
 apply to. Whether the noble lord in red (Lord 
 Lyttelton) was now a Minister of the day could 
 not with certainty be pronounced ; if he was in 
 the secrets of the Government, he might possibly 
 indulge the House with some information con- 
 cerning the setwenty thousand Russians to be sent 
 to America. " 
 
 Lord Lyttelton rose as the duke sat down, 
 and said that he should not be prevented from 
 doing his duty by the insinuations which had 
 been thrown out. He repeated his former argu- 
 ments that the Americans were in rebellion, and 
 guilty of treason ; commented on Penn's evidence 
 as affording proofs of the situation being as
 
 208 THE LIFE OF 
 
 lie described it ; and contended that the effect 
 of the Duke of Richmond's motion, if adopted, 
 would be to transfer authority from Parliament 
 to Congress. The Earl of Sandwich censured the 
 Duke of Richmond for his insinuations, and denied 
 that there was any intention of employing Russian 
 troops in America. The motion was rejected by 
 eighty-six votes against thirty-three. 
 
 During the interval of five days between this 
 debate and the next occasion on which he spoke, 
 Lord Lyttelton was appointed to the sinecure 
 office of Chief Justice in Eyre, north of the Trent, 
 and admitted to the Privy Council. He was much 
 gratified by this elevation, which had been an 
 object of ambition with his father, and, in the 
 fulness of his elation, wrote as follows to a 
 friend : — 
 
 " I thank you most sincerely, my very dear 
 friend, for your obliging congratulations on my 
 late promotion ; and I have no better way to 
 answer the friendly counsels which accompany 
 them, but by opening my heart to you upon the 
 occasion, and trusting its sentiments with you. 
 
 "You knew my father, and I am sure you 
 will applaud me in declaring that his character 
 did real honour to his rank and his nature. A 
 grateful fame will wait upon his memory, till,
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTOX. 209 
 
 by some new change in human affairs, the great 
 and good men of this country and period shall 
 be lost to the knowledge of distant generations. 
 In the republic of letters he rose to a very con- 
 siderable eminence ; his deep political erudition 
 is universally acknowledged ; and, as a senator 
 both of the lower and higher order, his name 
 is honoured with distinguished veneration. In 
 his private, as well as public life, he was con- 
 nected, and in friendship, with the first men of 
 the times in which he lived ; and, as a character 
 of strict virtue and true piety, he has been uni- 
 versally held forth as the most striking example 
 of this age. The idea of uncommon merit ac- 
 companies all opinion of him ; and to mention his 
 name is to awaken the most pleasing and amiable 
 sentiments. As you read this short and imperfect 
 outline of his character, fill it up, and do it 
 justice. 
 
 "Now it will, perhaps, surprise you when 
 you are informed that the post in Govern- 
 ment which this great and good man most 
 desired, and could never obtain, was the Chief 
 Justiceship in Eyre, &c. &c. The reverse of 
 the picture is as follows : that your humble 
 servant and his gracious son, whose character 
 you perfectly know, has been appointed to this 
 very post, in the infancy of his peerage, without
 
 210 THE LIFE OF 
 
 any previous service performed, hint given, or 
 requisition made on his part, and without the 
 proposition of and conditions on the part of the 
 Minister.""" When I was surprised by the offer, 
 I was surprised also by a sudden and unusual 
 suffusion on my cheeks at the contrast of mine 
 and my father's character, of mine and my fathers 
 lot. Indeed, so big was my heart on the occasion, 
 that when the Ministerial ambassador had left 
 me the sentiments of it burst forth upon the 
 first person I saw, who happened not to be a 
 very proper receptacle for the reflections of 
 virtue. 
 
 " There is a very great encouragement in this 
 world to be wicked, and the devil certainly goes 
 about in more pleasing shapes than that of a 
 roaring lion.t In the name of fortune, my dear 
 friend, how and why are these things ? Is it 
 the increasing corruption of the times, or the 
 weakness of Government, that gives to dissolute 
 men the meed of virtue, or do Ministers think it 
 
 * There seems a typographical error here, as the letter stands 
 in the edition of 1806, and that the sentence should read, " the 
 proposition of any conditions on the part of the Minister." 
 
 t The allusion is to the words of Peter, chap, v., v. 8, of 
 the first general epistle : " Be sober, be vigilant ; for your adver- 
 sary the devil, as a roaring lion, walkeLh about, seeking whom he 
 may devour."
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 211 
 
 expedient to give a sop to the mastiff whose 
 growl might make them tremble ? You, who 
 have made men and manners your study, who 
 have looked so deeply into the volume of the 
 heart, and have acquired such a happy art of 
 reconciling the apparent inconsistencies of human 
 affairs, must instruct me. I wish you could 
 improve and convert me. I am not insensible 
 to what is good ; nay, there are moments when 
 the full lustre of virtue beams upon me. I try 
 to seize it, but the gleam escapes me, and I 
 am re-involved in darkness. The conflict of reason 
 and passion is but the conflict of a moment, and 
 the latter never fails to bear me off in triumph. 
 
 " ' Video meliora proboque, 
 Deteriora sequor.' " 
 
 There seems no reason to doubt the accuracy 
 of the statements contained in this letter, and 
 the inference of Lord Lyttelton from his appoint- 
 ment. He was a very young man for a Privy 
 Councillor, being only in his thirty-second year. 
 But the evidence which he had given of superior 
 bailities and attainments had already made him 
 a noteworthy man in the Senate, and men of 
 such brilliant oratorical and debating powers were 
 not so numerous on the Treasury benches that 
 
 the Government could afford to neglect and dis- 
 
 p 2
 
 212 THE LIFE OF 
 
 regard him. Even if they had been slower to 
 discern, or less willing to recognise his talents, 
 the pertinacity and energy of his attacks must 
 have convinced them that he was a man of whom 
 account must be taken, whether they liked him 
 or not. The only post at their disposal at the 
 time which could be offered to a man of his 
 position was, therefore, placed unconditionally at 
 his acceptance ; and, to make amends for its being 
 a sinecure, a seat in the Privy Council was coupled 
 with it. There seems to have been no corre- 
 spondence on the subject ; the offer was conveyed 
 to him verbally by a supporter of the Govern- 
 ment, and Lord Lyttelton, after receiving expla- 
 nations as to the American policy of the Cabinet, 
 accepted it. 
 
 His first Ministerial speech was made on the 
 15th, two days after he received the appointment, 
 when the Duke of Grafton moved for a return 
 of the number of troops in America, and Lord 
 Lyttelton opposed the motion, on the ground 
 that the return would be the means of conveying 
 information to the rebels. He commented severely 
 on this occasion on the conduct of Lord Camden, 
 whose speech he characterised as at once a libel 
 upon Parliament and an encouragement to the 
 rebels. " The noble and learned lord," said he, 
 " while he sets up for an advocate of liberty,
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 213 
 
 says something which I do not well comprehend, 
 unless its object is still further to blacken and 
 vilify this country. His lordship tells you, as 
 an overbearing and domineering Englishman, he 
 should like to trample on the liberties of America. 
 I do not pretend to say what his native impulses 
 may be, but I will venture to assert that he thinks 
 very differently in this respect from the majority 
 of this House and this nation, neither of which 
 want to invade the rights of the Americans, 
 much less to trample on their liberty." He con- 
 cluded by expressing the hope that Great Britain 
 would never desist until she had obtained full 
 submission and obedience to the exercise of her 
 constitutional power. The motion of the Duke 
 of Grafton was negatived without a division. 
 
 There is nothing in this speech, as reported 
 in Hansard's " Parliamentary History," to indicate 
 that the relations of the speaker towards the 
 Government had undergone any change ; there 
 is no deviation whatever from the views and 
 sentiments on the American question which he 
 had constantly expressed from the day on which 
 he first took his place in the House of Lords. 
 Yet Horace Walpole, writing two days afterwards 
 to Horace Mann, speaks of Lord Lyttelton as 
 "this hopeful young man, who, on being refused 
 a place, spoke for the Americans, and in two
 
 214 THE LIFE OF 
 
 days, on getting one, against them." The speeches 
 themselves would be a sufficient reply, if any 
 were needed, to this libel, which is conceived in 
 the characteristic Walpolean spirit. There is just 
 as little reason for the statement that Lord 
 Lyttelton asked for a place, and was refused, as 
 there is for the assertion that, within two days, 
 he spoke for and against the Americans. But 
 political independence was so rare in those days, 
 that few politicians could understand the propriety 
 of opposing the Government on one day, and 
 supporting it on another, without supposing the 
 acceptance of a place or a pension in the interval ; 
 and Walpole, though not a politician himself, 
 must have heard enough in his own family to 
 have made him specially incredulous as to the 
 existence of honest placemen and independent 
 members. 
 
 On the 15th of December, when the Prohibitory 
 Bill was before the House, Lord Lyttelton sup- 
 ported it, and defended the Government against 
 the charge brought against them by the Duke 
 of Manchester, of having introduced it at an 
 improper time, and desiring to hurry it through 
 Parliament. " On the contrary," said he, "it is 
 well knowD, and it is now confessed on all hands, 
 that the Administration have delayed, instead of 
 hurried, the necessary measures for reducing this
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 215 
 
 obstinate and rebellious people to obedience, from 
 motives of lenity, and a wish to prevent the 
 effusion of blood and the horrid devastation con- 
 sequent on civil war. And I am not certain 
 that all the mischief which has since happened 
 may not, in a great measure, be attributed to a 
 mistaken motive of humanity." He replied to 
 the Duke of Manchester's charge, that the measure 
 was a violation of the Bill of Eights, by the 
 allegation that the Americans were in a state of 
 rebellion, and repeated his former arguments in 
 support of that proposition. 
 
 Then, replying to the Duke's warning, that 
 war was imminent on the continent of Europe, 
 and would soon afford occupation for the British 
 fleet, he said : " Would that be a motive for sub- 
 mitting to rebels in the present contest ? I think 
 it would not : I am sure it ought not. France 
 and Spain would conclude that a nation which 
 had not the power to control its own members 
 would be no longer a formidable enemy. They 
 would look upon you as an abject, tame, mer- 
 cenary people, who, from mere love of lucre, 
 would consent to sacrifice all pride, dignity, and 
 the superior interests of yourselves and posterity, 
 rather than suffer temporary inconvenience, or 
 forego for awhile the advantages derived from 
 commercial intercourse with your colonies. They
 
 210 THE LIFE OF 
 
 would look on you as a nation of merchants, 
 from whom nothing was to be feared, devoid of 
 that martial ardour, native prowess, and thirst of 
 fame which have hitherto rendered you formidable 
 to your enemies. 
 
 " Therefore, I contend, my lords, that it is 
 doubly incumbent on you to exert yourselves, 
 even as a means of keeping ambitious neighbours 
 in that state of awe and reverence which will 
 always be one of the best bulwarks of national 
 safety and domestic tranquillity. My lords, though 
 I wish sincerely that America, should she persist 
 obstinately to resist the constitutional and equit- 
 able claims of this country, may be compelled 
 to acknowledge them, yet I do not desire that 
 the people of that country should be abridged of 
 their ancient privileges. Whenever they return 
 to a proper sense of duty, I shall very readily 
 give my support to any plan which may be 
 most likely to heal the unhappy wounds that 
 have already been given, and for receiving them 
 once more into the bosom of the mother country." 
 He denied the contention of the Duke of Man- 
 chester that the Government had abandoned the 
 right of taxation. He would not, he said, pretend 
 to say in what manner, or to what extent, America 
 should contribute to the imperial exchequer ; but 
 he contended that the principle should be insisted
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 217 
 
 upon, and that America should share the burdens 
 of the mother country equally with the advan- 
 tages she derived from the connection. 
 
 The Duke of Richmond accusing him of having 
 changed his views after accepting office, he rose 
 again to exonerate himself from the charge. He 
 recapitulated what he had said on the question 
 of employing foreign troops in America, and 
 asserted that, as regarded the general policy of 
 the Government, he had uniformly spoken as he 
 had done that day. On the first day of the 
 session he had opposed the Government, because 
 they seemed unwilling to give information. 
 "There," he continued, "the matter rested until 
 his Majesty's servants thought proper to give 
 me the information I thought necessary to direct 
 me in my future conduct. They were pleased to 
 repose a confidence in me which I hope and 
 trust I shall never abuse, and which perfectly 
 satisfied me that their views were founded in 
 wisdom, and were directed to such objects as 
 promised to ensure the most happy and desirable 
 termination of the present unhappy dispute. Thus 
 convinced of the rectitude and wisdom of the 
 Administration, I accepted the place I now enjoy ; 
 but on no other terms than those I Lave men- 
 tioned. 
 
 " I have always acted, and shall continue to
 
 218 TEE LIFE OF 
 
 act, on the most conscientious motives, and on 
 reasons of the most perfect conviction. I have 
 never swerved from my integrity in a single 
 instance. I received the place I have been 
 appointed to as a mark of his Majesty's most 
 gracious inclinations towards me. I have always 
 looked upon it, in point of emolument, as a matter 
 of very trivial consideration. My fortune is too 
 considerable for me to regard it in any other 
 light. I did not seek it ; I did not act the 
 servile part of stooping to beg for it ; and I think 
 I have a right not to be included among such 
 as do, for I shall never sacrifice my opinions to 
 any personal or private consideration." He then 
 commented strongly on the speech of the Duke 
 of Richmond, and concluded by saying : "I 
 perfectly coincide in the opinion of Cicero, who 
 was an actor in the scenes immediately preceding 
 the destruction of the liberties of Rome, that a 
 licentious use of liberty is totally destructive of 
 its essence. His expression was extremely applic- 
 able to the present occasion — immoderata licentia 
 conscionis." The Earl of Denbigh supported 
 him, the Duke of Richmond made an exculpatory 
 reply, and a stormy debate was closed by a divi- 
 sion, which resulted in the second reading of the 
 bill being carried by seventy-eight votes against 
 nineteen.
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 219 
 
 The part taken by Lord Lyttelton in the 
 preliminaries to the famous trial of the Duchess 
 of Kingston for bigamy, and the ill-natured, if 
 not untruthful, remarks of Horace Walpole thereon, 
 render desirable a brief sketch of that lady's 
 remarkable career. She was the daughter of 
 Colonel Chudleigh, who died while she was 
 very young, and at the age of eighteen obtained 
 the appointment of a maid of honour to the 
 Princess of Wales. Her beauty, accomplishments, 
 and agreeable manners procured her many ad- 
 mirers, anions; whom was the Duke of Hamilton, 
 who pressed his suit with so much fervour that 
 she consented to become his wife on his return 
 from a Continental tour, for which he started in 
 1741. During his absence Miss Chudleigh became 
 acquainted with Captain Hervey, son of the Earl 
 of Bristol, and, though she at first disliked him, 
 she was induced to accept him by the warmth 
 and assiduity of his intentions, and the base 
 conduct of an aunt named Hanmer, with whom 
 she was then living, and who intercepted the 
 letters of the Duke of Hamilton. Hervey, being 
 dependent on his father, it was agreed that 
 the marriage should be a secret one, and the 
 occasion of a visit made by the parties to the 
 house of a friend named Merrill, near Winchester, 
 was availed of for its performance by the rector
 
 220 THE LIFE OF 
 
 of the parish, whose name was Ames, in the 
 presence of Mrs. Hanmer, a gentleman named 
 Mountney, and a servant of the former named 
 Ann Cradock. Hervey joined his ship a few 
 days afterwards, and the bride, returning to 
 London, plunged into a vortex of pleasure with 
 such indifference to appearances and consequences 
 that her reputation soon became questionable. 
 
 On the return of the Duke of Hamilton 
 from the Continent, an interview took place, 
 which led to the discovery of Mrs. Hanmer's 
 treachery, greatly to the anger and mortification 
 of Mrs. Hervey. The duke soon afterwards 
 married one of the celebrated Misses Gunning, 
 and the mortified and disappointed Mrs. Hervey, 
 between whom and her husband mutual disgust 
 had arisen, participated in the gaieties and 
 dissipation of the fashionable world more reck- 
 lessly than ever. Burning to release herself from 
 the bonds of marriage, and living in continual 
 fear of dismissal from her appointment at Court, 
 she was not long in finding the means of accom- 
 plishing her purpose. Having ascertained that 
 Ames was dead, she obtained permission to 
 inspect the register of marriages, and, whilst 
 the clerk's attention was temporarily diverted 
 from her, she tore out the leaf containing the 
 entry of her marriage. The fraud had not been
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 221 
 
 committed Ions; before she had reason to regret 
 it. Her husband succeeded to the title and 
 estates of his father, and she found that, after 
 losing the chance of becoming a duchess by the 
 wrong-doing of another, she had deprived herself 
 of the rank of countess by a fraudulent act of 
 her own. Her mischances in this respect did 
 not end here, for she had no sooner bribed the 
 clerk to re-insert the leaf she had torn from the 
 register than she received an offer of marriage 
 from the Duke of Kingston. 
 
 After failing in several attempts to procure 
 the mutilation of the register a second time, she 
 cohabited for several years with her ducal lover, 
 observing, however, all the outward appearances 
 of decorum and propriety. These relations were 
 so irksome to both parties, however, that the 
 duke, having been made acquainted with the 
 lady's position, used every effort to induce 
 the Earl of Bristol to become a consenting 
 party to proceedings for the purpose of annulling 
 the marriage. For some time the carl hesitated, 
 but at length he consented, and, after eminent 
 lawyers had been consulted, a jactitation suit 
 was instituted. The earl purposely failing to 
 substantiate the marriage, the Ecclesiastical Court 
 pronounced it null and void, and the parties 
 were advised that this decree could not be
 
 222 THE LIFE OF 
 
 disturbed. Under this impression, the marriage 
 of the Duke of Kingston and Miss Chudleigh 
 was publicly solemnised, and, for a few years, 
 the lady was one of the most brilliant stars of 
 the fashionable world. 
 
 Her husband died in 1775, bequeathing the 
 income of his estates, which were not entailed, to 
 the duchess during her life, if she remained un- 
 married ; and the reversion to a younger nephew, 
 to the exclusion of an older one. About this 
 time, Ann Cradock, being in pecuniary distress, 
 applied to the duchess for relief, and, being 
 refused any assistance, went to the late duke's 
 eldest nephew, and communicated to him all she 
 knew of the dowager's secret marriage in 1744. 
 A bill of indictment for bigamy was immediately 
 preferred against the duchess, and, being found 
 a true one, notice was given to her solicitor, and 
 sent through him to Borne, whither she had gone 
 immediately after her husband's funeral, calling 
 upon her grace to plead to the indictment, or 
 suffer a judgment of outlawry. The duchess 
 immediately returned to England, where, owing 
 to her rank, and the position she had long held 
 in society, the charge against her had created an 
 extraordinary degree of excitement. 
 
 The House of Lords determined that she should 
 be tried by that assembly, but there was a differ-
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 223 
 
 ence of opinion among their lordships, as to 
 whether the trial should take place in the Par- 
 liament Chamber or in Westminster Hall. The 
 Earl of Mansfield stated that there was no pre- 
 cedent for such a trial in a case of felony, and 
 opposed it on the grounds of its inconvenience 
 and its costliness, at the same time expressing 
 the opinion that the offence of the duchess was 
 as venial as the consequences of the trial would 
 be unimportant. Lord Lyttelton held a very 
 different view of the matter. "I think," he said, 
 " that the offence is ODe of the most atrocious 
 nature, tending directly to dissolve the bands of 
 civil society." He contended that the duchess 
 should be tried with every possible solemnity. 
 
 " His lordship," he said, referring to the Earl 
 of Mansfield, " seems of opinion that the solemnity 
 of the trial cannot operate by way of example 
 on persons of inferior rank. I think that it will. 
 I think that it will teach the public at large, that 
 the highest are not exempt from punishment, if 
 they transgress the laws ; and it will likewise 
 convince them that, as the laws of their country 
 are their common security, so are they the common 
 avengers of every species of guilt and injustice, 
 be the rank or fortune of the offenders what it 
 may. The learned lord, in speaking of the suit 
 instituted in the Chancery Court, says that that
 
 224 TEE LIFE OF 
 
 Court is restricted in its judicial proceedings by 
 the Ecclesiastical Court, which, has declared the 
 marriage void. Now, my lords, if that sentence 
 should come out to have been procured by col- 
 lusion and imposition, that is another cogent 
 reason for sifting the matter to the bottom ; for 
 what would be the probable consequences of 
 leaving it in the power of parties to dissolve the 
 marriage by such collusive management as this ? 
 That, by previous agreement, instituting a cause 
 of jactitation, where only such evidence appears 
 as the parties think fit to produce, the Ecclesiastical 
 Court gives sentence, and the parties are at liberty 
 to marry again. If the lady, in such a case, 
 should have children, the law is defeated, the 
 true line of legal descent broken, and the next 
 heir robbed at once of his honours and estate, by 
 the introduction of spurious issue. This, my 
 lords, is a matter that requires your most serious 
 consideration. For anything that your lordships 
 know, or can venture to foretell, if this matter be 
 not now properly scrutinised, in twenty years it 
 may again present itself in a different form. 
 We may be called upon to decide on the rights 
 of different claimants for those honours." He 
 concluded a very telling speech as follows : " On 
 the whole, my lords, I most sincerely wish that 
 this affair may be fully and fairly investigated ;
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 225 
 
 that the trial may be in the most public manner, 
 accompanied with every possible solemnity ; and 
 that it may not prevail in general that this 
 House, departing from its duty, and its known 
 love of justice, should choose to huddle the affair 
 up by having no, or very few, witnesses to 
 their proceedings, and the grounds of their 
 determination." 
 
 The Earl of Mansfield replied that the Mar- 
 riage Act would obviate such inconveniences as 
 Lord Lyttelton apprehended ; but, on this view 
 being opposed by the Earl of Sandwich, he acknow- 
 ledged that the Marriage Act would be a safeguard 
 only as a general rule to which there might be 
 exceptions. The result of this debate, which took 
 place on the 12th of December, was that the 
 House decided that the Duchess of Kingston 
 should, on surrendering to her bail, be taken into 
 the custody of the Usher of the Black Kod ; but 
 dissented to the proposition that she should be 
 conveyed to the Tower at the close of each day's 
 proceedings. On the 14th a resolution was moved 
 by Lord Dudley that the trial should take place 
 in Westminster Hall. 
 
 This was opposed by the Earl of Marchmont, 
 and supported by Lord Lyttelton. " I think it 
 incumbent on your lordships," the latter observed, 
 "to make the trial as public as possible. Places
 
 226 TEE LIFE OF 
 
 where justice is administered should be open to 
 the eye of the public. What would be the case 
 here ? There would be room for only twenty or 
 thirty persons. This, in my opinion, would be 
 establishing a very dangerous precedent, which 
 might materially affect this House, your lord- 
 ships' posterity, and the whole body of the 
 British peerage. A time might come when a 
 peer might be brought to trial at this bar, when 
 only the same number would be admitted, and 
 care might be taken to occupy the room with 
 persons admitted on purpose to misrepresent what 
 took place, which would deprive the peerage of 
 the privilege of a fair, indifferent, and open trial. 
 The noble earl, who has produced so many pre- 
 cedents, has drawn them from times very un- 
 favourable to public liberty and true constitutional 
 government. He has taken them from the time 
 of Charles I. I trust that the principles of the 
 Parliament in those times were as opposite to the 
 present as the disposition of that mistaken tyrant 
 was to that of his present Majesty."* He con- 
 cluded by suggesting a verbal amendment of the 
 
 * The first portion of this sentence seems to have been badly 
 reported. The extract is given as the passage stands in Hansard's 
 " Parliamentary History." The speech, as there reported, does 
 not support the assertion of Horace Walpole, in a letter to Horace 
 Mann, that " Lord Lyttelton, as bashful as herself, said that, as she
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 227 
 
 resolution, and, Lord Dudley consenting thereto, 
 the motion was agreed to by the House. 
 
 So much was the public mind excited by 
 the forthcoming trial — the trial of a duchess for 
 bigamy being without a precedent in our criminal 
 records — that Foote, then lessee of the Little 
 Theatre in the Haymarket, conceived the idea of 
 making the Duchess of Kingston figure in "A 
 Trip to Calais," under the name and style of 
 Lady Kitty Crocodile. He probably thought that 
 its suppression would serve his purpose as well 
 as its production, for he read the play to the 
 duchess, and met her expressions of indignation 
 with an offer to abandon the idea on condition 
 of receiving from her Grace the sum of two 
 thousand guineas ! The magnitude of the demand 
 staggered the duchess, as it well might ; but, 
 rather than be held up to public scorn and 
 ridicule, she offered the comedian a cheque for 
 sixteen hundred guineas. Encouraged by this 
 offer to persist in his scandalous demand, Foote 
 refused to abate a single guinea ; but his resolve 
 to produce the play was rendered nugatory by 
 the refusal of the Lord Chamberlain to sanction 
 
 could not pretend to chastity or modesty, there was no room for 
 compassion." It is exceedingly unlikely that Lord Lyttelton 
 used such language; but AValpole often repeated as facts the 
 gossip that reached him at Strawberry Hill. 
 
 Q 2
 
 228 THE LIFE OF 
 
 its performance. He threatened to print it ; but, 
 finding that he would, by so doing, render him- 
 self liable to an action for libel, he abandoned 
 that design also. He then offered to compromise 
 the matter for the sum offered by the duchess ; 
 but her Grace, having, in the meantime, consulted 
 her legal adviser on the subject, refused to comply 
 with the extortionate demand, and turned the tables 
 upon the actor by publishing the whole of the 
 correspondence. 
 
 The trial came on in Westminster Hall on 
 the 15th of April, 1776, the accused having peti- 
 tioned the House of Lords for delay, on the 
 ground of indisposition. Lord Lyttelton presented 
 the petition, which was supported by the certi- 
 ficate of her Grace's physician ; and this fact, 
 which is recorded by Hansard, would be sufficient 
 ground of presumption, if any such evidence could 
 be needed, that his lordship was guiltless of the 
 coarse and unfeeling remark attributed to him by 
 Horace Walpole. The Queen, the princesses, and 
 other members of the royal family, many of the 
 foreign ambassadors, and a great number of the 
 nobility, were present during the trial. Ann 
 Cradock was the principal witness for the pro- 
 secution, proving the first marriage and its con- 
 summation ; but admitted that she had been 
 influenced by pecuniary considerations in accusing
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 229 
 
 the duchess. A gentleman named Hawkins de- 
 posed that the accused had, on one occasion, 
 informed him that she was very unhappy, on 
 account of a jactitation suit which she had in- 
 stituted against Captain Hervey, and which would 
 oblige her to disavow her marriage upon oath. 
 On a subsequent occasion she informed him that 
 she had obtained a decree in her favour, and 
 upon his asking her how she had got over the 
 oath, she replied that the circumstances of her 
 marriage were so blended with falsities that she 
 had easily reconciled her conscience to the matter, 
 since the ceremony was of such a loose and scram- 
 bling character that she could as safely swear that 
 she was not as that she was married. 
 
 The duchess conducted her defence personally, 
 reading a statement that she considered herself a 
 single woman when she married the Duke of 
 Kingston ; that, influenced by her love for him, 
 she had instituted a suit in the Ecclesiastical 
 Court, which had decreed her supposed marriage 
 with Captain Hervey to be null and void ; and 
 that she had since experienced every mark of 
 esteem from her late mistress, the Dowager Prin- 
 cess of "Wales, and been everywhere received and 
 recognised as Duchess of Kingston. After calling 
 some witnesses to rebut the evidence of Ann 
 Cradock, in which she did not succeed, she was
 
 230 LIFE OF THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 
 
 removed from the bar, and the peers deliberated. 
 Then she was recalled, and informed that their 
 lordships had found her guilty. Upon being 
 asked if she could allege any reason why judg- 
 ment should not be pronounced upon her, she 
 handed in a paper containing the words : "I 
 plead the privilege of the peerage." 
 
 After some further deliberation, the Lord High 
 Steward informed her that their lordships ad- 
 mitted the plea, and that she would be discharged 
 on payment of the usual fees. The duchess, who 
 had been calm and self-possessed throughout the 
 trial, thereupon fainted, and was carried out of 
 the hall by her chaplain and physician, and the 
 ladies who attended her. She retired to Calais 
 with the title of Countess of Bristol, and resided 
 in France until her death in 1796, remaining in 
 possession of the large income bequeathed to her 
 by the Duke of Kingston, whose will was con- 
 firmed by the Court of Chancery, notwithstand- 
 ing all the efforts made to set it aside.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Speech on the Proposal of the Duke of Bichmond to Counter- 
 mand the March of the German Troops — Debate on the 
 Duke of Grafton's Motion for Conciliatory Measures — Lord 
 Lyttelton's Speech — Letter on the American Question — 
 Yisit to the " Justitia " hulk — Anecdote of David Hume — 
 Letter on his Political Position — Lord Lyttelton's Double 
 Life — His Opinion of Literary Ladies — Mrs. Montague and 
 Miss Carter — Gambling Debts of the Darners and the Poleys 
 — Suicide of John Darner — Letters of Horace Walpole, the 
 Earl of Carlisle, and Lord Lyttelton on the subject. 
 
 It will probably surprise most of the readers of 
 this biography to learn that, during the years 
 1774-75, Lord Lyttelton spoke more frequently in 
 the House of Lords than any other member of 
 that assembly, with the single exception of the 
 Duke of Richmond. This statement may, how- 
 ever, be readily substantiated by reference to the 
 pages of Hansard. During the third year of his 
 peerage he spoke less frequently. Besides those 
 which he made on the trial of the Duchess of 
 Kingston, he made only two speeches, according 
 to the Parliamentary chronicler just mentioned ;
 
 232 THE LIFE OF 
 
 and both were on the interminable subject of the 
 American difficulty. 
 
 On the 15th of March he opposed the motion 
 of the Duke of Richmond for countermanding the 
 march of the Hanoverian and Hessian levies, whose 
 employment, without the consent of Parliament, 
 had been the subject of animated debates in both 
 Houses in the preceding year. He argued that 
 Great Britain must be prepared to relinquish 
 America if she was not determined to use every 
 means to compel the rebellious colonists to submit. 
 "I do not pretend/' he said, "to decide, in the 
 present situation of both countries, how far it may 
 be expedient to insist on taxes for the purpose 
 of raising revenue ; but we are fully competent to 
 demand them, and able to compel their payment." 
 
 On the 14 th the Duke of Grafton made 
 another proposition of conciliatory measures, when 
 the Earl of Hillsborough offered an explanation of 
 his share in the measures of the preceding Ad- 
 ministration, and especially with respect to the 
 understanding of 1769 — that the Americans should 
 not be taxed for revenue. The speech made by 
 Lord Lyttelton on this occasion was chiefly di- 
 rected to this understanding. "I cannot agree," 
 said he " that any engagement made by any Ad- 
 ministration can be binding on your lordships. I 
 cannot conceive that it is in the power of any
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 233 
 
 set of Ministers, however able, to compliment 
 away the inherent rights of the British Parliament. 
 If the power be in Parliament, as I am sure it 
 is, they cannot even themselves surrender it with- 
 out a manifest breach of trust. I take it to be 
 an original and inalienable right. If so, how 
 much less can Parliament and the nation at large 
 be bound by engagements of this nature made by 
 Ministers ? . I allow that the right of taxation, 
 which is the leading point in dispute, may, from 
 motives of expediency, be suspended or abstained 
 from ; but I contend that it can never be aban- 
 doned entirely, because it is essential to the very 
 nature and exercise of civil government." He 
 concluded by repeating what he had said a few 
 days previously — that America must be relin- 
 quished or compelled to submit, and that the 
 abandonment of our colonies must not be thought 
 of. The Duke of Grafton's motion was rejected 
 by ninety-one votes against thirty-one. 
 
 The American provinces declared themselves 
 independent on the 4th of July, but they were 
 still militarily inferior to the forces sent against 
 them, which now included the Guards and the 
 German levies. Lord Lyttelton informs one of 
 his correspondents, in a letter of this period, that 
 " the Guards are ordered to cross the Atlantic ; " 
 but he does not mention George Ayscough's resig-
 
 234 THE LIFE OF 
 
 nation of his commission, in order to avoid accom- 
 panying his regiment, which probably had not then 
 been announced. The rumours then in circulation 
 of a project of alliance between France and the 
 United States, concerning which Lord Lyttelton 
 seems to have had good information, are com- 
 mented upon in this letter as follows : — 
 
 " I cannot yet fancy the suspected pre- 
 liminaries of alliance between France and America, 
 and I will tell you why : because I think it 
 will not be the mutual interest of either of them 
 to engage in such a treaty. The French finances 
 are not in a state to justify the risking a war 
 with England, which an open alliance with 
 America must immediately produce. M. Maupouz 
 and M. Necker, if I am rightly informed, are of 
 the same opinion, and, I believe, from nobler 
 motives and better reasons, are in opposition to 
 those proposals which the Americans are said to 
 have offered to induce France to give an avowed 
 support to their cause. My information goes 
 somewhat farther, and assures me that the 
 opinions of the two statesmen mentioned are 
 supported by all the graver men and old officers 
 in the kingdom. 
 
 " America, at present, makes a very powerful 
 and extraordinary resistance, and there seems to
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 235 
 
 be a spirit awakening in her people which will 
 wofully prolong the period of her reduction. The 
 contest is, at present, between a child forced into 
 resistance by what it calls tyranny, and a parent 
 enraged at filial ingratitude, who is resolved to 
 reclaim his offspring by force and chastisement. 
 In such a state, though a mad spirit of rebellion 
 may instigate revolted children to act against 
 the parent, and the brethren of the house of 
 their parent, the latter will go very reluctantly 
 to the business of bloodshed, and many a brave 
 man will consider the duty of the soldier and 
 the citizen as incompatible, and let the former 
 sink into the latter. But the moment that 
 America flies for protection to the arms of 
 France, the case will be changed ; every tie of 
 consanguinity will then be broken ; it wall be 
 impossible to distinguish between them and their 
 allies, they will be all the object of one common 
 resentment, and the Americans must expect, as 
 they will surely find, an equal exertion against 
 them as will be employed against their insidious 
 supporters." 
 
 About this time Lord Lyttelton visited the 
 "Justitia" hulk for the purpose, it seems, of ob- 
 serving personally the working of the system of 
 penal servitude which it exemplified, and of
 
 236 THE LIFE OF 
 
 which he had conceived an unfavourable opinion. 
 What he saw there shocked him very much, 
 and confirmed his preconceived opinion of the 
 results of the system. He had an idea of 
 endeavouring to ameliorate the condition of the 
 convicts, if not to procure the abolition of the 
 system, and he communicated his impressions 
 and notions of the subject to a friend in the 
 letter from which the following passage is ex- 
 tracted : — 
 
 " I have been to see the 'Justitia' hulk, where, 
 among many other miserables, I saw poor Dignam 
 wear the habit of a slave. He seemed disposed to 
 speak to me, but I had previously desired the 
 superintendent to request him, since it was not 
 in my power to do him service, to waive all ap- 
 pearance of his having known me. This mode of 
 punishment offers a very shocking spectacle, and, 
 I think, must undergo some alleviation, if it be 
 not entirely abolished. If it were to come again 
 before Parliament, I should give the subject a 
 very serious consideration, and the measure a 
 very serious opposition. Is it not extraordinary 
 that the first public exhibition of slavery in this 
 kingdom — for so it is, however the situation may 
 be qualified by law — should be suggested by a 
 Scotchman, and that the first regulator of this
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 237 
 
 miserable business should be from the same 
 country ? I do not mean to throw out any un- 
 pleasant ideas concerning anyone whose lot it was 
 to be born on the other side of the Tweed, but 
 merely to state a fact for your observation. 
 
 " I have known many of my northern fellow- 
 subjects, and esteemed them. David Hume pos- 
 sesses my sincere admiration ; but, though the 
 object of his writings was to remove prejudices, 
 he himself possessed the strongest in favour of 
 his country, and was, as is the great weakness 
 of Scotchmen, so jealous of its honour that I gave 
 him great offence at Lord Hertford's, at Bagley, 
 by asking him at what time of the year the har- 
 vest was housed in Scotland. My question arose 
 from an innocent desire of being satisfied in that 
 particular, but he conceived it to convey a sus- 
 picion that there was no harvest — or at least no 
 barns — in his country, and his answer was slight 
 and churlish. 
 
 "Fare you well! If you hear anything on 
 the Continent that at all concerns the present 
 state of public affairs, I beg you will not fail to 
 favour me with the most early communication." 
 
 It was thought, by the best friends of Lord 
 Lyttelton, that he was not yet in the position 
 to which his talents entitled him, and that his
 
 238 THE LIFE OF 
 
 succession to a post of active duties would at 
 once serve the State, and withdraw him more 
 completely from pursuits and associations which 
 still prevented him from rising above the fog of 
 an ill repute, into the purer and brighter region 
 in which both his talents and his many good 
 qualities so eminently qualified him to shine. 
 It was urged upon him, by one of these friends, 
 that he should resign the sinecure office of Chief 
 Justice in Eyre, on receiving a Secretaryship, 
 which there can be no doubt would have been 
 offered him, if he had chosen to intimate his 
 disposition to accept such an office. But he was 
 not at that time so disposed, and in the following 
 letter he states his reasons for his indisposition 
 to public business very fully and clearly, and 
 in a manner that throws considerable light upon 
 his character : — 
 
 "You must confess, as I am sure you very 
 well know, that one of the great arts, if not 
 the principal one, in acquiring a reputation, as 
 well as preserving it, is to know the extent of 
 our genius, what objects are most suitable to it, 
 in what track its propensities should be conducted, 
 and what point to place the limits beyond which 
 it must venture with caution, as well as the ne 
 plus ultra, whose barriers it must not venture
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 239 
 
 to pass. The man who possesses this knowledge, 
 and acts according to the dictates of it, will not 
 fail to make a respectable figure in any station, 
 and with any talents ; but in a high station, 
 and with great talents, he may be secure of 
 familiarising his name with future ages. 
 
 " Ambition, an ardent and specious child of 
 self-love, continually urges men to pursue objects 
 beyond their reach. Avarice, an horrid unnatural 
 cub of the same origin, and a disgrace to it, 
 takes a track which reason disdains and honour 
 must condemn to satisfy its desires. Envy 
 delights itself in obstructing the prosperous career 
 of others ; and folly, dreaming of what it cannot 
 possess, will aim at the wreath of wisdom. In 
 short, an ignorance of ourselves, from whatever 
 cause it may proceed, whether from passion or 
 want of reflection, is the origin of all our mis- 
 takes in private as well as public life. In the 
 former, the mischief may be of the narrow 
 extent ; but in the latter the evil may affect, 
 not only the people, but every quarter of the 
 globe. The grand source of that glory which 
 shone, and will continue to shine, on Mr. Pitt's 
 administration of this country, till the annals of 
 it are no more, was a right application of means 
 to ends, and, among others, of employing men 
 according to the nature and tendency of their
 
 240 THE LIFE OF 
 
 characters and talents. You must perceive the 
 drift of my argument ; that it leads to the 
 defence of my public political conduct since I 
 have succeeded to my office in the Constitution. 
 
 "You tell me of application to business, and 
 of throwing aside a golden sinecure, as disgraceful 
 to a real patriot. You" counsel me, in the most 
 flattering manner, to claim an arduous post of 
 Government, and, by a vigilant attention to its 
 duties, to make a better return for the emolu- 
 ments of office than half-a-dozen flowery orations 
 in Parliament during a winter's session, which 
 are, in your opinion, sufficiently rewarded by the 
 gratifications of my own vanity. This, I must 
 acknowledge, is coining at once, and without 
 ceremony, to the point ; but think for a moment, 
 and ask yourself, what kind of figure I should 
 make at the desk. Can you imagine that it is 
 in my nature, and of course in my capacity, to 
 bear the oppression of such multifarious and 
 eternal business as must claim the attention of 
 an eminent official statesman ? 
 
 "The admirable structure of the British Con- 
 stitution, its commerce, its interests, and its 
 alliances, have been the objects of my serious 
 inquiry and attentive consideration. I take con- 
 tinual occasion to watch the chano-inor scene of 
 its political movements. I form, with much
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 241 
 
 thought, my opinions upon them. I deliver 
 those opinions, in my senatorial capacity, to the 
 world — not from the suggestions of a giddy hour 
 or from the spur of momentary vanity, but from 
 curious research, ardent reflection, and deliberate 
 preparation. To this point my talents, such as 
 they are, must be directed ; and by having given 
 them, in some degree, their natural direction, I 
 have acquired a political reputation which would 
 be lost in contempt and derision were they to 
 be employed in the routine of official employ- 
 ment and the perplexities of Ministerial duty. 
 Besides, if there be anything which requires a 
 more than vestal's vigilance, it is the guidance 
 of a principal wheel in the machine of our 
 Government ; and such a continual attention is 
 foreign to my nature. I might, perhaps, possess 
 it for a certain time, and apply it with zeal — 
 may I not add with reputation ? — but my ex- 
 istence would be insupportable, if the intervals 
 of relaxation did not frecrucntly relieve me, when 
 I might retire 
 
 " ' To sport with Amaryllis in the shade, 
 Or with the tangles of jSTea^ra's hair.' 
 
 "There is a certain degree of phlegm abso- 
 lutely necessary to the well-being of society ; but 
 I possess not an atom of it. There is also an 
 
 R
 
 242 THE LIFE OF 
 
 ardour of mind that leads to national as well 
 as personal greatness, nor am I without an active 
 flame of it ; but it burns by flashes, and pos- 
 sesses me only in common with other contending 
 passions, which, in their turn, command my 
 obedience, and are obeyed. Suffer the stream, I 
 beseech you, to flow in those channels which 
 nature has designed for it : let it pass on, some- 
 times in foaming eddies, and sometimes with a 
 tranquil wave ; be content to watch its progress ; 
 and, though it may now force its angry passage 
 through the divided mountain, your eye may soon 
 behold its crystal surface reflect the golden harvests 
 and flowery meadows. But, should its natural 
 course be changed, it would be quickly lost in 
 bog and morass ; nor ever grow into that extent 
 and grandeur of waters which many rivulets 
 attain before they reach the ocean. 
 
 " Is there not, in my own family, an imme- 
 diate circumstance of ridicule which comes in aid 
 of my argument ? My father, who made a re- 
 spectable figure as a senator in both Houses of 
 Parliament, and possessed that theoretic political 
 erudition which constituted him an able counsellor 
 of the State, was incapable, as you very well 
 know, of counting twenty pounds, if thrown in a 
 promiscuous heap of the different British coins — 
 nevertheless, he was appointed to preside at the
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 243 
 
 Exchequer, to contrive ways and means, and to 
 run through the combinations of finance, without 
 the knowledge of arithmetic which is necessary 
 to an overseer of the poor. And what was the 
 consequence ? The whole nation was upon the 
 titter during his short-lived administration ; nor 
 does any visitor of Hagley House pass through 
 the room which is adorned with the Exchequer 
 strong-box but beholds the empty badge and sad 
 memorial of his Ministerial honours with a signifi- 
 cant look of wonder or shrug of disappointment. 
 " The sage physician endeavours to meliorate, 
 but not to change, the constitution of his patient, 
 and infuses, by degrees, those wholesome aids 
 which may help to lessen its infirmities. The 
 same wise conduct should be pursued in the case 
 of mental health : and to aim at fanning the 
 natural bent of genius is an application of moral 
 quackery which will destroy all fervour of ability, 
 administer an opiate to the faculties of the mind, 
 bring on apathy and torpor, and destroy all in- 
 tellectual nerve for ever. Adieu." 
 
 This seems to be the proper place in which 
 to offer some remarks upon the double life which 
 Lord Lyttelton lived during the three years which, 
 at this time, had elapsed since the death of his 
 father. He was in his thirtieth year when that 
 
 r 2
 
 244 TEE LIFE OF 
 
 event occurred, and the greater part of the pre- 
 ceding ten years of his life had been passed 
 abroad. The cloud of paternal displeasure and 
 social proscription covered him, with only two or 
 three brief glimpses of moral sunshine, such as 
 he was favoured with on the occasion of a speech 
 in the House of Commons, on his return from 
 his second Continental tour, and on his marriage. 
 His family, and society in general, regarded him 
 as a reprobate, from whom nothing better was 
 to be expected than that he would break his 
 father's heart, gamble away his patrimony, and 
 die "in the worst inn's worst room," if not in a 
 prison. In a letter which seems to be of that 
 period he mentions some of the prophecies con- 
 cernins; him which were then indulged in : — ■ 
 
 " I cannot bring it within the compass of my 
 
 belief that H has escaped your recollection ; 
 
 however, I shall be able to restore it to its proper 
 tone in a moment, by mentioning an ode ad- 
 dressed by him to me on the subject of gaming. 
 You admired it too much to have forgot the 
 author ; and it now occurs to me, that you, or 
 some one in the company, rehearsed on the occa- 
 sion a long string of laughable Eton and Oxford 
 anecdotes concerning him ; nay, the very last
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 245 
 
 time we were together you sarcastically repeated 
 to me some of his vaticinations on my impetuous 
 attachment to play, and kindly foretold the com- 
 pletion of them. After all, I believe you are 
 either laughing at me, or pretending ignorance 
 of my bard, in order to have an hash of the same 
 dish which you are pleased to say delighted you 
 so much in my last letter. 
 
 " Was it not you, or do I dream, who was 
 so charmed with that part of his poem where 
 he describes my being so reduced by gaming as 
 to be obliged to sell Hagley, and supposes the 
 estate to be bought by the descendant of some 
 felon who was reprieved from death to transpor- 
 tation by my ancestor the judge, whose picture 
 he tears down from the wall, as a sisfht disgust- 
 
 inof to him ? I am not certain as to the correct- 
 ed 
 
 ness of my recollection, but the lines are, I believe, 
 to the following effect : — 
 
 " ' Shall some unfeeling stranger reign 
 Within that blest domain ? 
 
 Some convict's spawn, by thy forefather's breath, 
 Perchance, reprieved from death ? 
 Whilst thou, self-banished, self-enslaved, shalt roam, 
 Without a friend or home ! 
 Still shall he tremble at the judge's frown, 
 And, fraught with spite, tear down, 
 From the repining wall, his venerable shade ! "
 
 246 THE LIFE OF 
 
 None of the prophecies of that period were ful- 
 filled. Lord Lyttelton neither broke his father's 
 heart, gambled away his patrimony, or ended his 
 days miserably. The first period of his life — the 
 period during which he did most to earn the cen- 
 sure of the world — came to an end with his suc- 
 cession to rank and wealth ; and the interval 
 between his father's death and the time to which 
 his biography has now been brought down, con- 
 stituted the dual existence to which attention 
 has been invited. 
 
 There were two spheres in which, at this 
 time, Lord Lyttelton moved and shone. One 
 comprised the best society of the day, whether 
 with regard to the moral character or the intel- 
 lectual capacity of the individuals of whom it 
 was composed. With Earl Temple and the Earl 
 of Chatham, with Fox, and Burke, and Windham, 
 with Mrs. Montagu and the more celebrated 
 Elizabeth Carter, he was on terms of the warmest 
 friendship. " I am not," he wrote in a letter to 
 a friend, " very partial to literary ladies ; they 
 are, generally, of an impertinent, encroaching 
 disposition, and almost always bring to my 
 mind the female astronomer, who, after apply- 
 ing her nocturnal telescope for a long series of 
 months, and raising the jealousy, as well as the 
 expectations, of the male star-gazers, declared
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 247 
 
 her only object was to discover if there were 
 men in the moon." But of Mrs. Montagu and 
 Miss Carter he always spoke in the highest 
 terms of praise, and it will probably surprise 
 those whose estimate of his character has been 
 formed from the gossip of his own day, as re- 
 corded in the letters of Horace Walpole and the 
 memoirs of Sir Nathaniel Wraxall, to learn that, 
 of those two ladies, so similar in some points of 
 their character, and so dissimilar in others, he 
 preferred the latter. 
 
 " The one," said he, "is an highly instructed, 
 accomplished woman, possessed of great affluence, 
 who indulges herself in a chaste display of 
 fashionable as well as literary elegance, makes 
 her drawing-room the Lyceum of the day, main- 
 tains a luxurious hospitality for the votaries of 
 the science whieli she loves, and patronises the 
 learning which she has herself adorned. The 
 other, in a state of contented mediocrity, is 
 humble as though she knew nothing, while she 
 is not only the most learned woman of any age, 
 but one of the most learned persons of that in 
 which she lives. The pure, sublime genius, which 
 never swerves from virtue, accompanies her in 
 her path of rigid discretion, and is contented 
 to slumber while its favourite votary is employed 
 in the daily, habitual exercise of domestic duties."
 
 21-8 THE LIFE OF 
 
 Penninffton savs that Elizabeth Carter admired 
 Lord Lyttelton's talents as much as she deplored 
 his vices, of which neither the lady nor her reverend 
 biographer are likely to have known more than was 
 rumoured, and which Rumour's hundred tongues 
 multiplied and exaggerated. His private life does 
 not appear to have been at this time worse than 
 that of any other celibate of the age, though he 
 incurred the remonstrances of his friends by con- 
 tinuing to admit to his intimacy men forming the 
 lower circle, in which he had what has been alluded 
 to as his second life. His reply to a letter of 
 remonstrance which one of his friends addressed 
 to him on this subject reveals the motives by 
 which he was influenced in allowing his house to 
 remain open to men whose intimacy with him 
 had been the subject of Earl Temple's friendly 
 hint to him three years previously. Few of the 
 letters received by Lord Lyttelton have been pre- 
 served ; probably the greater part were destroyed 
 by his executors, if, indeed, they were in existence 
 at his death. The names of the persons referred 
 to in the following letter are therefore unknown, 
 they cannot even be conjectured, for Chase Price 
 and William Combe cannot be said to have been 
 " outcasts from all other society." The former 
 associated, on terms of intimacy, with Charles 
 Townshend and George Selwyn, and the latter is
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 249 
 
 mentioned by Kogers and. Moore, in their diaries, 
 as among the guests at the evening party at which 
 Lord Lyttelton is said to have insulted Lady 
 Archer. 
 
 "My dear Sir, — Your letters to me are those 
 of friendship. Under the impression of this senti- 
 ment I at all times receive them ; nevertheless 
 they are attended with this disagreeable circum- 
 stance, that in my answers to them I am so often 
 obliged to make myself the hero of my own tale. 
 
 " Your last charge has a foundation in truth ; 
 and the persons you name as being in the circle 
 of my intimacy are received at my house and 
 admitted to my table. You tell me it is not 
 only a dishonour but a crime to herd with such 
 men as familiar associates, and that it is beneath 
 a rational bein^ to receive these outcasts from all 
 other society into mine, merely to be flattered by 
 their submission, to have base engines of my 
 pleasures, or objects for that raillery which will 
 not be returned. It is too true that I cannot 
 altogether combat the force of these very severe 
 observations, but let me persuade you to bestow 
 any small portion of your leisure on the volume 
 of human nature, to take a short review of human 
 failings, and then to cast your eye upon that page 
 whereon my name is written. You will there dis-
 
 250 THE LIFE OF 
 
 cover that my character is divided between an 
 ardent desire of applause and a more than equal 
 love of pleasure ; and, on this discovery, your 
 considerate regard will look with less severity 
 upon me. 
 
 " When you have done me this justice, proceed, 
 I beseech you, one step farther ; examine the 
 world upon my subject, and you will know what 
 confirmed prejudices it possesses against me, — that 
 I am the continual victim of its injustice, and 
 that, not contented to blazon forth my defects 
 and follies into a false, unnatural magnitude, it 
 seems pleased with the malignant task of fabri- 
 cating tales to my dishonour. Public opinion 
 aims at excluding me from a familiar intercourse 
 with men of virtuous life and women of chaste 
 manners : so that when I appear, even in general 
 society, mothers seem to be alarmed for their 
 daughters, husbands for their wives, and fathers 
 for their sons : nay, the very impures of the town 
 have refused my most generous offers, from an 
 apprehension of my capacity for mischief. I will 
 freely own that my life has been marked with 
 an extravagance of dissipation ; but neither the 
 force of my passions, &c, nor their success, though, 
 viciously speaking, I might be vain of the latter 
 can justify these violent and continual fears of me 
 
 ' But let us suppose for a moment that this
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 251 
 
 most prodigal of all prodigals should meditate a 
 reformation, and begin the salutary work with 
 the favourable omen of shutting his doors against 
 those vagabonds, to use your own expression, 
 whom you accuse him of suffering to enter them. 
 If, in the arduous task of winning the forfeited 
 esteem of mankind, I should begin with paying 
 my court to the lights of the Church, and beg 
 their sanction to my infant repentance, those holy 
 men would not only suspect the sincerity of my 
 declarations, but do my effrontery the credit to 
 believe that, under the semblance of contrition, 
 I was meditating some unholy impertinence to 
 the sacred lawn. Permit me to continue the 
 singular idea, and suppose me commencing my 
 round of episcopal visits with one of the first 
 characters of this age and nation, the present 
 Bishop of London. After some hesitation on the 
 part of my coachman, you may imagine me at 
 his lordship's gate, where it cannot be supposed 
 that I should find admittance. But this is not 
 all. Mrs. Lowth would probably throw my visiting- 
 card into the fire, and forbid the porter to enter 
 my name in his book ; while the right reverend 
 prelate would determine to take the opportunity 
 of some debate in the House of Lords, wherein 
 I might be engaged, to satisfy his politeness as 
 a gentleman by leaving his name at my door,
 
 252 THE LIFE OF 
 
 without any apprehension of being admitted 
 within it. 
 
 "What ! would you have me wander, a solitary 
 being, through the world, too bad for the good, 
 and too good for the bad ? My whole nature 
 shudders at the idea, and I should perish in the 
 attempt. I love superiority, flattery, and ease ; 
 and the society which you condemn affords me 
 the threefold gratification. You will tell me that 
 it consists of dishonourable men : in the common 
 sense of the term, you may be right ; but dulcibus 
 abundant vitiis ; and, as bad instruments in the 
 hands of agreeable performers make a pleasant 
 concert, so these characters compose an amusing 
 society. With them I am under no restraint ; 
 they know the history of the day ; some of them 
 also are well accomplished ; and, while they play 
 upon one another, I can play upon them all. 
 Besides, coffee may be ordered at whatever hour 
 I please, without an opposing look ; and, while 
 I confer honour, I enjoy convenience. 
 
 " You will, perhaps, be disposed to inquire 
 if I think it worthy of me, in the phrase of 
 Vulgar tongues, to enjoy the character of hing 
 of the company ? The love of rule, my dear 
 sir, is, more or less, the inmate of every 
 breast ; it is allied to all the pre-eminent 
 virtues, and the greatest men have owed their
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 253 
 
 greatness to it. Caesar declared that the first 
 office of a village was preferable to the second 
 station in the Koman world. Whitfield, I believe, 
 would not have exchanged his tabernacle for a 
 metropolitan diocese. Zinzendorf, amid the sub- 
 mission of his Moravian followers, looked down 
 with pity on despotic empire ; nor, in the 
 government of my Pandemonium, do I envy all 
 the didactic honours of your Lyceum. 
 
 " It may be an opinion which proceeds from 
 a dissolute refinement, but it is mine, that 
 pleasure is not pleasure, if difficulties are 
 necessary to its enjoyment. I wish, as it were, 
 to have it brought home to me, without my 
 stirring across the threshold. My taste for 
 gratification is like their piety who erect chapels 
 in their houses ; it makes a domestic priesthood 
 necessary to me, and, while the persons who 
 compose it are zealous in their functions, I shall 
 look no farther. The circumstances of my past 
 life have produced the colour of the present 
 moment ; a future period may receive another 
 hue. The events in every passing hour, in 
 characters such as mine, as well as in others 
 which arc supposed to be much better, must 
 furnish the tints. Experience may do something 
 in my favour, your friendly oracles may do 
 more ; the calls of public duty may have their
 
 254 THE LIFE OF 
 
 effect. To conclude, time and chance happen 
 unto all men ; and, through their influence, the 
 hour may arrive when prelates will eat my soup 
 without fear of contamination, arid modest women 
 admit me to their society without apprehending 
 a loss of reputation. Do not be angry with 
 me, I beseech you ; it is impossible to treat the 
 subject otherwise : and, if I might add another 
 petition to the many you have already so kindly 
 granted, let me entreat you to give our corre- 
 spondence a more pleasing and profitable subject 
 than the failings of your very sincere and obliged 
 friend, 
 
 " Lyttelton." 
 
 It will be observed that, in this letter, Lord 
 Lyttelton refers to his "extravagance of dissipa- 
 tion " in the past tense ; we seem to be approach- 
 ing the turning-point of his life. Occupation, 
 experience, observation, all tended to bring about 
 amendment. If a frightful example was needed, 
 a warnino; was <nven him in the case of John 
 Darner. This gentleman — his schoolfellow at 
 Eton, and his companion in Italy— had married, 
 in 17G7, the only daughter of General Conway, 
 without being weaned by marriage from the 
 moral aberrations of his bachelorhood. Horace 
 Walpole, in a letter to Sir Horace Mann, sounds
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 255 
 
 the first note of the overture to the tragedy 
 which made the great sensation of the fashionable 
 world in the summer of 1776. 
 
 " I have been much alarmed lately," writes 
 the gossip of Strawberry Hill, ''about General 
 Conway, who, by a sudden cold, had something 
 of a paralytic stroke in the face ; but, as it did 
 not affect his speech or health, and is almost 
 disappeared, I am much easier. He is uneasy 
 himself, with reason, about his daughter. Her 
 husband and his two brothers have contracted a 
 debt- — one can scarcely expect to be believed out 
 of England — of seventy thousand pounds ! Who 
 but must think himself happy to marry a daughter 
 with only ten thousand pounds to a young man 
 with five thousand a year rent-charge in present, 
 and twenty-two thousand a year settled ? And 
 yet this daughter at present is ruined ! Her 
 behaviour is such as her father's would be ; she 
 does not only not complain, but desires her very 
 own jewels may be sold. The young men of 
 this am seem to have made a law anions* them- 
 
 o o 
 
 selves for declaring their fathers superannuated 
 at fifty, and then dispose of the estates, as if 
 already their own. How culpable to society was 
 Lord Holland for setting an example of paying 
 such enormous, such gigantic debts ! Can you
 
 25G THE LIFE OF 
 
 believe that Lord Foley's two sons have borrowed 
 money so extravagantly that the interest they 
 have contracted to pay amounts to eighteen thou- 
 sand a year ? I write the sum at length, lest 
 you should think I have mistaken and set down 
 two or three figures too much." 
 
 Only four days after this letter was written, 
 John Darner committed suicide, and Walpole com- 
 municated the intelligence of the sad and start- 
 ling event to the Countess of Ossory in a letter, 
 from which the folio win a; is an extract : — 
 
 " To-day I have heard the shocking news of 
 Mr. Darner's death, who shot himself yesterday, 
 at three o'clock in the morning, at a tavern in 
 Covent Garden. My first alarm was for Mr. 
 Conway, not knowing what effect such a horrid 
 surprise would have on him, scarce recovered from 
 an attack himself; happily it proves his nerves 
 were not affected, for I have had a very calm 
 letter from him on the occasion. They have sent 
 for me to town, and I shall go to-morrow morning. 
 Mr. Charles Fox, with infinite good nature, met 
 Mrs. Darner coming to town, and stopped her 
 to prepare her for the dismal event. It is almost 
 impossible to refrain from bursting out into 
 commonplace reflections on this occasion ; but
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 257 
 
 can the walls of Almack's help moralising when 
 five thousand a year in present and twenty-two 
 thousand in reversion are not sufficient for happi- 
 ness, and cannot check a pistol ! " 
 
 The terrible story was continued by the writer a 
 few days later in a letter to Sir Horace Mann : — 
 
 " He and his two brothers most unexpectedly 
 notified to their father that they owed above 
 seventy thousand pounds. The proud lord, for 
 once in the right, refused to pay the debt or 
 to see them. The two eldest were to retire 
 to France, and Mrs. Darner was to accom- 
 pany them without a murmur, and with the 
 approbation, though to the great grief, of Mr. 
 Conway and Lady Ailesbury. She was luckily 
 gone to take leave of them, and to return 
 to town last Friday morning. On Thursday, 
 Mr. Darner supped at the 'Bedford Arms,' 
 Covent Garden, with four common women, a blind 
 fiddler, and no other man. At three in the morn- 
 ing he dismissed his seraglio, bidding each receive 
 her guinea at the bar, and ordering Orpheus to 
 come up again in half an hour. When he re- 
 turned he found dead silence, and smelt gun- 
 powder. He called, the master of the house 
 came up, and found Mr. Darner sitting in his
 
 258 THE LIFE OF 
 
 chair dead, with, a pistol by him, and another in 
 his pocket ! The ball had not gone through his 
 head, nor made any report. On the table lay a 
 scrap of paper, with these words — 'The people 
 of the house are not to blame for what has hap- 
 pened, which was my own act ! ' This was the 
 sole tribute he paid to justice and decency. 
 
 " What a catastrophe for a man of thirty-two, 
 heir to twenty-two thousand a year ! We are per- 
 suaded lunacy, not distress, was the sole cause of 
 his fate. He has often, and even at supper that 
 night, hinted at such an exploit — the very reason 
 why one should not expect it. His brothers have 
 gamed — he never did. He was grave, cool, rea- 
 sonable, and reserved ; but passed his life as he 
 died, with troops of women and the blind fiddler 
 ■ — an odd companion in such scenes ! One good 
 springs out of this evil : the leeches, the Jews, 
 and extortioners will lose very considerably. Lord 
 Milton, whom anything can petrify and nothing 
 soften, will not only not see his remaining sons, 
 but wreaks his fury on Mrs. Darner, though she 
 deserves only pity, and shows no resentment. He 
 insists on selling her jewels, which are magnifi- 
 cent, for discharge of just debts. This is all he 
 can do ; she must have her jointure of two 
 thousand five hundred a year."
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 259 
 
 The suicide of John Darner created a profound 
 sensation. It did not, like the trial of the 
 Duchess of Kingston, a few months before, merely 
 jDrovoke curiosity, and gratify the lovers of 
 scandal ; it impressed the votaries of pleasure, and 
 all the gay world of fashion and frivolity, with 
 a feeling which caused the event to be spoken 
 of with bated breath and paled cheeks. For 
 several days the terrible story was in everyone's 
 lips. The Earl of Carlisle wrote of it to George 
 Selwyn as follows : — 
 
 "What were Mr. Darner's motives for so 
 dreadful an act ? There was no man more in- 
 different to me, but the account shocked me 
 extremely. It is a bad example to others in 
 misery. It makes people think of having re- 
 course to that method of finishing their calamities, 
 without which perhaps it had never entered 
 their heads. If it were not so selfish an action, 
 it would be difficult, I think, to condemn it in 
 some cases. There never appeared anything like 
 madness in him, yet the company he kept seemed 
 indeed but a bad preparation for eternity." 
 
 How Lord Lyttelton received the intelligence 
 of Darner's death may be inferred from the fol- 
 
 s 2
 
 260 THE LIFE OF 
 
 lowing letter, which probably does not, however, 
 express all that he felt : — 
 
 " I shall expect you with impatience, and 
 am much flattered that you can leave the society 
 
 of your friend C for the sake of yielding to 
 
 my solicitations. Is it beyond the reach of your 
 influence to persuade him to accompany you ? 
 I am apprehensive that he may have some 
 scruples in being a guest of mine ; but, if he 
 will accord me that honour, I will assume the 
 virtue, though I have it not, and he shall find 
 nothing chez moi which shall give the least 
 offence to the tranquil purity of his character. 
 Perhaps you will be my guarantee on the oc- 
 casion. We were at Eton together, though not 
 in any particular intimacy ; and since that time 
 I had once the pleasure of dining with him. I 
 happened, by chance, to be present when he pro- 
 posed to give an Etonian dinner : his polite- 
 ness led him to invite me, and the party 
 was most pleasant and classical. A particular 
 circumstance of it I shall never forget. 
 
 " One of the company, who had done honour 
 to his table by indulging a very voracious 
 appetite, when the dessert was served, thought 
 proper to recollect the deficiency of a dish of
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 261 
 
 fish which had been promised him, and, in the 
 true vein of gorged disappointment, reproached 
 your friend for his forgetf illness. The reply was 
 singular, affecting, and, to the best of my recol- 
 lection, as follows : ' When I met you this 
 
 morning,' said Mr. C , ' I was proceeding to 
 
 Temple Bar for the purpose of expending an allotted 
 trifle on a turbot ; but, a few minutes after, I re- 
 ceived an unwilling application from a very dis- 
 tressed person, to whom a guinea was far more 
 necessary than the addition of one particular dish 
 to a plentiful dinner would be to you, and you 
 very well know the strict regulations of my 
 exchequer. It is true,' continued he, ' that you 
 have lost your fish ; but it is equally true that, 
 from the same cause, a poor unfortunate fellow- 
 creature has lost his despair. Besides, the relish 
 of the turbot must have long been superseded 
 on your palate, and I have added a pleasure to 
 my heart which will last for ever.' He expressed 
 himself with much more ease and simplicity than I 
 have done ; and I was so affected that, had I 
 then enjoyed my present affluence, I should have 
 instantly subscribed to hospitals, and gone about 
 in search of doing good. But, alas ! these thoughts, 
 morally speaking, of my better days have been 
 rendered fruitless in the succession of evil habits ;
 
 262 THE LIFE OF 
 
 and I know not where I shall find a restorative, 
 unless the society of your friend shall renew its 
 former influence over me." 
 
 " Another circumstance of a very different 
 nature occurs to me from the recollection of that 
 day's pleasure. Poor John Darner was one of 
 the company. He has made a strange exit in 
 a stranger manner. We were at Eton and in 
 Italy together, and at subsequent periods, in the 
 habits of friendly connexion. Few of those who 
 knew him have been more gloomily affected by 
 the melancholy event than myself. I have been 
 informed that the King has exerted his royal 
 influence to prevent the publication of David 
 Hume's posthumous treatise in defence of self- 
 murder. I am well convinced that his Majesty 
 has acted with his accustomed regard to the 
 welfare of his people in procuring the suppres- 
 sion of a work dangerous to society and in direct 
 opposition to evangelical precept ; but, for my 
 own part, I cannot conceive that any man, in 
 this period of the world, could ever be argued 
 into putting a willing end to his existence, unless 
 some circumstance of ill-fortune, some malady 
 of the mind, or some torturing disease of the 
 body, more than co-operated with the arguments 
 of the reasoning fatalist. Montesquieu does not
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 263 
 
 write like himself upon the subject ; and Rousseau, 
 who seems purposely not to answer his own ar- 
 guments in favour of suicide, defends it with 
 sentiment instead of reason. 
 
 " Many examples are given, in the works of 
 different authors, of amazing coolness in the act 
 of self-destruction, which represent the stroke as 
 having been given in youth, health, and pros- 
 perity. I cannot trust to appearances in these 
 or any similar examples ; nor can I believe that 
 the mens sana in corpore sano, with the comforts 
 of life, ever could submit to an act of such 
 dreadful uncertainty. I have sometimes taken 
 up the argument in favour of self-murder, by 
 way of supporting an opinion, exercising a talent, 
 or convincing a fool ; but I will honestly ac- 
 knowledge that the weakest of my antagonists 
 have ever got the better of me on this subject, 
 though I might not, perhaps, publish my con- 
 viction. Virgil's picture of the after misery of 
 those whose hands have given a prematurity to 
 their end would stagger the utmost sophistry of 
 erring reason — ■ 
 
 " ' Quam vellent aethere in alto 
 Pauperiem pati et duros perferre laborea ! ' 
 
 " Despair, as it arises from very different and 
 opposite causes, has various and distinct appear-
 
 264 THE LIFE OF 
 
 ances. It lias its rage, its gloom, and its indif- 
 ference ; and while, under the former, its opera- 
 tions acquire the name of madness, under the 
 latter it bears the title of philosophy. Poor 
 John Darner was no philosopher, and yet he 
 seems to have taken his leap in the dark with 
 the marks both of an epicurean and a stoic. 
 He acted his part with coolness, and sought his 
 preparation in the mirth of a brothel. 
 
 " This is an awful subject, and, in casting 
 my eyes over what I have hastily written upon 
 it, I observe some inaccuracies which I should 
 be glad to correct. But it is not my office, nor 
 is it in my pretensions, to instruct you. When 
 you are here, I will amuse you with a pamphlet 
 which, without that particular view, is a com- 
 plete physical, or rather anatomical, reply to those 
 who defend the right of self-murder. It is a 
 treatise on the ' Ganglions of the Nerves,' by a 
 Dr. Johnstone, a physician in my neighbourhood. 
 It is written with the pen of a scholar, and pos- 
 sesses throughout a most perspicuous ingenuity. 
 This gentleman attended my father in his last 
 illness, and was not only his physician but his 
 confessor." 
 
 The last few words of this letter are tin
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTOK. 265 
 
 allusion to the fact that it was to Dr. Johnstone 
 that the first Lord Lyttelton, when on his 
 death-bed, acknowledged that he had once held 
 sceptical opinions on the subject of revealed 
 religion.
 
 CHAPTER, XL 
 
 Lord Lyttelton's Moral Amendment— Testimony of his Friends — 
 His Thoughts on Scepticism and Eevealed Religion — Satirical 
 Reflections on Credulity and Incredulity — Stormy Debate 
 on the Earl of Chatham's Motion against the War — Lord 
 Lyttelton's Profession of Whig Principles— Letter to Lord 
 Westcote— Opposition to raising Troops without Consent of 
 Parliament — Speech on the State of the Country — Defence 
 of the Conciliatory Bills — Speech on the Duke of Richmond's 
 Proposal to withdraw the Troops from America — Strictures 
 on the Earl of Sandwich — Death of the Earl of Chatham — 
 Letter on the Subject — Speech on the Annuity Bill. 
 
 Lord Lyttelton had, shortly after his father's 
 death, desired one of his truest friends not to 
 expect an instant amendment of his life as the 
 first fruits of the opening to him of a public and 
 honourable career. " My amendment," said he, 
 " must be slow and progressive, though, I trust, 
 in the end, sincere and effectual." That this 
 progressive amendment did go on during the 
 three years following his succession to the 
 peerage may be inferred from his active political 
 life during that period, his improved position 
 in society, and the tone of the letters written by
 
 LIFE OF THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 267 
 
 him to his most intimate friends. That he was a 
 very different man in 1777, and subsequently, 
 to the gambler and profligate who, prior to his 
 succession to rank and wealth, had been almost 
 an outcast from society, is a fact to which 
 testimony is borne by those who were the most 
 competent to form a judgment upon the matter. 
 The author of the " character " prefixed to his 
 poems testifies to the amendment of his private 
 conduct during the latter years of his life ; and 
 Eoberts, who says that he " knew him both in 
 his convivial hours and in those which were 
 more rationally employed," assured the world, 
 in the preface to the same work,** " that the 
 goodness of his heart for the last three years 
 of his life became as conspicuous as the excellency 
 of his head." 
 
 He had his attention called, about the com- 
 mencement of what may be termed the third 
 phase of his life, to the arguments of a French 
 deistical writer ; and, after an attentive perusal 
 of the volume, wrote as follows to the friend 
 who had recommended it to his notice : — 
 
 " I have obeyed your commands, and read, 
 
 * " Poetical Works of the late Lord Lyttelton." 1780.
 
 268 THE LIFE OF 
 
 with a very continued attention, 'Des Recherches 
 sur le Despotisme Oriental.' The author is a 
 person of considerable erudition, active thought, 
 and lively imagination. He steers his vessel 
 with no common address on the ocean of con- 
 jecture, and I have beheld his course with much 
 admiration. But though he may help to forward 
 an advanced progress in infidelity, I cannot flatter 
 him with the supposition that he alone has ever 
 made an infidel. The paradox of primitive theo- 
 cracies, I believe, is not a new one, though he 
 may have given it a novelty of examination, and 
 branched it forth into a variety of new ramifi- 
 cations. A writer who strikes at the very root 
 of sacred history, which has been an object of 
 faith to so great a part of the more enlightened 
 world for such a course of ages, and possesses 
 the support of collateral tradition, as well as a 
 supernatural strength of internal evidence — such 
 an author, I say, should produce something more 
 than hypothesis, though supported by the most 
 colossal strength of human erudition. Nay, it 
 may not be the least among the many arguments 
 in favour of the sacred writings, that nothing 
 but hypothesis can be brought against them. A 
 faith of some thousand years is not to be de- 
 stroyed by the elaborate, but artificial, conjectures 
 of a modern infidel. I will oppose to your in-
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 269 
 
 genious Frenchman the learned Mr. Bryant, of 
 our own country, whose late splendid publication* 
 is an honour to our age and nation. The Gallic 
 infidel must sink into nothing before the veteran 
 abilities of our English believer. These casual 
 thoughts, my dear friend, are my own ; and you 
 may be assured that I have not stolen them 
 from any pious page of my father's manuscript 
 lucubrations." 
 
 To another friend who had written to him on 
 a similar subject, he addressed a letter which 
 contains the following satirical remarks upon the 
 credulity of the age, as a jocose reply to the 
 charge of scepticism : — 
 
 "You are pleased in your last letter to charge 
 the present age with the crime of scepticism, and 
 you have abandoned yourself to a more than 
 common energy on the subject. To tell you the 
 truth, I do not very clearly perceive the ten- 
 dency of your accusation. If it alludes to religion, 
 you would, I think, find some difficulty to main- 
 tain your position ; if it should glance at politics, 
 our national submission is certainly against you ; 
 
 * " Vindication of the Testimony of Josephus concerning Jesus 
 Christ." 1777.
 
 270 THE LIFE OF 
 
 or, leaving the higher concerns of the world, if 
 you should apply your assertion to the ordinary 
 intercourse and common transactions between man 
 and man, you are truly unfortunate, as an extreme 
 gullibility seems to be one of the leading features 
 of the present times. The age in which we live 
 does not possess so great a share as former cen- 
 turies of that faith which is able to remove moun- 
 tains ; blind credulity, by the insults it so long 
 offered to reason, has, in a great measure, destroyed 
 itself, or is, rather, become modified into that 
 sobriety of belief which is consistent with a 
 rational being. The gaudy, awful, and presuming 
 phantom of papal authority has long begun to 
 disappear ; that blazing meteor, which for so 
 many ages dazzled the superstitious world, verges 
 towards the horizon, and grows pale before 
 the steady embodied light of liberal unimpeded 
 science. 
 
 " But I cannot believe, although luxury and 
 dissipation, with their concomitant depravities, 
 have made such enormous strides among the 
 higher orders, that infidelity in religious matters 
 is a leading: characteristic of our times. If we 
 turn from the Church to the State, the firm con- 
 fidence of a very great majority of the people in 
 a Government which, I am forced to confess, does 
 not possess all the wisdom that such a Govern-
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTOK 271 
 
 ment ought to possess, is a circumstance which, 
 were I to enlarge upon it, you would be perplexed 
 to answer. In the ordinary transactions of life, 
 the wantonness of commercial credit is well pre- 
 pared to give the lie direct to any charge of in- 
 credulity. Ask Foley, Charles Fox, and a thousand 
 others what they think of modern infidelity, and 
 they will tell you that the Jews themselves, that 
 unbelieving race, have deserted from the standard 
 of scepticism, and, having borne the stigma of 
 spiritual unbelief for upwards of seventeen hundred 
 years, are, at this moment, groaning beneath the 
 effects of temporal credulity. 
 
 "Credula turba sumus — We are a credulous 
 race of beings ; and the most steady professors 
 of scepticism are deceived by others, and deceive 
 themselves, every hour of the day. Eeligion, 
 which commands, among its evident truths, the 
 belief of matters which we cannot entirely com- 
 prehend, will sometimes so habituate the mind 
 of its submissive disciple to acts of faith, that 
 he does not know how to withhold his assent to 
 the most improbable fictions of human fancy ; and 
 the credo quia imjiossibile est of Tertullian is 
 readily adopted by his yielding piety. I shall 
 confirm the truth of this observation by a story 
 which I have heard related, and is not more 
 extraordinary in its nature than the tone, look,
 
 272 THE LIFE OF 
 
 and language of belief which accompanied the 
 relation. 
 
 " A traveller, benighted in a wild and moun- 
 tainous country (if my recollection does not fail 
 me, in the Highlands of Scotland), at length 
 beholds the welcome light of a neighbouring habi- 
 tation. He urges his horse towards it ; when, 
 instead of a house, he apj)roached a kind of 
 illuminated chapel, from whence issued the most 
 alarming sounds he had ever heard. Though 
 greatly surprised and terrified, he ventured to look 
 through a window of the building, when he was 
 amazed to see a large assembly of cats, who, 
 arranged in solemn order, were lamenting over 
 the corpse of one of their own species, which 
 lay in state, and was surrounded with the various 
 emblems of sovereignty. Alarmed and terrified 
 at this extraordinary spectacle, he hastened from 
 the place with greater eagerness than he had 
 approached it ; and arriving, some time after, at 
 the house of a gentleman who never turned the 
 wanderer from his gate, the impressions of what 
 he had seen were so visible on his countenance, 
 that his friendly host inquired into the cause of 
 his anxiety. He accordingly told his story, and, 
 having finished it, a large family cat, who 
 had lain, during the narrative, before the fire, 
 immediately started up, and very articulately
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTOK 273 
 
 exclaimed, ' Then I am king of the cats ! ' and, 
 having thus announced its new dignity, the animal 
 darted up the chimney, and was seen no more. 
 "Now, the man who seriously repeated this 
 strange and singular history, was a peer of the 
 realm, had been concerned in the active scenes 
 of life, and was held in high esteem and venera- 
 tion among mankind for his talents, wisdom, 
 and Christian piety. After this information, 
 which I give you as a serious fact, what have 
 you to say ? It is impossible but you must 
 immediately withdraw your charge of infidelity 
 against a period which could produce one such 
 implicit believer." 
 
 Keturning to Lord Lyttelton's Parliamentary 
 career, we find him, on the 30th of May, 1777, 
 making one of his greatest speeches, the occasion 
 being the stormy debate which arose upon the 
 Earl of Chatham's motion for an address to the 
 King, praying that the war might be brought 
 to an end by conciliatory measures. Lord Lyt- 
 telton acknowledged the services and talents of 
 the originator of the motion, but expressed 
 surprise at his tone, observing that he remembered 
 his holding very different language on a very 
 similar occasion, which had inspired him, in 
 common with the nation, with the most exalted
 
 274 THE LIFE OF 
 
 and heroic ideas. Dwelling for a brief period 
 upon the state of affairs in America, of which he 
 drew a vivid and impressive picture, he turned 
 to the Opposition, and reminded them of the 
 time when they asserted that France would not 
 interfere in the struggle, and that the Americans 
 had no thought of independence, and pledged 
 themselves to support the Government if the result 
 should prove otherwise. 
 
 "The event," said he, "has actually taken 
 place, and what is their conduct ? Instead of 
 recommending vigorous measures, we are told 
 that France does not intend to interfere, but, 
 lest she should, it is proposed to open negociations 
 with declared and open rebels. Our rights are 
 to be abandoned, or conceded, lest France should 
 <?o to war when our strength and resources are 
 exhausted. This is strange language, and equally 
 pusillanimous as unworthy the attention of this 
 House." He then proceeded to show that France 
 was not prepared for war, and contrasted her 
 financial position with that of Great Britain. 
 Dismissing this branch of the subject, he turned 
 to America, repeating his arguments as to the 
 effects of misplaced lenity in the first instance, 
 and reminded the House of his frequent warnings 
 on that point.
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 275 
 
 " He took great pains," says the standard 
 chronicler of the debates, " to show that the 
 measures of the Government were popular, and 
 to point out the abilities of the Minister who 
 had so judiciously planned taxes that would 
 scarcely be felt, and yet would be so very pro- 
 ductive. He spoke of the country gentlemen as 
 supporting the present war almost unanimously, 
 passed great encomiums on their consequence and 
 integrity, and affirmed that, while measures were 
 so strongly supported and approved of, both 
 within and without doors, by such decisive and 
 respectable majorities, we had every reason to 
 expect a happy issue to the rebellion ; but that, 
 if we should be interrupted by any Power what- 
 ever, we were both able to defend ourselves and 
 to make our enemies repent their rashness."* 
 
 The motion of the Earl of Chatham was re- 
 jected by ninety-nine votes against twenty-eight. 
 Time proved Lord Lyttelton to have been well 
 informed as to the unpreparedness of France for 
 war, for it was not until two years afterwards 
 that, having entered into an engagement with the 
 United States to that end, that country, which 
 had never forgiven us the humiliation of the peace 
 which had been forced upon her in 1763, ven- 
 
 * Hansard's " Parliamentary History," vol. xis. 
 
 T 2
 
 276 THE LIFE OF 
 
 tured to declare war. His sanguine expectations 
 of an issue of the struggle that would restore 
 the supremacy of Great Britain over the American 
 provinces, though not fulfilled, were warranted 
 by the actual position of affairs at that period. 
 The rebels were always and everywhere at a dis- 
 advantage, and the mother country had only lately 
 begun to put forth her strength. 
 
 The appointment of Lord Westcote to Lordship 
 of the Treasury at this time elicited from Lord 
 Lyttelton the following letter, which is the only 
 one relating to politics, and hitherto unpublished, 
 that the family archives at Hagley Hall contain : — 
 
 "My dear Lord, — Nothing could give me 
 more sincere pleasure than your advancement to 
 an office worthy of your abilities, as an appoint- 
 ment to the Treasury certainly is. I have ever 
 had the highest opinion of your talents, and 
 Lord North, in preferring you, has, in my judg- 
 ment, done himself great service. I hope you 
 will next session take a more leading part in 
 Parliament. You are one of the very few graves 
 viri left in this country. The public voice gives 
 full credit to your integrity, your experience, and 
 steady systematic policy. You know my interest 
 at Bewdley, my dear lord, is yours ; and this de- 
 claration is a full testimony of my hearty and
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 277 
 
 earnest wish that every friend I have in that 
 borough may give you their vote and interest. 
 Adieu, my dear lord. May you be unanimously 
 chosen as you was last election, is the desire 
 of, my dear lord, your most affectionate and faithful 
 humble servant, 
 
 " Lyttelton. 
 
 "Hill Street, 9th Jane, 1777. 
 
 " My best respects to Lady Westcote, and love 
 to the handsome little gypsey, her daughter." 
 
 It was not until towards the close of this year 
 that anything occurred to shake the confidence 
 of the Government in their ability to force the 
 Americans to lay down their arms, and acknow_ 
 ledge the supremacy of the mother country. 
 The surrender of General Burgoyne, with all his 
 army, to the insurgent forces at Saratoga was 
 the first event that created any doubt in the 
 minds of the Ministry as to the issue of the 
 struggle. Lord North's tone, in announcing the 
 event to the House of Commons, was one of 
 extreme dejection. Lord Lyttelton, however, 
 spoke as confidently as ever on the subject on 
 the occasion of the Earl of Chatham's motion 
 for a return of the orders and instructions given 
 to General Burgoyne by the Government. He
 
 278 THE LIFE OF 
 
 began by lamenting the disaster, and eulogising 
 General Burgoyne as an officer and a man, but 
 he objected that the news was mere rumour, 
 and was not properly before the House. 
 
 It was in this speech that he made a pro- 
 fession of Whig principles, while disclaiming the 
 name. "I am as genuine a Whig as the noble 
 earl," said he. "I have been bred in the 
 principles of Whigism from my earliest days, 
 and shall persevere in them to the end. I love 
 Whig principles as much as I despise those of 
 anarchy and republicanism. But, if the bare 
 name of Whig is all that is meant, I disclaim 
 it. If impatience under every species of con- 
 stitutional government, if resistance to legal re- 
 straint, if abetting of rebels, is the test of modern 
 Whigism, I beg leave to be excluded as one not 
 holding such doctrines. I would much rather 
 share the odium which has been unjustly cast 
 upon another set of men, and be accounted a 
 Tory." 
 
 He then entered into the general consideration 
 of the question of right between Great Britain 
 and her revolted colonies, repeating his former 
 arguments, and especially enlarging upon the 
 supremacy of the British Parliament. " Would 
 America," he asked, " do as Ireland had done ? 
 Would she give support in return for protection ?
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 279 
 
 If she would, that might be proper ground to 
 go upon ; but no step could be taken, consistently 
 with the rights and dignity of this country, 
 until the supreme right of Parliament was first 
 acknowledged." In reply to the Earl of Chat- 
 ham's denial that he had ever officially authorised 
 the employment of Indians against the French, 
 he asserted that Indians were employed, and in 
 great numbers; and though, perhaps, not by 
 the express direction of the Minister, the measure 
 was his, since the officers, so far from being 
 censured for raising Indian levies, were at least 
 tacitly justified. And in what respect, he asked, 
 was the tomahawk a weapon the use of which 
 was more to be reprobated than that of the 
 bayonet ? As to abandoning the idea of sub- 
 duing the rebels on account of one misfortune, 
 the proposition was disgraceful. What would 
 France think of such pusillanimity ? Would she 
 not conclude us an exhausted nation, and the 
 moment a fit one for her to wreak her vengeance 
 on us ? He wished as heartily as any noble 
 lord for a happy and honourable end of the con- 
 test, and perhaps General Burgoyne's misfortune 
 might make it proper to offer terms to the 
 Americans. He hoped, however, that it would 
 not induce the country to withdraw its forces 
 from America, as such a step would give the
 
 280 THE LIFE OF 
 
 rebels an advantage which we could never hope 
 to regain. The debate resulted in the rejection 
 of the Earl of Chatham's motion by forty votes 
 against nineteen. 
 
 On the 23rd of January, 1778, the Earl of 
 Abingdon made a motion respecting the legality 
 of raising troops by private subscription, without 
 the consent of Parliament, a meeting of the 
 merchants and traders of London having been 
 convened at the London Tavern for that purpose, 
 and it being known that several of the large 
 provincial towns were prepared to follow the 
 example. The debate was adjourned to the 4th 
 of February, when the Earl of Suffolk moved an 
 amendment, declaring such subscriptions to be 
 legal and meritorious. Lord Lyttelton pointed 
 out that there was no other evidence of an in- 
 tention to raise troops in the manner indicated 
 than the advertisement convening the meeting, 
 and suggested that the House should reject both 
 the original resolution and the amendment. The 
 Earl of Suffolk thereupon withdrew his amend- 
 ment, and the House rejected the Earl of Abing- 
 don's resolution by ninety votes against thirty. 
 
 In the meantime, on the 2nd of February, 
 the Duke of Bichmond had made a motion 
 against the sending of any more of the old corps 
 out of the country, and thereupon had arisen
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 281 
 
 an animated debate on the state of the country. 
 Lord Lyttelton said that the resolution, if it 
 should be carried, would be a public acknow- 
 ledgment that the country was unable to prose- 
 cute the war in America any farther, or to 
 maintain the rights of Parliament over the 
 colonies. It would be an actual declaration on 
 the part of Great Britain that she was neither 
 able to defend herself or to chastise her rebel- 
 lious dependencies ; and of course a direct invi- 
 tation to France and Spain to attempt an im- 
 mediate invasion of the kingdom. He condemned 
 the impolicy of disclosing our means of defence, 
 observing that such a course would both defeat 
 our claims over the colonies and show them 
 how unequal we were to the task of reducing 
 them to obedience, or securing ourselves against 
 the designs of our enemies. He trusted, how- 
 ever, that the affairs of the nation were not in 
 the desperate situation in which they were at- 
 tempted to be shown to the public. The re- 
 sources of the country were great : its spirit 
 was correspondent to them ; there remained one 
 man (alluding to the Earl of Chatham) who 
 would not consent to render America independent 
 of this country. He concluded with the expres- 
 sion of his opinion that the Earl of Chatham 
 was still equal to conducting the war to a
 
 282 THE LIFE OF 
 
 successful issue ; and maintained that its effect, 
 thus conducted, would answer the most sanguine 
 expectations of the real friends of the country. 
 The motion of the Duke of Eichmond was re- 
 jected by ninety-four votes against thirty-one. 
 
 There is no doubt that the return of the Earl 
 of Chatham to power was a contingency to which 
 Lord Lyttelton often directed his thoughts, not- 
 withstanding that statesman's advanced age, he 
 being now in his seventieth year, and rapidly 
 declining in health and physical vigour. He had 
 always the Earl of Chatham in his mind as a 
 model minister, and was never tired of eulogising 
 his patriotism, his administrative ability, and his 
 past services to the country. The earl had de- 
 clined in popularity since he had ceased to be 
 " the great commoner," but he was still the pilot 
 to whom Lord Lyttelton turned mentally in every 
 trial and trouble to which the nation was exposed. 
 At this time the Earl of Chatham was approxi- 
 mating to the views of Lord Lyttelton with regard 
 to America; and the latter was beginning to 
 despair of his colleagues, and to rise above them. 
 The contrast between his speech on the Saratoga 
 disaster, and that of Lord North in the House of 
 Commons, is remarkable ; and his confidence re- 
 mained unabated when the news of that event 
 was officially confirmed, as was shown by his
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 283 
 
 speech on the last motion of the Duke of 
 Richmond. 
 
 Lord North, irritating when he should have 
 been conciliatory, weak when he should have been 
 firm, dilatory when energy was imperatively re- 
 quired, became conciliatory when it was too late 
 for such a policy to be effective. The surrender 
 of General Burgoyne was followed by the intro- 
 duction of the Conciliatory Bills, which the 
 Americans, elated by their first great success, 
 regarded with contempt and derision. Lord 
 Lyttelton, supporting the third reading of these 
 bills, was compelled to acknowledge that the exi- 
 gencies of the situation had rendered necessary a 
 change of measures ; but he denied that there 
 was any inconsistency of these measures with the 
 former policy of the Government. They only 
 expressed the desire of the Government to do, at 
 that time, at less cost, what they could accom- 
 plish within the next two years, at a greater 
 sacrifice of money and of human lives. 
 
 But his confidence in the Administration was 
 waning, and when, on the 23rd of March, he 
 rose towards the close of the debate on the Duke 
 of Richmond's motion to withdraw the troops 
 from America, his tone strongly resembled that 
 which he had held four years previously. He 
 listened in silence to the attacks of the Oppo-
 
 284 THE LIFE OF 
 
 sition on the policy of his colleagues in office, and 
 was, except one, the last peer who addressed the 
 House. After portraying the state of affairs as 
 one of increasing gravity, England, with her re- 
 volted colonies still unsubdued, being threatened 
 with a foreign war, for which she was ill pre- 
 pared, while the prospect in India and the West 
 Indies was deplorable, he turned to the Earl of 
 Sandwich, and expressed surprise at the noble 
 lord's language, which seemed to imply that the 
 country was not so well prepared for a naval war 
 as he had so often declared it to be. The earl 
 did not reply ; it was enough for him that the 
 Duke of Richmond's motion was negatived with- 
 out a division. 
 
 The infirmities of the Earl of Chatham must 
 have convinced Lord Lyttelton that there was 
 no hope left that he would ever again stand at 
 the helm of the State. He made his last appear- 
 ance in the House of Lords with his legs swathed 
 in flannel ; he was pale and emaciated, and was 
 led into the House between his son, William Pitt, 
 and his son-in-law, Lord Mahon, all the peers 
 standing up to receive him, and making a clear 
 passage for him to reach his accustomed place. 
 The Duke of Richmond had just sat down, after 
 moving an address to the king on the state of the 
 country. The Earl of Chatham proceeded imme-
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 285 
 
 diately to express the indignation which he felt 
 at the idea, which he understood had o-one forth, 
 of yielding up the sovereignty of America. 
 
 " My lords," said he, " I rejoice that the grave 
 has not closed over me, that I am still alive to 
 lift up my voice against the dismemberment of 
 this ancient and noble monarchy. Pressed down 
 as I am by the load of infirmity, I am little 
 able to assist my country in this most perilous 
 conjuncture ; but, my lords, while I have sense 
 and memory, I will never consent to tarnish the 
 lustre of this nation by an ignominious surrender 
 of its rights and fairest possessions. Shall a 
 people, so lately the terror of the world, now fall 
 prostrate before the House of Bourbon ? It is 
 impossible ! In God's name, if it is absolutely 
 necessary to declare either for peace or war, and 
 if peace cannot be preserved with honour, why 
 is not war commenced without hesitation ? I 
 am not, I confess, well informed of the resources 
 of this kingdom, but I trust it has still sufficient 
 to maintain its just rights, though I know them 
 not. Any state, my lords, is better than despair. 
 Let us at least make one effort, and, if we must 
 fall, let us fall like men." 
 
 The Duke of Richmond, in reply, declared
 
 286 THE LIFE OF 
 
 himself to be totally ignorant of the means by 
 which Great Britain was to resist with success 
 the combination of America with the House of 
 Bourbon. He urged the Earl of Chatham to 
 point out, if he could, any mode of forcing the 
 Americans to renounce their independence, adding 
 that, if he could not do so, no man could. The 
 Earl of Chatham, who had listened to the duke's 
 reply with impatience and restlessness, staggered 
 to his feet on the conclusion of his speech, but 
 was unable to stand, and fell back on his seat, 
 exhausted and fainting. He was carried into an 
 adjoining apartment, and the House immediately 
 adjourned. Medical assistance being summoned, 
 he in some degree recovered, and was conveyed 
 to his favourite country residence, Hayes Place, 
 near Bromley, where he died about a month 
 afterwards. 
 
 Lord Lyttelton was profoundly moved by this 
 event, and a letter which he wrote to a friend 
 shortly after the great statesman's decease, ex- 
 pressed both his appreciation of the loss which 
 the country had sustained, and his opinion of the 
 Opposition as a party. 
 
 " I will endeavour to obey your commands, 
 and, if possible, to compress my unprepared re-
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 287 
 
 flections into the compass of this paper. The 
 Opposition is respectable for rank, property, and 
 abilities ; but it is feeble and unimportant, from 
 the narrowness of its plans, as well as the want 
 of a sincere confidence, a firm union, and, as I 
 shrewdly suspect, a general political integrity in 
 the parts that compose it. They all readily 
 accord in opposition to the measures of Govern- 
 ment, but differ, not only in the manner, but in 
 the time, of exertion. They all agree to go forth 
 against the enemy ; but each distinct body fol- 
 lows its own leader, and chooses its own mode 
 of attack ; they never unite but for the purpose 
 of the moment, by which means that strong- 
 compacted, lasting force which, directed to one 
 point, and at one instance, would scatter alarm 
 through any administration, is frittered down 
 into a variety of desultory operations, which 
 would disgrace the meanest Ministerial appre- 
 hension. 
 
 " The warmest friend of Government cannot 
 deny that in the minority there are men of 
 sound principle and proved integrity. They are, 
 indeed, but few in number, and may be easily 
 distinguished from those who are influenced by 
 the demon of disappointed ambition, the fury of 
 desperate faction, and the suggestions of personal 
 rancour. It has been a matter of surprise to
 
 288 THE LIFE OF 
 
 many sensible, reflecting persons that the Op- 
 position did not use every possible means to 
 obtain the aid and countenance of Lord Chatham's 
 abilities, and concentrate, as it were, their scat- 
 tered rays in the focus of that great man's 
 character. Under such a leader they might have 
 acted with effect, and knocked so loudly at the 
 door of Administration as to have made every 
 member of it tremble, even in the most secret 
 and guarded recesses of the Cabinet. But such 
 a coalition was wholly impracticable, even if 
 the veteran statesman had been free from those 
 bodily infirmities which so seldom permitted him 
 of late to step forth to any public exertion. 
 
 " If we except Lord Camden, there is not 
 one of the leading actors of Opposition who has 
 not, at some time or other, calumniated, de- 
 ceived, deserted, or, in some manner, mis-treated 
 this great man. Lord [Shelburne'sJ oratorical 
 echo made his first entrance into the House of 
 Commons notorious by flying, as it were, at his 
 very throat ; and yet this man has been proud 
 to bear the armorial banner at his funeral. The 
 first dav on which the Earl of Chatham took 
 his seat in the House of Peers, the Duke of 
 [Richmond] was forced to bow beneath its re- 
 proof for insulting him. The Duke of [Grafton], 
 who, to use his own words, had accepted the
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 289 
 
 seals merely to trail a pike under the command 
 of so distinguished a politician, when advanced 
 to a higher post, turned an angry face against 
 the leader whom he had deserted. Even the 
 Marquis of [Rockingham], when at the head of 
 his short-lived Administration, was vain enough 
 to affect a refusal of Mr. Pitt's assistance. 
 
 "The conduct of such men, though it might 
 he despised, could not be entirely effaced from 
 his mind by all the submissive homage they after- 
 wards paid him ; and though he may have since 
 lived with some of them in the habits of occa- 
 sional intercourse, you may be assured, if his 
 health had permitted a re-entrance into the public 
 service, that he would never have engaged in 
 the views of men whom he could not trust. The 
 Ministry, I believe, sent somewhat of an embassy 
 to him,""' which he treated with contempt ; and 
 if Lord [Shelburne], in an occasional visit to 
 Hayes, undertook a similar business on the part 
 of Opposition, I doubt not but the answer 
 he received, though, perhaps, more softened, had 
 its concomitant mortification. Durino- the last 
 years of his venerable life he seemed to stand 
 
 * Overtures to join the Cabinet of Lord North were twice 
 made to the Earl of Chatham, the second time through the 
 .Marquis of Grauby. — See Jesse's "Life and Times of George III."' 
 and Lord Brougham's " Statesmen of the Reign of George III."
 
 290 TEE LIFE OF 
 
 alone, or made his communications to no one but 
 Lord Camden, whom 
 
 '"He faithful found among the faithless, 
 Faithful only he.' 
 
 " The grave is now closed upon that illus- 
 trious statesman, and his splendid orb is set for 
 ever. There was that in his character which 
 gave him a very distinguished superiority over 
 the rest of mankind. He was the greatest War 
 Minister this kingdom ever knew ; and the four 
 years of his Administration form the most brilliant 
 period that the British annals, or perhaps those 
 of the world, can produce. They who aim at 
 the diminution of his glory, and that of his 
 country, by attributing the rapid change of affairs 
 under his Administration to chance, and the for- 
 tunate circumstances of the moment, must be 
 slaves to the most rooted prejudice, the foulest 
 envy, or the darkest ignorance. To the more 
 brilliant part of his life let me add, that he was 
 a minister who detested the arts of corruption, 
 set his face against all Court as well as Cabinet 
 intrigues, and quitted his important station with 
 unpolluted hands. 
 
 "It is a great national misfortune that the 
 mantle of this political patriarch has not been
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 291 
 
 caught by any of his successors. We are not 
 deficient in men of genius, and both Houses of 
 Parliament give daily examples of eloquence, which 
 Rome and Athens never excelled ; nevertheless, 
 there does not appear to be a man in the kingdom 
 with that power of understanding, depth of know- 
 ledge,- activity of mind, and strength of resolution 
 sufficient to direct our harassed empire. There 
 are many among us who are capable of being 
 second in command, and filling all the subaltern 
 departments with adequate ability ; but the State 
 as well as the army wants a commander-in-chief. 
 The truncheon is become little more than an 
 useless trophy, as a hand fit to grasp it is no 
 longer to be found. 
 
 " In bearing my poor testimony to the manes 
 of Lord Chatham, I have yielded to the impulse 
 of my very soul. In this imperfect act of venera- 
 tion I can have no interest, for the object of it 
 is gone where the applause of this world cannot 
 reach him ; and, as I ventured to differ from 
 him when alive, and delivered the reasons of 
 my difference to his face, what motive can there 
 be for me to flatter him now he is no more ? 
 To oppose the sentiments of that venerable states- 
 man was an undertaking which shook my very 
 frame. My utmost resolution, strengthened by 
 
 u 2
 
 292 THE LIFE OF 
 
 a sense of duty, and the laudable ambition of 
 supporting what I conceived to be right against 
 the proudest names, could not sustain me. You, 
 I believe, were present when I sunk down and 
 became silent beneath the imposing superiority 
 of his abilities ; but I did not feel it a defeat 
 to be vanquished by him — 
 
 " ' Nee tarn 
 Turpe fait vinci, quam contendisse decorum est.' " 
 
 The last occasion on which Lord Lyttelton 
 addressed the House during this session was 
 the debate on the third reading of the Earl of 
 Chatham's Annuity Bill, when he was called to 
 his feet by a remark of the Earl of Eadnor — 
 that there had been only one occasion on which 
 the conduct of the deceased earl had lessened 
 the country's obligation to him — namely, when, 
 while in office, he had set the authority of a 
 proclamation above that of an Act of Parliament. 
 Lord Lyttelton warmly defended the deceased 
 statesman's conduct on the occasion referred to, 
 when, the harvest having been deficient, and corn 
 being largely exported from the country, an 
 Order in Council had been issued prohibiting 
 the exportation of corn, Parliament not being
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 293 
 
 sitting at the time. Lord Lyttelton maintained 
 that the circumstances justified the act com- 
 plained of by the Earl of Kadnor, and pro- 
 nounced an eloquent eulogium on the departed 
 statesman, whose like the House was not soon 
 to look upon again.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 ■» 
 
 Lord Lyttelton's Occupations at Hagley — Views on the Game 
 Laws — Speech on the American War — The Earl of Bristol's 
 Motion against the Earl of Sandwich — Lord Lyttelton's 
 Speech — His Political Status in 1779 — Eelations with the Earl 
 of Shelburne — Pitt Place — Eeasons for preferring it to Hagley 
 — Discussion on the Locality of the Soul, and the End of the 
 World — Death of George Ayscough — Letter on the State of 
 Public Affairs — Visit to Ireland — The Irish Volunteers — 
 Agitation in Ireland for Free Trade. 
 
 Every line of evidence that can be gathered con- 
 cerning the habits and pursuits of Lord Lyttelton 
 during the latter years of his life confirms the 
 view which has been taken in the preceding pages. 
 He withdrew himself more and more from vicious 
 associates, and, when Parliament was not sitting, 
 passed the greater part of his time in the country, 
 studying politics and political economy, when not 
 eno-aged in visiting or entertaininp; his friends. 
 In reply to a friend, who seems to have been 
 curious as to his occupations at Hagley, he wrote 
 as follows : — 
 
 " I neither hunt nor shoot ; the former is a
 
 LIFE OF THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 295 
 
 diversion which requires sacrifices that I cannot 
 grant, and shall not enumerate ; the latter suits 
 me better, hut is as little pursued as the former. 
 The business and form, not to say tyranny, of 
 preserving game, which is necessary to establish 
 a certainty of sport, is not to my way of thinking. 
 The laws concerning game form a very unconsti- 
 tutional monopoly : but that is not all ; the 
 peace and society of provincial vicinities are more 
 or less disturbed by jealousies and disputes arising 
 from game, in every part of the kingdom. My 
 country employments are better than you imagine. 
 I am reading, with great care and observation, 
 the works of the Chancellor D'Aguesseau. Many 
 years ago, my father gave a volume of them 
 to me, desiring me to study it with attention, 
 and consider the contents as his own paternal 
 counsels. At that time I did neither one nor 
 the other ; however, I am now making ample 
 amends for former neglect. The magistrate, the 
 statesman, the lawyer, the man of the world, the 
 orator, and the philosopher, will find delight and 
 instruction in these volumes. I can say no more ; 
 and what I have now said will add them to your 
 library, if it does not already possess them. 
 
 " You must know that I am angry with you 
 for writing to me ; or rather, for not coming, 
 instead of writing. Delay not to visit a place
 
 296 THE LIFE OF 
 
 you so much admire, and to see a friend who 
 loves and values you. We will study together 
 in the morning, and court the Muses in the 
 evening, and you shall visit Pope's urn by moon- 
 light, and I will promise not to laugh at you. 
 I propose to remain here a fortnight longer ; but, 
 if you will come to me, the time of my departure 
 shall be prolonged to your pleasure." 
 
 He returned to London on the reassembling 
 of Parliament, deeply impressed with the gravity 
 of the political situation, and resolved to support 
 the Government no longer than he could consistently 
 and conscientiously defend their acts. His view 
 of the American question appears never to have 
 changed. Kegarding it from the standpoint of 
 a firm conviction of the constitutional supremacy 
 of the British Parliament, he considered that 
 concession would be surrender, and that it was 
 better to lose the American provinces than the 
 British Constitution. If the Americans could 
 not be beaten into submission, it would be better, 
 he thought, to let them go than to purchase 
 their obedience by degrading concessions ; but, 
 until this resolve was taken, the war should, in 
 his opinion, be prosecuted with the utmost 
 
 vigour. 
 
 Accordingly, when, on the 7th of December,
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 297 
 
 the Marquis of Kockingham moved an address 
 to the king, strongly condemnatory of the 
 manifesto issued at New York by the British 
 Commissioners, for the severities with which the 
 Americans were threatened, in the event of their 
 rejecting the proposals for peace, Lord Lyttelton 
 defended the manifesto, and contended that, at 
 such a crisis, all parties should unite to support 
 the Government, instead of carping at its language. 
 The propositions which had been made were, he 
 said, proper to be offered, but he was glad that 
 they had been rejected, because, he was free to 
 say, he did not approve of them. He maintained 
 that it was sound policy, when America was 
 driven into the arms of France by the machina- 
 tions of ambitious demagogues, for Great Britain 
 to dismantle her fortresses, spoil her harbours, destroy 
 her resources, and render her of as little military 
 use to France as might be possible. This view 
 prevailed, and the motion of the Marquis of 
 Kockingham was rejected by seventy-one votes 
 against thirty-seven. 
 
 There can now be no doubt that the position 
 assumed by Lord Lyttelton at this period of 
 the struggle in America was a more tenable one 
 than was held either by the Ministry or the 
 Opposition. The former sued for peace in the 
 same breath that they fulminated threats ; the
 
 298 THE LIFE OF 
 
 latter harassed the Government with propositions 
 for conciliation, and yet were inimical to the 
 independence which the Americans had declared to 
 be the sole condition on which peace was possible. 
 The Ministry was weak and pusillanimous, the 
 Opposition inconsistent, and often factious. The 
 day was near, therefore, when Lord Lyttelton 
 would have to take a course of action independently 
 of both Tories and Whigs. 
 
 It has been seen that he was induced to sup- 
 port the Administration of Lord North by the 
 assurance of the Earl of Sandwich that the naval 
 force of Great Britain was equal to any that 
 could be sent to sea by France and Spain com- 
 bined. The fact of Admiral Keppel's withdrawal 
 from before Brest, on the ground that the force 
 under his command was inferior to that of the 
 French, staggered the honest and conscientious 
 supporters of the Government, and furnished the 
 Opposition with a new weapon of offence. On 
 the 23rd of April, 1779, the Earl of Bristol 
 moved an address to the king, praying for the 
 removal of the Earl of Sandwich from the post 
 of First Lord of the Admiralty. In the course 
 of the debate, Lord Stormont took occasion to 
 condemn what he termed the indiscretion of dis- 
 cussing delicate affairs of State in a public as- 
 sembly. This called Lord Lyttelton to his feet,
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 299 
 
 and prompted one of the greatest speeches ever 
 made by him : — 
 
 " I enjoy a place," he observed, " which 
 ministers are welcome to if they think it a crime 
 in a man to declare his mind when the dearest 
 and most vital interests of the country are at 
 stake. Nothing shall prevent me from speaking 
 my mind ; and, even upon the most sordid 
 motives, I appeal to every noble lord present 
 to say whether, when the fall of stocks, the de- 
 creased value of landed property, and the ac- 
 cumulation of new burdens are taken into con- 
 sideration, it is worth the while of any man of 
 property to partake of the favours of the Govern- 
 ment, when it is considered that what he receives 
 as a placeman is no more than he loses as a 
 landowner. I see no reason for the delicacy 
 talked of by the noble lord who spoke last ; the 
 subject is important, and it ought to be met 
 fairly. Spain either will or will not join France ; 
 to temporise is to lull the country into a state 
 of doubt, and may incur the danger that will 
 attend the interference of the Court of Madrid 
 whenever it takes place. I hope, therefore, that 
 ministers will insist upon an explicit answer from 
 that Court. 
 
 "The noble viscount has compared private
 
 n 
 
 00 THE LIFE OF 
 
 friendships with the faith of nations and the 
 friendly assurances of one sovereign State to 
 another. Surely he is not serious. I cannot 
 imagine that any noble lord can be weak enough 
 to adopt that position. The cases are widely dif- 
 ferent. Private friendships arise from similarity 
 of mind, similarity of principles, similarity of 
 views, and often from consanguinity and relation- 
 ship ; and even in the latter case, your lordships 
 have had instances of the slight hold of that tie. 
 Can it be said that Spain and England have the 
 same views, the same principles, or ties of con- 
 sanguinity? Does not the Family Compact stare 
 us in the face ? Is it not a notorious fact that 
 the separate branches of the House of Bourbon 
 are bound by treaty to assist each other when 
 either is attacked ? It was but the other day 
 that the argument was as good regarding France. 
 Was it not the language of ministers that France 
 was the friend of England ? Was it not the 
 language of the throne itself? Were not both 
 Houses of Parliament told, in the most direct 
 and strong terms, that France had made such 
 assurances of friendship as put her sincerity be- 
 yond all doubt, and rendered every idea of her 
 assisting America ridiculous ? And yet what has 
 France done ? 
 
 " In the midst of those friendly assurances,
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 301 
 
 she lias formally received ambassadors from 
 America, and has been, for a considerable time, 
 furnishing the Americans with military stores, 
 and with the means of carrying on the war, which 
 has cost this country so vast an expenditure of 
 men and money. At length she has thrown off 
 the mask, and we find the French Minister come 
 with his famous rescript, notifying to the British 
 Government that the King of France, out of his 
 abundant love and friendship for Great Britain, 
 has thought proper to enter into a treaty with 
 America, a treaty offensive and defensive, and 
 such as will enable America still further to resist, 
 and to assert her independence. Let noble lords 
 hold these well-known circumstances in view, and 
 then let them judge of the weight of the noble 
 viscount's argument, that private friendship and 
 public amity are synonymous." 
 
 He then turned to the warlike preparations 
 of Spain, stating that twenty-five ships of the 
 line were lying in the harbour of Cadiz, ready 
 for sea, with the flags of three admirals flying ; 
 and asserting that she had virtually stopped the 
 entrance of the Mediterranean, and prescribed to 
 England the bounds of her navigation. If the 
 British Government humoured the Court of Madrid, 
 and ceded Gibraltar as the price of its neutrality, 
 she would be our friend in May, and, with
 
 302 THE LIFE OF 
 
 Gibraltar at her back, our foe in August. He 
 next directed attention to the charge against the 
 Earl of Sandwich, of sending Admiral Keppel 
 to Brest with an inadequate force, and expressed 
 surprise at the refusal of the First Lord to answer 
 the question put to him by the Duke of Eichmond, 
 as to whether he had asserted that the force sent 
 to Brest was equal to the French fleet it would 
 encounter there. 
 
 " I waited," he continued, " with some anxiety, 
 hoping that the noble lord, or some other minister, 
 would reply. Does the noble lord recollect that 
 he has declared that Admiral Keppel's orders 
 were, to retire if he found the French fleet 
 apparently superior to his own ? Does the noble 
 lord see the difficulty in which the whole matter 
 is involved, for want of a satisfactory answer ? 
 Surely he does not mean to confess that he sent 
 Admiral Keppel out with orders to run away 
 from the French fleet; and yet that is the 
 appearance of the matter as it now stands. 
 Either Admiral Keppel was culpable for return- 
 ing ; or ministers are to blame for having sent 
 him out with an inferior force. No position 
 could be more obvious. Blame must be some- 
 where, and where is it to be imputed, or how 
 are your lordships to know in what manner to 
 vote, if no explanation is given?"
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 303 
 
 He then related what he had heard concern- 
 ing the Brest affair, and repeated what Admiral 
 Keppel had said on the subject, in describing the 
 struggle in his mind when he found himself obliged 
 to turn his back to the French — "A back," said 
 Lord Lyttelton, "that had never been turned to 
 the enemies of his country before." The admiral 
 said that he sacrificed his feelings and his pride 
 of heart to a painful sense of the duty he owed 
 to his country. " The expression/' said Lord 
 Lyttelton, "is a strong indication of the conflict 
 in his breast ; and, while it does him honour, 
 makes every man who heard him feel for the 
 dilemma in which he was involved. It makes 
 their hearts beat quick with the glow of applause, 
 and makes them execrate those who placed a com- 
 mander of distinguished reputation and ability in 
 the dilemma of risking the safety of his country, 
 or doing injury to his own feelings as a man, an 
 officer, and a citizen. 
 
 " No officer in the navy stands higher in the 
 opinion of seamen than Admiral Keppel ; the 
 very circumstance of his having broken orders, and 
 returned home when he discovered the superiority 
 of the French fleet, gained him the greatest honour 
 from his own profession. He went out, not 
 merely to fight for a few ships, but to defend 
 our docks and arsenals, to defend Portsmouth
 
 304 THE LIFE OF 
 
 and Plymouth, the city of London, the naviga- 
 tion of the Thames, your lordships' seats in this 
 House— in short, to preserve the whole British 
 empire ; no less was the object he was sent to 
 defend, and no less would have been the loss had 
 he been defeated. Either the minister who gave 
 the orders, or the admiral who failed to execute 
 them, was in the wrong ; but which ? The ad- 
 miral has not only been acquitted by his proper 
 judges, but by the acclamations of the people of 
 England. The conduct of the minister has not 
 been inquired into, nor justified ; and the inten- 
 tion of the Government appears to be, if possible, 
 to slobber it over. 
 
 "It is not long since Admiral Keppel was sent 
 with those twenty ships to meet a force so much 
 superior, that the First Lord acknowledged that 
 he was justified in avoiding it. Not long before 
 that, the noble lord asserted, from official accounts 
 laid before this House, that we had a naval force 
 superior to the combined fleets of France and 
 Spain, and that every minister who administered 
 the British navy ought to maintain such a force — 
 an assertion of the greatest weight, of the most 
 material importance ; for who could doubt what 
 the First Lord of the Admiralty, who must, from 
 his office, have the best intelligence concerning 
 the navy, declared to be true ? Who could con-
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 305 
 
 trovert an opinion founded on official intelligence ? 
 What was the effect of this declaration, coming 
 from such an authority ? It was admitted as true ; 
 it stopped inquiry ; it suspended the vigour of 
 our operations. Much might have been done by 
 Parliament, if Parliament had been sensible of 
 the weakness of the country ; but, the statement 
 being false, how did it operate ? It hoodwinked 
 the House, blinding your lordships where you 
 ought to have seen clearest ; and, by giving you 
 false hopes and expectations, deluded you to the 
 very brink of destruction. 
 
 " With regard to myself, the First Lord's 
 declaration respecting the state of the fleet 
 altered my opinion immediately ; it dissipated my 
 dread of commencing war with France with an 
 unequal fleet, gave me the hope of a successful 
 contest, and induced me to reply to the late Earl 
 of Chatham in defence of the First Lord, whose 
 conduct that able statesman had attacked on 
 the ground that he had not more than twenty 
 ships of the line ready for sea. But mutilated 
 accounts from office are always dangerous ; in 
 the present case, the deception was a two-edged 
 sword, which wounded both friends and foes ; 
 but the point was turned against the breast of 
 the nation." 
 
 x
 
 306 THE LIFE OF 
 
 Lord Lyttelton then turned to the state of 
 the country. " The kingdom," said he, " is 
 destitute of resources, and without allies. Our 
 trade is declining, our manufactures perishing. 
 The First Lord of the Treasury has confessed in 
 his place that he could raise only seven millions 
 when he wanted eight, and that he was forced 
 to bribe the monied men by ruinous bargains 
 to get the seven. We are engaged in a double 
 war with France and America. As to the 
 American war, however justifiable in its prin- 
 ciples, which I think were constitutional principles, 
 it has been in its conduct, from the time when 
 General Gage was shut up in Boston down to the 
 more fatal period of the surrender of Saratoga, when 
 that brave officer, General Burgoyne, was forced 
 to submit to the mortification of surrendering his 
 army into the hands of the Americans, one black 
 era, pregnant with the direst mischiefs, the most 
 cruel fortune, the bitterest calamities, the most 
 inexpiable evils that this country ever endured ; 
 and so it will be marked by latest posterity. 
 
 "It is now said that there is good news : 
 Colonel Campbell has arrived from Georgia with 
 news of a victory, and in the same breath 
 requires reinforcements. Let noble lords consider 
 the state of the American business as it really 
 stands. After a contest of five years, we are
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 307 
 
 reduced to little more than half a province ; 
 then what is the object of the war? America, 
 if ours on the terms of the Commissioners, would 
 be a burden, rather than an acquisition. To 
 what purpose, then, are we exhausting ourselves ? 
 What object are we pursuing ? It is not tax- 
 ation ; Mr. Vyner* is now the only man in 
 the three kingdoms that has any idea of taxing 
 America. It is not supremacy, it is not legis- 
 lation ; all that has been given up by the 
 Commissioners, who have changed places with 
 the Opposition. Lord Chatham's Bill was Toryism 
 in comparison with what the Commissioners 
 offered. They have gone in concession beyond 
 the noble lords near me ; they have even 
 outshot the noble duke.t They have given up 
 everything, and even proposed to pay the debts 
 of America, incurred by her military resistance 
 to Great Britain ! Then what is the object ? 
 That is a question which must be answered. At 
 present a general lethargy prevails ; people come 
 
 * Robert Vyner, M.P., who had just before made a speech 
 in the House of Commons strongly defending the Government, 
 and maintaining the right and the policy of taxing America. 
 
 t The peers alluded to are indicated in Hansard's " Parlia- 
 mentary History" as the Earl of Shelburne and the Duke of 
 Richmond. It seems, therefore, that Lord Lyttelton spoke on 
 this occasion from the Opposition benches. 
 
 x 2
 
 308 THE LIFE OF 
 
 to the bar of this House, gaping for intelligence, 
 listening with greedy ears to the debates, hear- 
 ing unmoved the recapitulation of their own 
 wretchedness and the accumulated miseries of their 
 country, and go away with perfect composure, 
 like men who leave the theatre after seeing a 
 tragedy, in the incidents of which they have 
 not the smallest concern, and by which they 
 are not at all affected. If the people do not 
 soon rouse themselves, they will be put to death 
 in their sleep." 
 
 After dwelling at some length on the con- 
 dition of the country, with its languishing trade 
 and industry, and the accumulating pressure of 
 taxation, Lord Lyttelton went on to say that, in 
 a crisis so alarming, party should be forgotten, 
 and men of ability consulted, without reference 
 to their political sentiments. He indicated the 
 Earl of Bristol as a firm friend of the country, 
 whose ability in his profession was undoubted, 
 and whose counsel, especially in naval matters, 
 misht be invaluable. He called attention to the 
 Earl of Shelburne, as possessing talents which 
 did him great honour, and might be employed 
 with infinite advantage to the State. He reminded 
 the House that the Duke of Grafton had dis- 
 charged official duties with credit to himself and
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 309 
 
 to the country. He disclaimed personal pique 
 or rancour iu the course he had taken, assuring 
 the House that he bore no ill-will to the Earl of 
 Sandwich, or to any other lord in the House. 
 He was far from condemning the First Lord ; 
 hut in cases like the one they were considering 
 it behoved every man to speak his real sentiments. 
 The interests of every individual were at stake, 
 because the interests of every individual were 
 involved in the general interests of the kingdom. 
 He suggested that the charges against the 
 Earl of Sandwich should be investigated in com- 
 mittee, day by day, until they were established 
 or disproved. The Earl of Bristol had said that 
 he had papers that would substantiate them ; and 
 these, if laid on the table of the House, might 
 assist in the inquiry. He declared that his 
 support of the Government, in pursuing the contest 
 in America, had been based entirely on principle ; 
 but the case was materially altered when they 
 abandoned every one of its avowed objects. There 
 must be some known and declared object to 
 justify the continuance of the war with America, 
 which had proved so ruinous and disastrous ; but, 
 as regarded France, every man capable of bearing 
 arms ought to be forced into the field before a 
 hollow truce was patched up with her, for fear 
 of the intervention of Spain.
 
 310 THE LIFE OF 
 
 The Earl of Sandwich did not reply. He 
 had declined to do so, when called upon by the 
 Duke of Kichmond, unless it should be the will 
 of the House, in which he well knew that the 
 Ministry had a large majority. The Earl of 
 Bristol's motion was rejected by seventy-eight 
 votes against thirty-nine ; and Lord North and 
 his colleagues continued for some time longer, 
 with gradually diminishing majorities in both 
 Houses of Parliament, and increasing difficulty 
 of wringing the taxes from an impoverished 
 people, to pursue the hopeless task of subduing 
 the Americans with one hand, and vanquishing 
 the old Continental enemies of England with the 
 other. The king was obstinately bent upon 
 coercing the Americans, if it should be possible, 
 at all hazards and any sacrifice ; and upon 
 retaining Lord North in power, as the most con- 
 venient instrument of that coercion. Lord North 
 was too complaisant a minister to offer any 
 objection to being merely the private secretary of 
 the sovereign ; and there were few of the crowd 
 of placemen and pensioners who swelled the minis- 
 terial majority who possessed either the honesty or 
 the enlightenment of Lord Lyttelton. 
 
 For the present, no change of Ministry, no 
 new political combination, was practicable ; but 
 Lord Lyttelton had indicated in his speech the
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 311 
 
 most promising one that could, by any possibility, 
 at that time have been formed. The Duke of 
 Grafton was a disciple of Chatham, and had been 
 premier during the two years immediately pre- 
 cedine: the accession to office of Lord North. 
 The Earl of Shelburne, though a Whig, held the 
 same position towards that party as Lord Lyttelton 
 held towards the Tories, and favoured the idea 
 of a Ministry of upright and enlightened men, 
 independent of party, such as was indicated by 
 Lord Lyttelton. Neither had a very exalted 
 opinion of Charles Fox. The subordinate posi- 
 tion assigned to him by Lord Lyttelton has been 
 seen ; and the Earl of Shelburne, when entrusted 
 with the formation of a Ministry, on the death 
 of the Marquis of Kockingham, eliminated Fox 
 and his friends, and chose for his lieutenant 
 "William Pitt, then the most promising of the 
 young men in the House of Commons, and brood- 
 ing over a great scheme of Parliamentary reform, 
 which, however, was not destined to fructifica- 
 tion. Lord Lyttelton would, it may fairly be 
 assumed, have been included in the Shelburne 
 Ministry, had he lived three years longer ; and 
 it is probable that such a combination as that 
 which he glanced at in his speech, with William 
 Pitt and himself as secretaries, had been revolved 
 in his mind, and perhaps in that of the Earl of
 
 312 THE LIFE OF 
 
 Shelburne. That it had either been talked of, 
 or was supposed to be indicated by his speech 
 and his change of attitude towards the Govern- 
 ment, may be gathered from the remark of 
 Horace Walpole, in a letter addressed to Sir 
 Horace Mann on the day after the debate on 
 the Earl of Bristol's motion, that Lord Lyttelton 
 thought he had talent enough for a Secretary- 
 ship of State/" 
 
 Parliament rose without any change of Ministry, 
 or the slightest brightening of the political pros- 
 pect, however, and Lord Lyttelton retired to 
 the seclusion of the Surrey dell which was his 
 favourite place of residence during the latter part 
 of his life, and the many beauties and advan- 
 tages of which he extols in his letters. Hagley 
 had never won much of his regard. It was far 
 from the metropolis, and yet surrounded by towns, 
 so that, as he complained to a friend, it afforded 
 neither society nor seclusion. The extensive park 
 was as public as a common, and the parish church 
 stood within its bounds. To Lord Lyttelton, who 
 enjoyed a congenial seclusion as much as he 
 enjoyed congenial society, this was a great objec- 
 tion ; and, besides this, its architectural excres- 
 cences displeased his eye, which regarded the 
 
 * " Letters of Horace "Walpole."
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 313 
 
 natural with more favour than the so-called 
 classical. 
 
 " The system of modern gardening," he says, 
 in a letter to a friend, "in spite of fashion and 
 Mr. Brown, is a very foolish one. The huddling 
 together every species of building in a park or 
 garden is ridiculous. The environs of a magni- 
 ficent house should partake in some degree of 
 the necessary formality of the building they sur- 
 round. This was Kent's opinion, and where his 
 designs have escaped the destruction of modern 
 refinement there is an easy grandeur which is at 
 once striking and delightful. Fine woods are 
 beautiful objects, and their beauty approaches 
 nearer to magnificence as the mass of foliage 
 becomes more visible ; but to dot them with 
 little white edifices infringes upon their great- 
 ness, and, by such divisions and sub-divisions, 
 destroys their due effect. The verdure of British 
 swells was not made for Grecian temples ; a flock 
 of sheep and a shepherd's hut are better adapted 
 to it. Our climate is not suited to the deities 
 of Italy and Greece, and in an hard winter I 
 feel for the shuddering divinities. At Haglcy 
 there is a temple of Theseus, commonly called 
 by the gardener the temple of Perseus, which 
 stares you in the face wherever you go, while
 
 314 THE LIFE OF 
 
 the temple of God, commonly called by the gar- 
 dener the parish church, is so industriously hid 
 by trees from without that the pious matron 
 can hardly read her prayer-book within. This 
 was an evident preference of strange gods, and, 
 in my opinion, a very blasphemous improvement. 
 Where nature is grand, improve her grandeur, 
 not by adding extraneous decorations, but by re- 
 moving obstructions. Where a scene is in itself 
 lovely, very little is necessary to give it all due 
 advantage, especially if it be laid into park, which 
 undergoes no variety of cultivation. 
 
 " Stowe is, in my opinion, a most detestable 
 place, and has in every part of it the air of a 
 Golgotha — a princely one I must acknowledge ; 
 but in no part of it could I ever lose that gloomy 
 idea. My own park possesses many and very 
 rare beauties, but, from the design of making it 
 classical, it has been charged with many false 
 and unsuitable ornaments. A classical park or a 
 classical garden is as ridiculous an expression as 
 a classical plumb-pudding or a classical sirloin of 
 beef. It is an unworthy action to strip the 
 classics of their heroes, gods, and goddesses, to 
 stow green amid the fogs of our unclassical 
 climate. But the affectation and nonsense of 
 little minds is beyond description. How many 
 are there who, fearful that mankind will not dis-
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 315 
 
 cover their knowledge, are continually hanging 
 out the sign of hard words and pedantic expres- 
 sions, like the late Lord Orrery, who, for some 
 classical reason, had given his dog a classical 
 name — it was no less than Caesar ! However, 
 Caesar one day giving his lordship a most un- 
 classical bite, he seized a cane, and pursued him 
 round the room with great solemnity and this 
 truly classical menace, ' Caesar ! Caesar ! if I could 
 catch thee, Caesar ! I would give thee as many 
 wounds as Brutus gave thy namesake in the 
 Capitol/ This is the very froth of folly and 
 affectation." 
 
 The rural retreat for which Hagley was aban- 
 doned stood in a sequestered situation, near the 
 church, at Epsom. It is called by some writers 
 who have mentioned it Pit Place, which name 
 is said to have been given to it on account of 
 its site having been a chalk-pit ; but in the news- 
 paper accounts of Lord Lyttelton's death it is 
 called Pitt Place, a name which, if it had not 
 one before, may reasonably be supposed to have 
 been given to it in respectful memory of the 
 statesman whom he omitted no opportunity of 
 eulogising and holding up to the reverential con- 
 templation of posterity. Lord Lyttelton's reasons 
 for its selection as a country residence, and for
 
 316 THE LIFE OF 
 
 preferring it to Hagley, are pleasantly set forth 
 in the following letter, which he wrote from Pit 
 (or Pitt) Place to a friend : — 
 
 " You are not the only one of my many 
 criticising friends who have expressed surprise at 
 my taking so kindly to the Surrey dell, and 
 becoming so dead to rural magnificence as to 
 neglect Hagley's gaudy scene and proud domain. 
 [Clara Haywood], in one of her visits to this 
 place, told me that I looked like a toad in a 
 hole. Be that as it may, it is shad)*, elegant, 
 convenient, and snug — a term peculiar to English 
 comfort, and not translated into any other lan- 
 guage. Besides, a villa is a necessary appendage 
 to that rank whose dignity you so often recom- 
 mend me to maintain ; and in what spot could 
 a British peer find a more delightful retreat than 
 mine, to solace himself in the interval of public 
 duty ? Or where is the iEgerian grot, in whose 
 auspicious solitude he could better hold his secret 
 counsels with the guardian genius of his country ? 
 But, badinage apart, its vicinity to the metropolis 
 is one of its principal recommendations ; and, to 
 a man of my tendencies, a cottage at Pimlico is 
 preferable to a palace in the distant counties. 
 Here I find no inconvenience in a rainy day ; 
 the means of dissipating a gloomy temper are
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 317 
 
 within my beckon. If I wish to be alone, I can 
 shut my gates, and exclude the world ; if I want 
 society, my post-chaise will quickly bear me hence, 
 or fetch it here. 
 
 " On the contrary, Hagley, which is certainly 
 an Elysian scene, uniting beauty, grandeur, and 
 convenience, does not possess any of these ad- 
 vantages ; and I might die there of ennui, before 
 anything like the necessary remedy could be 
 found. In that spot, all delightful as it is, I 
 cannot enjoy the society which I prefer ; nor, 
 when I am tired of company, is it possible for 
 me to be alone. Manufacturing towns surround 
 me on all sides, turnpike roads environ me, and 
 the prospect from every window glares with such 
 a variety of intruding objects that I have been 
 often thankful to the shades of night for giving 
 me to tranquillity and myself. 
 
 " Besides, the parish church is in my park ; 
 and I have more than once awoke from brilliant 
 dreams by the cackling of gossips in full trot 
 to a christening ; nay, I have sometimes shuddered 
 to see on my splendid lawns the dirges due and 
 sad array of the rustic funeral. But this is not 
 all. Coaches full of travellers of all denomi- 
 nations, and troops of holiday neighbours, are 
 hourly chasing me from my apartments, or, by 
 strolling about the environs, keep me a prisoner
 
 318 THE LIFE OF 
 
 in it. The lord of the place can never call it 
 his for a clay during the finer part of the year. 
 Nor am I proud, as others have been, of holding 
 myself forth to the complimentary envy of those 
 who come to visit it. My pride is not of that 
 complexion ; and the consciousness of possessing 
 the first place of its kind in Europe is a sufficient 
 satisfaction to me, without showing any prefer- 
 ence to it as a rural residence. 
 
 "The little spot from whence I have the 
 pleasure to address you has won my fondest 
 
 attachment. H left me this morning. We 
 
 passed the whole of yesterday evening in search- 
 ing into the nature of the soul, and contriving 
 ways and means for the final dissolution of the 
 world. We are neither of us qualified to make 
 any great figure in astronomy or metaphysics ; 
 nevertheless, we became very familiar with the 
 heavenly bodies, and discoursed, with a most 
 imposing gravity, on matter and spirit. We 
 exercised all our ingenuity to find out in what 
 part of the human frame the soul had fixed her 
 abode, but were totally unable to make the dis- 
 covery, till our friend, with his usual singularity 
 of thought, determined it to be in every part 
 where there is sensation, and particularly in those 
 parts where sensation is most exquisite. 
 
 : 'But, as it is much easier to pull down
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 319 
 
 systems than to establish them, we destroyed the 
 globe, and all that it inherits, with surprising- 
 expedition. A comet was seized upon by both 
 of us, at the same moment, as the engine to be 
 employed in the tremendous conflagration. The 
 contest for the originality of this idea was carried 
 on, with equal zeal, between us for some time, 
 which my antagonist concluded by introducing 
 another very interesting subject for inquiry — 
 whether the great day of judgment was to pre- 
 cede, accompany, or follow this great event of 
 the world's dissolution ? In the course of his 
 harangue, he rose to such a fervour of thought, 
 delivered such forcible language, and intermingled 
 such striking expressions from the Scriptures, 
 that he grew pale beneath his own conceptions. 
 The alarm was contagious, and made my blood 
 curdle in its veins. I verily believe, if a rattling 
 thunderstorm had immediately followed his 
 oration, that our confusion would have been too 
 serious to have admitted of an acknowledgment. 
 The two ladies who composed our audience were 
 thrown into such a terror of mind that I began 
 to apprehend the evening's amusement would 
 have concluded in sending two handsome and 
 useful women to the Magdalen. My house, with 
 all its advantages, is not calculated for the actual 
 work of contrition, though it may prepare the
 
 320 THE LIFE OF 
 
 way for it : and if such a scene of repentance 
 had really happened, it would have constituted 
 an era in my life sufficient to seduce the attention 
 of mankind from all the past singularities of it." 
 
 The house from which this letter was written 
 lies in a hollow, and cannot be seen from any of 
 the roads which skirt three sides of the grounds, 
 or from the footpaths through the old church- 
 yard which adjoins the fourth. The entrance 
 is through a gateway flanked by stone effigies 
 of lions sitting on their haunches, and looking 
 very steadfastly at the ancient hostelry over 
 the way. A score of yards of a carriage drive, 
 bordered with flowers and backed by old trees, 
 are seen through the gate, and the roofs of the 
 coach-house and stables rise above the high 
 brick wall which surrounds the grounds ; but 
 from any other point only the venerable chestnuts 
 and Scotch firs which screen the house can be 
 seen. The place is now occupied by Mr. Eowland, 
 the trainer, and the curious in family history 
 and legend may be disappointed on learning 
 that it underwent such extensive alterations 
 about sixteen years ago as to be now almost a 
 new house. 
 
 About the middle of October Lord Lyttelton 
 was called upon, by the customs of society, to
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 321 
 
 wear the outward sip;n of mourning for his 
 cousin, George Edward Ayscough. Two years 
 previously this contemptible individual had left 
 England to recruit his health, which had been 
 undermined by vicious excesses, by a Continental 
 tour. He derived, however, but partial and 
 temporary relief from the air of France and 
 Italy, and, returning to England in the summer 
 of 1779, he lingered for a short time, and died 
 on the 14th of October. Nichol says that he 
 " left behind a monument of unexampled dis- 
 regard of every principle of virtue and decency 
 in a journal of the most secret transactions of 
 his life, in which, from most authentic informa- 
 tion, I am assured that he, in the grossest terms, 
 has recorded facts which Aretin himself would 
 be ashamed to paint, and the most abandoned 
 haunter of the stews would blush to read."* 
 
 The following letter, which seems to have been 
 the latest which has been preserved, + was probably 
 
 * " Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century." 
 t It is stated in the preface to the second edition of the 
 letters, published in 1806, that the thirtieth letter, which bore, in 
 the manuscript copy, the conjectural date of the summer of 1775, 
 appears to have been written the last of the collection ; but this 
 statement is contradicted by the internal evidence of the letters 
 themselves. The letter referred to above could not have been 
 written earlier than the time there assigned to it ; and the forty- 
 seventh, in which the suicide of John Darner is mentioned, and 
 the fifty-seventh, written after the death of the Earl of Chatham 
 must have been written respectively in 1776 and 1778. 
 
 T
 
 322 THE LIFE OF 
 
 written about this time, as it refers, in the last 
 paragraph, to the gathering storm in Ireland, a 
 subject which was then engaging much of Lord 
 Lyttelton's attention : — 
 
 "I acknowledge, with a very serious concern, 
 the indecisive and sluggish spirit of the present 
 Administration. This political temper of our 
 leading statesmen was amiable in its origin, per- 
 haps pardonable in its progress, but is equally 
 unaccountable and disgraceful, to say no worse, 
 at this very important period. The humanity of 
 the royal breast, co-operating with the moderate 
 spirit of his immediate councils, and the general 
 disposition of the nation, produced those lingering 
 measures in the beginning of the present troubles 
 which encouraged the insolence of democratic 
 ambition. If half the regiments which have 
 hitherto been employed in vain, with a pro- 
 portionable fleet, had crossed the Atlantic at the 
 early period of American revolt, the mis-shapen 
 legions of rebellion would have been awed into 
 submission, and the numerous loyal inhabitants 
 would have had a strong hold to which they 
 might have resorted for protection, instead of being- 
 urged, by the hopes of preserving their menaced 
 property, to join the standard of rebellion, to 
 which, by seduction, by habit, or by necessity,
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 323 
 
 many of them vowed, and some of them have 
 proved, their fidelity. 
 
 "This humane disposition of Government to- 
 wards the colonies, which has proved a fatal error 
 in the politics of our day, naturally led to another, 
 which arose from the placing a confidence in, and 
 drawing their intelligence from men, some of whom, 
 I imagine, were as deficient in judgment as the rest 
 were in honesty — I mean the American refugees. 
 By their suggestions ministers were influenced to con- 
 tinue the inactive line of conduct, till independence 
 w T as thundered in their ears, and circumstances 
 seemed to announce that alliance which has since 
 taken place between the natural enemies of this 
 country and its revolted subjects. Permit me to 
 observe that, in the early period of this unhappy 
 business, the nation at large seemed indisposed to 
 adopt the measures of fire and sword. The people, 
 very generally, hoped and believed that the al- 
 ternate anathemas and conciliatory propositions 
 of our Acts of Parliament would have answered 
 their beneficial intentions of quieting the disorders 
 of the colonies ; and I verily believe, if, at the 
 period to which I allude, a Parliamentary motion 
 had been made to provide for the sending a large 
 fleet and army, with an active design, to America, 
 that ministerial power would have met with a 
 
 very numerous and respectable opposition ; nor 
 
 y 2
 
 324 THE LIFE OF 
 
 would the humanity of the nation at large have 
 been satisfied with a design which portended the 
 slaughter of British subjects ; while faction would 
 have lifted up its voice against it, as being framed 
 upon the principle of extending, with drawn 
 swords and bayonets fixed, the powers of cor- 
 ruption and the influence of the Crown. 
 
 " I again repeat that, at this time, there was 
 a very general aversion in the British nation from 
 entering seriously into the contest ; for, even after 
 the Americans had published their separation 
 from Great Britain, and hostilities were actually 
 commenced, the exertions of British valour were 
 languid, and the rebels, at least on the sea, 
 gained more advantages than they have since 
 done with the open alliance of France and the 
 secret aid of Spain. When that unnatural union 
 took place, the British nation underwent a pretty 
 general and very sudden change in sentiments ; 
 and many of the most rational friends of America 
 could no longer consider its inhabitants as fellow- 
 subjects when they humbly implored the ready 
 ambition of France to support them in their dis- 
 obedience to their lawful sovereign. 
 
 "At this period, I must acknowledge that my 
 expectations were broad awake to the most vigorous 
 exertions of the British Government. I did not 
 doubt but the genius of my country would arise
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 325 
 
 and shake his spear. Alas ! one general was 
 appointed upon a principle of reconciliation, and 
 he does not reconcile ; a second is named, and 
 accoutred beyond example, for execution, and he 
 executes nothing. A third succeeds, and new 
 expectations are on the wing. Immense expenses 
 are incurred, the national debt enormously in- 
 creased, and no substantial advantages are obtained. 
 At length my patience is almost exhausted ; I 
 begin to view the indecisive spirit of Ministry 
 in a criminal light ; and, if some promising 
 symptom of a change in their measures do not 
 appear at the meeting of Parliament, I will repeat 
 what I have now written, and much more, in 
 their very teeth. The place I hold shall not 
 bribe me from letting loose the angry spirit of 
 my reproach against them. 
 
 " But another scene is opening that is preg- 
 nant with more alarm, and may bring on a 
 contest more trying to this nation than the 
 Transatlantic commotions and the ambition of 
 France. I allude to the growing discontents of 
 Ireland. You must too well know that there 
 are, at this moment, thirty thousand independent 
 men in arms in that kingdom, who have erected 
 their own standards, and are prepared either to 
 repel a foreign invasion or to resist domestic 
 tyranny. The Irish have long been an op-
 
 326 THE LIFE OF 
 
 pressed people; but oppression has not quenched 
 their spirit, and they have seized on the present 
 favourable moment to demand justice ; nay, if 
 they were to demand more than justice, England 
 is not in a situation to refuse it. But of these 
 matters I shall soon be better informed; and you 
 may be assured of being the first repository of 
 my future and more mature opinions. This is 
 rather a disheartening subject. It demands my 
 utmost resolution to look towards the storm 
 which is gathering in the sister kingdom. If, 
 however, that can be dissipated, and the bond 
 of peace, which is already cracked, be restored, 
 my fears will vanish, and I shall no longer doubt 
 but that Great Britain and Ireland, in spite of 
 American rebellion, of foreign foes, of an inde- 
 cisive, timid, procrastinating Ministry, and of a 
 noisy, malicious, hungry faction, will work out 
 their own salvation, and close the present contest 
 with added glory." 
 
 It is a circumstance which testifies strongly 
 to the pains taken by Lord Lyttelton to obtain 
 the fullest and most accurate information con- 
 cerning the questions which came before the 
 House of Lords, and confirms the assertion made 
 in one of his letters, that his course in Parliament 
 was the result of " curious research, ardent re-
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 327 
 
 flection, and deliberate preparation," that, before 
 the meeting of Parliament in November, 1779, 
 he went to Ireland, in order to acquaint himself 
 fully with the state of affairs in that country, 
 which could scarcely fail to become a subject of 
 keen debate in the ensuing session. He was 
 intimate with the Fortescues, who had estates in 
 Ireland ; but he determined to see the state of 
 the country for himself, and to obtain the infor- 
 mation which he considered essential on the spot, 
 in preference to gathering the views and opinions 
 of others, however deserving they might be of his 
 confidence. 
 
 The duration of his stay in Ireland cannot 
 now be ascertained ; but he was there in the 
 beginning of November, and it is improbable that 
 he contented himself with a week's sojourn in 
 Dublin. The origin and organisation of the Irish 
 volunteers, the opinions of the commercial classes 
 on the important question of free trade, and the 
 feelings with which the connection with Great 
 Britain was regarded by all ranks of the people, 
 were the matters which chiefly engaged his atten- 
 tion ; and he returned to England thoroughly 
 informed on the Irish question, and determined 
 to exert himself to the utmost to obtain an 
 amelioration of the condition of Ireland, on the 
 broad basis of justice.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Lord Lyttelton's Secession from the Ministerial Banks — Great 
 Speech on the Irish Question— Opinions of the Whig and 
 Tory Journals— Lord Sandwich and Miss Ray — Understand- 
 ing between Lord Lyttelton and the Earl of Shelburne— 
 More Calumnies of Horace Walpole — Lord Lyttelton's 
 Famous Dream — Various Versions of the Story — New 
 Light on it from the Family Archives at Hagley Hall— 
 The Dowager Lady Lyttelton's Picture— True Circumstances 
 of Lord Lyttelton's Sudden Death— His Will— Conclusion. 
 
 Parliament met on the 25th of November, 1779. 
 Lord Lyttelton took a seat next to the Earl of 
 Shelburne, and rose at an early period of the 
 debate on the address to deliver his views on the 
 Irish question, which was fast becoming one of 
 the greatest importance. After a few words in 
 condemnation of the general policy of the Govern- 
 ment, he addressed himself to the subject upon 
 which he had so carefully collected information, 
 and at once fixed the attention of the House. 
 
 " No man," he said, " is more loyal than my- 
 self, or more ready to support every measure 
 calculated to maintain the honour and dignity of
 
 LIFE OF THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 329 
 
 the Crown and empire ; but the times are critical, 
 and require the unanimity which is so much talked 
 of, but so little understood. Ministers talk of 
 the necessity of union, while their own conduct 
 is an example of the most jarring counsels and 
 the most divided opinions. The foundation of 
 unanimity is decision ; can ministers say that their 
 Government is decisive ? What is their system 
 of government ? Who will be hardy enough 
 to say that they have any settled plan ? Fatal 
 experience has shown the futility of their late 
 policy ; America shows the folly of ministers in 
 a rash, ridiculous, extravagant Avar, which, instead 
 of being governed by a wise, regular, and well- 
 digested plan, is merely a chain of expedients — 
 a repetition of instances of governing and dividing 
 — an example of that wretched policy, divide et 
 imp era ! 
 
 " What is their policy respecting Ireland ? I 
 hoped to have heard a plain and explicit decla- 
 ration from ministers of some settled mode of 
 meeting the complaints of the sister-kingdom, and 
 applying an efficient remedy. The affairs of Ire- 
 land have come to a crisis ; this is perhaps the 
 last day we shall have to debate upon the sub- 
 ject — the last we shall have to consider a remedy. 
 The eyes of the Irish Parliament, of the Irish 
 associations, of the whole Irish people, are upon
 
 330 THE LIFE OF 
 
 us : they have looked to this day with the most 
 anxious expectation, and they will be governed 
 by this debate. What is said by the British Par- 
 liament concerning Ireland will determine the fate 
 of the country. We shall not again hear the lan- 
 guage of complaint from Ireland ; even now the 
 Irish ask for relief in a different tone to that 
 formerly used. They do not now beg it as a 
 favour ; they claim it as a right. Turn to the 
 present state of Ireland ; reflect on the crying 
 necessities of the people, and on the number of 
 armed men in the kingdom — men armed under 
 associations, and not in the pay of the Govern- 
 ment, nor even recognised by the Government. 
 
 " I have lately been in that country, and 
 have endeavoured to fully inform myself respect- 
 ing these associations ; and I have found that, 
 at the beginning of the present month, there 
 were 42,000 men in arms, of whom 25,000 were 
 as well trained and disciplined as our militia 
 after a year's embodiment. I have conversed 
 with several of the officers, and have inquired 
 into the motive for arming; and I found that 
 the first object was protection against foreign 
 enemies, they having applied to Government for 
 troops for the defence of the country, and been 
 told that none could be spared, and that they 
 must protect themselves. They endeavoured to
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 331 
 
 obtain the sanction of the Government, but the 
 Chancellor of Ireland [Lord LifFord] and the 
 Chief Justice of the King's Bench [Lord Annally], 
 opposed it on the ground that the levying of 
 war without the knowledge and authority of 
 Parliament was contrary to the meaning and 
 spirit of the Constitution, and that, therefore, 
 however worthy the motive for taking arms, and 
 commendable their conduct and discipline, and 
 however they might approve both as individuals, 
 they could not, as lawyers, give their approba- 
 tion to the movement, or cause it to be recognised 
 by the Government, without warranting a breach 
 of the Constitution." 
 
 Lord Lyttelton enlarged on this point, and 
 called upon the Ministry to avow then principles, 
 observing that, if what had taken place in Ireland 
 had occurred in "Worcestershire, he should cer- 
 tainly have told the promoters of the movement 
 that they were acting contrary to the Consti- 
 tution. He commented upon what had been 
 said in the speech from the throne, and by the 
 Earl of Chesterfield in moving the address, relative 
 to the zeal of the nobility and gentry, who had 
 raised new regiments and subscribed funds to 
 aid the Government ; and observed that the ex- 
 ample would have been less particular and less
 
 332 THE LIFE OF 
 
 confined, if England, like Ireland, had not been 
 in such a wretched condition that people had 
 little to give. 
 
 " The country," he continued, " has been 
 ruined and disgraced by an irresolute, weak, and 
 pusillanimous Administration. The people now 
 expect a decisive Administration, not a Govern- 
 ment of jobbers and jugglers. Why has one 
 noble lord""' resigned his seat in the Cabinet ? Is 
 it not because ministers cannot arrive at any 
 fixed rule of conduct ? The Government is to 
 the world the best instance of its own want of 
 firmness. It is a rope of sand, crumbling away 
 day by day, until it comes to nothing. I beg 
 noble lords to remember that the state of affairs 
 is such that it demands fair, open, and avowed 
 counsel — no whispering, no skulking, no deliver- 
 ing of opinions in private, and disavowing them 
 in public. Parliament is the great council of the 
 nation ; and it is the duty of every one of your 
 lordships to speak openly and ingenuously. It 
 is not a time when dissimulation can be practised 
 without entailing that disgrace on those that 
 attempt it which ought ever to be their punish- 
 
 * Lord Gower, who had been President of the Council. There 
 had been several changes immediately before the meeting of Par- 
 liament. The Earl of Hillsborough had taken the oaths that day.
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 333 
 
 merit, and which they very rarely escape ; it is a 
 time for speaking out plainly and honestly. 
 
 " For my own part, I speak from my heart ; 
 I wish to preserve my country, and I trust your 
 lordships will give me credit for sincerity, and 
 believe that I am not influenced by any pecuniary 
 motives. It is true I have a place, which per- 
 haps I shall not hold very long. I see noble 
 lords smile ; let them turn their eyes on their 
 own pusillanimity, their own weak, ill-judged, 
 and wretched measures, and then let them declare, 
 on their consciences, who is most fitly the object 
 of contempt — myself, openly and unreservedly 
 speaking my real sentiments in Parliament, with- 
 out regard to any personal considerations what- 
 ever, excepting only my position as an English- 
 man, my duty as a lord of Parliament, my duty 
 to my king, and my duty to my country, which 
 are with me, and ought to be with your lord- 
 ships, above all considerations ; or them, consent- 
 ing, in a moment of public difficulty and danger 
 like the present, to pocket the wages of prosti- 
 tution, and to sit cither in sullen silence, or, 
 what in my idea is still more criminal, to rise 
 and palliate the calamitous and disgraceful situa- 
 tion of the British empire, endeavouring to avert 
 the eyes of the nation from the threatening cloud 
 now hanging over our heads, and so near burst-
 
 334 THE LIFE OF 
 
 ing that it behoves us to consider how to meet 
 the coming storm. 
 
 "My lords, it is our interest to come directly 
 to a satisfactory compromise with Ireland. Cast 
 your eyes for a moment on the state of the 
 empire : America, that vast continent, with all 
 its advantages to us as a commercial and mari- 
 time people, lost — for ever lost to us ; the West 
 Indies abandoned ; Ireland ready to part from us. 
 Ireland, my lords, is armed ; and what is her 
 language ? ' Give us free trade and the free Con- 
 stitution of England, as it was originally, such 
 as we hope it will remain, the best calculated of 
 any in the world for the preservation of freedom.' 
 This language, my lords, is not the language of 
 an idle mob ; it is the loud voice of the whole 
 Irish people, who thunder it in your ears, and 
 will be heard. The Irish Parliament itself says 
 — Government there, my lords, as well as here, 
 has a majority at command ; but that majority 
 dares not dissent from popular opinion in this 
 particular ; it is, therefore, the unanimous voice 
 of Parliament, and through them of all Ireland 
 — that nothing less than free trade will content 
 them, and that they will have it. The associa- 
 tions, though originally armed for the defence of 
 the country against foreign foes, within these two 
 months have declared that they are ready to turn
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 335 
 
 their arms against domestic enemies. They have 
 not only received the thanks of their counties, 
 but of both Houses of Parliament, and of the 
 Lord-Lieutenant. 
 
 " Lay these matters, my lords, to your hearts ; 
 consider that these Irish associations are the 
 Whigs of Ireland — men who detest tyranny, and 
 consider passive obedience as a slavish doctrine 
 preached only by tyrants, and which none but 
 those who are lost to every sense of manly 
 feeling, and unworthy to enjoy the blessings of 
 freedom, would submit to. They complain, my 
 lords, of oppression— that they are plunged into 
 despair by the penury which it has entailed on 
 them ; they can bear it no longer, and they are 
 ready to change their masters. Let me, my 
 lords, repeat to you an expression which I heard 
 from a gentleman in the Irish House of Com- 
 mons, and which struck me very forcibly. Speak- 
 ing of the situation of Ireland, her necessities, 
 and her just rights, 'We have, sir,' said he, 
 addressing the Speaker, ' our back towards Eng- 
 land, and our face towards America.' My lords, 
 this expression conveys a strong impression, not 
 only of the present temper of Ireland, but of 
 what may be her future views. It is worth 
 while, surely, to put the matter out of doubt, 
 to meet the difficulty like men, declare what
 
 336 THE LIFE OF 
 
 relief you will give the sister kingdom, and en- 
 deavour to regain her confidence and esteem. 
 Give her free trade, unload her pension list, 
 lighten her burdens, and enable her to assist you, 
 not in ministerial jobs, not in granting convenient 
 sinecures to men who have done the countrv no 
 public service, but in the essential points and 
 considerations of a Government wisely conducted 
 and founded on true Constitutional principles. 
 
 " Remember, my lords, that every advantage 
 you give Ireland will be a double advantage to 
 England : open her ports, let them be filled with 
 shipping, and your marine will derive benefit 
 from it. Ireland regards the Government of 
 this country as fond of oppressing her, and un- 
 willing: to give her freedom. She wishes for a 
 Whig administration, and expects relief only 
 from the establishment of measures founded in 
 Whigism. Do not, my lords, in times like the 
 present, rely on the doctrine of prerogative. The 
 press may teach you how much that idea is 
 despised and exploded ; every newspaper teems 
 with libels on the king's ministers, which now 
 pass as matters of course, and are multiplied in 
 number and aggravated in quality beyond all 
 example. In a word, my lords, Government 
 must renovate the system before there will be
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 337 
 
 grounds for hope of better prospects ; the general 
 relaxation of manners must be corrected, autho- 
 rity must show her face again, and due sub- 
 ordination must be restored." 
 
 The Earl of Hillsborough complimented Lord 
 Lyttelton on his speech, observing that he had 
 spoken with great warmth, and " with those 
 commanding abilities which he so eminently pos- 
 sesses," and replied at considerable length to his 
 arguments, assuring the House that nothing was 
 to be feared from the armed associations of Ire- 
 land, and that ministers were prepared to give 
 the sister kingdom " equal trade." This expres- 
 sion called up Lord Lyttelton again, to ask the 
 new minister what he meant by it. Without 
 an explanation, the speech of Lord Hillsborough 
 amounted, he said, to nothing, and the people 
 of Ireland would have nothing to depend upon 
 but general promises conveyed in ambiguous 
 terms. What he meant by free trade was un- 
 restricted trade with any nation that was will- 
 ing to trade with Ireland. Was this, he asked, 
 what Lord Hillsborough meant by " equal trade V 
 The Earl of Hillsborough offered an explanation 
 of the ministerial views, but all that he made 
 clear was, that what they intended by "equal
 
 338 THE LIFE OF 
 
 trade " was not what Lord Lyttelton and the 
 people of Ireland meant by "free trade." 
 
 Lord Lyttelton rose again, and complained 
 that the earl had left the question where it was 
 before he spoke. He then recurred to the 
 Irish volunteers, and said that if Ireland was 
 left to protect herself, the inference was, that 
 the military force appropriated and paid for her 
 defence had been draughted to fight the Quixotic 
 battles of Great Britain on the other side of 
 the Atlantic. Ministers had stripped Ireland of 
 her internal defence, and left her at the mercy 
 of French and American freebooters. In reply 
 to the assertion of the Earl of Hillsborough that 
 many advantages had been derived from the 
 Irish associations, he admitted the fact, but 
 contended that the associations were illegal and 
 unconstitutional. Yet the Government had 
 assisted to arm them ; ministers might express 
 doubt, but the fact was notorious. The Lord- 
 Lieutenant himself had admitted to him that 
 seven thousand muskets had been distributed 
 among them. The people of Ireland were 
 resolute and determined ; they had taken the 
 Government into their own hands ; the asso- 
 ciations had chosen their officers, and, in some 
 instances, dismissed them, when they found that 
 they were not zealous in the cause of their
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 339 
 
 country, or inimical to its supposed interests. 
 The associations were composed of men of 
 property, from the first noble downward, and 
 the rank and file consisted of merchants, manu- 
 facturers, traders, and farmers. Indeed, the 
 conditions of service excluded the indigent, as 
 they provided their uniforms themselves and 
 received no pay. He repeated some of his former 
 arguments, and concluded by calling upon the 
 Earl of Hillsborough to make a more explicit 
 statement of the ministerial views and intentions, 
 or look forward to the dire alternative of the 
 total separation of Ireland from Great Britain. 
 
 Lord Lyttelton's speech won him encomiums 
 from both sides of the House. The Earl of 
 Shelburne said that he had spoken with great 
 candour and distinguished abilities, and the 
 industry he had displayed in making himself 
 fully acquainted with the Irish question, all 
 his statements on which were confirmed by ad- 
 dresses from both Houses of the Irish Parliament, 
 and by private communications received by him- 
 self, had done him great honour. The Marquis 
 of Eockingham's amendment was rejected, how- 
 ever, by eighty-two votes against forty-one, Lord 
 Lyttelton voting with the minority, and the 
 address was then agreed to without a division. 
 
 All the circumstances of Lord Lyttelton's 
 
 z 2
 
 340 THE LIFE OF 
 
 political status at this time show that he was 
 regarded as a rising man, whose adhesion all 
 parties were desirous of securing, and whose 
 abilities and, more than these, uprightness and 
 independence — rare qualities in those times — were 
 hopefully regarded by the nation at large. His 
 speech was described in the Morning Chronicle 
 as "one of the most animated censures on the 
 conduct of the Administration, for their want of 
 decision, pusillanimity, and want of system, that 
 ever was uttered in Parliament." Even the 
 Morning Post acknowledged it to have been an 
 " eloquent harangue," — the Tory print, which Lord 
 Lyttelton had stigmatised a few years previously 
 as " a scandalous chronicle," Avhich had been " not 
 only saved from oblivion, but raised into universal 
 notice and reception, from its abusive histories" 
 of him, and which he had, in a letter to a friend, 
 wished "in the bottomless pit, with its writers, 
 printers, editors, publishers, collectors, and pur- 
 chasers," for its " malignant, false, and detestable 
 histories."* 
 
 Sir Nathaniel Wraxall, writing long after the 
 event, says that " the Ministry sustained about 
 this time a diminution of strength and loss of 
 talents in the House of Peers, which an Adminis- 
 
 * " Letters of the late Lord Lyttelton." 1806.
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 341 
 
 tration so unpopular could ill afford, by the 
 defection of Lord Lyttelton, who suddenly went 
 over to the side of the Opposition. He was a 
 man of very considerable Parliamentary abilities, 
 who, notwithstanding many glaring vices of private 
 character, might have made a conspicuous political 
 figure, if he had not been carried off in the prime 
 of life,"*" 
 
 A propos of Sir Nathaniel Wraxall's reflection 
 on the private life of Lord Lyttelton, it may be 
 remarked that a recent ministerial attack on the 
 character of Charles Fox had, about this time, 
 caused it to be asked in Whig; circles and in the 
 columns of Whig newspapers, how would the 
 Government defend the morals of Lord Lyttelton ? 
 Lord Lyttelton was well able to defend himself; 
 he was not a greater gambler than Fox, or a 
 greater libertine than Lord Sandwich, though, if 
 he had been less honest and independent, he 
 might have exceeded both in their peculiar vices, 
 and yet been visited at Pitt Place by the peers, 
 temporal and spiritual, who attended the dinners 
 and evening parties of the First Lord of the 
 Admiralty, and listened enraptured to the vocalism 
 of the unfortunate Miss Kay.t 
 
 * " Memoirs of my Own Time." 
 
 t Jesse's " Life and Times of George III." Miss Ray, the 
 mistress of the Earl of Sandwich, was murdered by a jealous 
 admirer, named Hackman.
 
 342 THE LIFE OF 
 
 The great speech which Lord Lyttelton made 
 on the first day of the session seems to have 
 been intended to be followed by another attack 
 on the Ministry on the occasion of the Earl of 
 Shelburne's motion, that the House should censure 
 them for their neglect of Ireland. The resolution 
 was moved on the 1st of December, when the 
 Earl of Abingdon referred to Lord Lyttelton's 
 speech of the week before, and stated that he 
 had been informed by a person in the confidence 
 of that " amiable nobleman," that Lord Lyttelton 
 had declared that " the paltry consideration of 
 place should not keep him from freely expressing 
 his opinion of the criminal negligence of the 
 Ministry ; " and that, if he had lived to that 
 day, he intended to have gone deeper into their 
 conduct.* 
 
 But before the debate on the Earl of Shel- 
 burne's resolution came on, Lord Lyttelton had 
 departed this life. He appeared to be in good 
 health when he went to the House of Lords on 
 the 25 th, and he spoke with his usual animation, 
 rising occasionally to an impassioned fervour. It 
 was one o'clock on the morning of the 26th when 
 the division was taken on the Marquis of Kocking- 
 ham's amendment to the Address, and he was 
 
 * Hansard's " Parliamentary History," vol. xx.
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 343 
 
 then observed to look ill. He did not go to 
 bed until some time afterwards, however, and it 
 does not appear that lie then complained of any 
 indisposition. On rising he complained of head- 
 ache, but this symptom passed off, and, in the 
 course of the day, he went down to Pitt Place, 
 where he was joined by a party of friends. 
 
 The incidents of the last two days of Lord 
 Lytteltons life have been related by the diarists 
 and memoir-writers of the period in every variety 
 of detail. Horace Walpole, who seems to have 
 treated his friends at second-hand to every morsel 
 of gossip that reached him, without taking the 
 trouble to ascertain whether it had the smallest 
 foundation in fact, wrote to Sir Horace Mann 
 that Lord Lyttelton, after making a violent speech 
 against the Government, looked ill, but went to 
 Epsom on the following day wdth " a caravan of 
 nymphs," and on the next night retired before 
 supper to take a dose of rhubarb, returned to 
 the supper-room, supped heartily, went to his 
 chamber, and died in an instant. To the Eev. 
 Williani Mason the same veracious gossip wrote 
 that the noble subject of his scandalisiug pen 
 supped on fish and venison with " four girls 
 picked up in the Strand ; " that, after supper, he 
 complained of feeling ill, and retired to rest ; 
 that his bell rang ten minutes afterwards, and
 
 344 THE LIFE OF 
 
 that his servant, entering his chamber immediately, 
 found him at the point of death. 
 
 Disentangled from the web of fiction which 
 calumny has woven around the facts, the story of 
 Lord Lyttelton's last hours of life is much less 
 sensational than it appears in the pages of Walpole 
 and Wraxall, but still remarkable enough. The 
 newspapers of the period are less amusing than 
 the gossip of the Strawberry Hill letter-writer ; 
 but they give us facts, and facts are the materials 
 of which a biography should be composed. From 
 these it may be gleaned that the party assembled 
 at Pitt Place on the 26th of November com- 
 prised Lord Lyttelton, Mr. Fortescue (eldest son 
 of Lord Fortescue), Captain (afterwards Admiral) 
 Wolseley, Mrs. Flood, and the Misses Amphlett,* 
 who are described in Lord Lyttelton's will as the 
 daughters of his " dear friend and relative, Mrs. 
 Mary Amphlett, of Clent." In this society all 
 traces of fatigue and symptoms of indisposition 
 vanished, and Lord Lyttelton retired to rest, ap- 
 parently in his usual health and spirits. 
 
 It was then, according to reports subsequently 
 
 * Peter Cunningham, though he appends a note to Horace 
 Walpole's calumnious statement respecting the party at Pitt 
 Place, says that " two of them were Margaret and Christina 
 Amphlett, who were provided for in his will," leaving it to be 
 inferred that these young ladies, members of a respectable 
 "Worcestershire family, were two of the " four girls picked up in 
 the Strand."
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 345 
 
 circulated, that he dreamed that he saw a lady 
 who had been dead several years, and that she 
 warned him that he would die on the following 
 night at twelve o'clock. The various accounts 
 of this nocturnal visitation differ both as to its 
 nature and the person from whom the warning 
 proceeded. Sir Nathaniel Wraxall calls it an 
 apparition, and blunders so far as to say that 
 it was the ghost of Mrs. Dawson, who continued 
 to inhabit this sublunary sphere long after Lord 
 Lyttelton's decease 1 Pennington, repeating the 
 gossip of the day, says, " the vision is said to 
 have appeared in the form of Miss , a young- 
 lady whom he had seduced with circumstances of 
 great profligacy, and who was then dead."* There 
 is as little truth in one story as in the other. 
 Lord Lyttelton is said to have related his dream 
 to his guests on the following morning, while they 
 were assembled round the breakfast-table ; and 
 it is not at all probable that he told the story 
 as rumour told it afterwards, or that he gave 
 one version of the story to his friends, and another 
 to his valet, who is said to have received it from 
 him, and to have repeated it to the Dowager Lady 
 Lyttelton with every supernatural accessory with 
 which it has been told in later times, t 
 
 * " Memoirs of Elizabeth Carter." 
 
 t Wraxall's " Memoirs of my Own Time."
 
 346 THE LIFE OF 
 
 It is worthy of remark that, in the announce- 
 ment of the event in the newspapers, the maga- 
 zines, and the " Annual Kegister," no mention is 
 made of any remarkable circumstance in connec- 
 tion with it. The first report of the dream which 
 I have been able to discover, occurs in a letter 
 from Mrs. Delany to her niece, Mrs. Port, written 
 from St. James's Place, on the 9th of December, 
 and in which she mentions Lord Lyttelton " seeing 
 a bird turned into a woman, who gave him warn- 
 ing of his approaching end." Mrs. Delany adds 
 a "hearty dinner" to the supper of fish and 
 venison mentioned by Walpole, and refers to the 
 unfortunate nojbleman's "flow of spirits," after 
 which, she says, he " complained of a pain in 
 his stomach, which lasted but a little before he 
 expired at once." 
 
 About six months afterwards, when Johnson^ 
 Boswell, Croft, and Henderson were taking tea 
 one afternoon with Dr. Adams, in the latter's rooms 
 at Oxford, Boswell mentioned Lord Lyttelton^ 
 "vision," and "the jn^diction of the time of 
 his death, with its exact fulfilment." 
 
 " It is the most extraordinary thing which 
 has happened in my day," observed Johnson. " I 
 heard it with my own ears from his uncle, Lord 
 Westcote. I am so glad to hear every evidence to 
 the spiritual world, that I am willing to believe it."
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 347 
 
 11 You have evidence enough," said Dr. Adams. 
 " Good evidence, which needs not such support," 
 
 " I like to have more," rejoined Johnson, as 
 if he had a lingering doubt on the subject, which 
 could only be kept at rest by a constant succes- 
 sion of evidences. 
 
 Lord Westcote was a brother of the first Lord 
 Lyttelton, and an Irish peer, afterwards created 
 Lord Lyttelton of Frankley. The version of the 
 story of Lord Lyttelton's dream and death which 
 Johnson received from him remained unknown 
 until November, 1874, when the present Lord 
 Lyttelton communicated to Notes and Queries 
 the following narrative, which was drawn up by 
 Lord Westcote, and was, no doubt, that which 
 had been verbally communicated to Johnson : — 
 
 " On Thursday, the 25th of November, 1779, 
 Thomas Lord Lyttelton, when he came to break- 
 fast, declared to Mrs. Flood, wife of Frederick 
 Flood, Esq., of the kingdom of Ireland, and to 
 the three Miss Amphletts, who were lodged in 
 his house in Hill Street, London (where he then 
 also was), that he had had an extraordinary dreani 
 the Night before ; he said he thought he was in 
 a room which a Bird flew into, which appearance 
 was suddenly changed into that of a Woman 
 dress'd in white, who bade him prepare to Die;
 
 348 TEE LIFE OF 
 
 to which he answered, 'I hope not soon, not in 
 two Months;' she replied, 'Yes, in three Days.' 
 He said he did not much regard it, because he 
 could in some measure account for it, for that a 
 few days before he had been with Mrs. Dawson, 
 when a Robin Redbreast flew into her room. 
 
 When he had dressed himself that day to 
 go to the House of Lords, he said he thought 
 he did not look as if he was likely to Die : In 
 the Evening of the following Day, being Friday, 
 he told the eldest Miss Amphlett that she look'd 
 melancholy ; but, said he, ' You are foolish 
 and fearfull, I have lived two Days, and, God 
 willing, I will live out the third/ On the 
 morning of Saturday he told the same ladies 
 that he was very well, and believed he shou'd 
 bilk the ghost. Some hours afterwards he went 
 with them, M r Fortescue & Captain Wolseley, 
 to Pitt Place, at Epsom; withdrew to his 
 bed-chamber soon after eleven o'Clock at ni^ht, 
 talked cheerfully to his Servant, and particularly 
 inquired of him what care had been taken to 
 provide good Roles for his breakfast the next 
 morning; Stepd into Bed with his Waistcoat on, 
 and as his Servant was pulling it off, put his 
 hand to his side, sunk back, and immediately 
 expired without a Groan, he ate a good Dinner 
 after his arrival at Pitt Place that day, took an
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 349 
 
 egg for his supper, and did not seem to be at 
 all out of Order, except that while he was eating 
 his Soup at Dinner he had a rising in his 
 Throat, a Thing which had often happened to 
 him before, & which obliged him to spit some 
 of it out. his Physician, D r Fothergill, told me 
 Lord Lyttelton had, in the summer preceding, 
 a bad pain in his side ; & he judged that some 
 great Vessel in the part where he had felt the 
 Pain gave way, & to that, he conjectured, his 
 Death was oweing. His Declaration of his 
 Dream, and his Expressions above mention'd, 
 consequential thereunto, were, upon a close in- 
 quiry, asserted to me to have been so, by 
 M rs Flood, the eldest Miss Amphlett, Captain 
 Wolseley, and his Valet de Chambre Faulkner, 
 who dress'd him on the Thursday, and the 
 manner of his Death was related to me by 
 William Stuckey, in the presence of M r Fortescue 
 and Captain Wolseley, Stuckey being the Servant 
 who attended him In his Bed Chamber, and in 
 whose Arms he died. 
 
 " Westcote. 
 
 " February the 13 th , 1780." 
 
 This statement, while it confirms the story 
 of the dream in its simplest form, explains it 
 in a natural manner. Dr. Fothergill's evidence
 
 350 THE LIFE OF 
 
 ^t ir> U/\) 
 
 accounts for Lord Lyttelton's death, conformably 
 with the newspaper announcements which men- 
 tioned its cause ; while the fish and venison 
 supper of Walpole's story diminishes to an 
 egsr. Lord Westcote's mistake as to the number 
 of the Misses Amphlett may have originated in 
 inadvertence. 
 
 It is remarkable, however, that, though Lord 
 Westcote refers to Mrs. Flood, the eldest Miss 
 Amphlett, and Captain Wolseley as his autho- 
 rities for the account committed by him to 
 writing, a different version of the story was 
 given to the late Dowager Lady Lyttelton (a 
 daughter of the second Earl Spencer) by a son 
 of the Mr. Fortescue who was one of Lord 
 Lyttelton's guests at the time of his death. 
 This lady says : — 
 
 " M r George Fortescue called upon me one 
 day in town, & in a conversation on the subject 
 of an article in the Quarterly Review, which 
 ascribes the authorship of Junius to Tho s L d 
 Lyttelton, he told me, that he had often heard 
 from his father L d Fortescue, some details of 
 the death of Thomas L d Lvttelton, which must 
 be true, & are rather curious. He said that L d , 
 then M r , Fortescue was in London on the morn- 
 ing of ... 1 7 and went to see L d L. his first cousin,
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 351 
 
 who was then also in town, & had on the day 
 before made a fine speech in the H. of L ds . He 
 found him in bed, tho' not ill ; and on his rallying 
 him for it, L d L. said : ' Well, if you will wait 
 a little in the next room, I will get up & go 
 out with you.' He did so, & the two young- 
 men walked out into the streets. In the course 
 of the walk, they crossed the church yard of 
 S* James's Church ; and L d L. pointing to the 
 gravestones, said : ' Now look at all the vulgar 
 fellows, they die in their youth ; at five & 
 thirty. But you & I, who are gentlemen, shall 
 live to a good old age.' The walk ended by 
 their getting into a carriage and driving to- 
 gether to L d L.'s house at Epsom, where was 
 a party of his friends. They dined cheerfully, 
 & no allusion was made to any remarkable oc- 
 currence. In the evening, L d Lyttelton with- 
 drew to his room earlier than M r Fortescue, 
 who so far from having any anxiety or curiosity 
 on his mind respecting his cousin, sat before 
 the fire in the drawing-room with his feet on 
 the fender, and dropped asleep. He was aroused 
 by L d L.'s servant rushing into the room and 
 saying, ' My Lord is dying.' He "ran upstairs 
 and found that all was over. His servant said 
 that he had got into bed, and asked for his 
 usual medicine, a dose of rhubarb. Finding it
 
 352 THE LIFE OF 
 
 ill mixed, lie desired the servt. to mix it again. 
 No spoon being at hand, the man began to mix 
 it with a tooth pick that lay on the table. 
 ' Dirty fellow ! ' said L d L., ' go down & fetch 
 a spoon/ He obeyed, and on returning to the 
 room found his master speechless, fallen back 
 on the pillow, & in the last agonies. M r For- 
 tescue heard nothing then, nor for some days 
 after, of the dream or the prediction of his 
 death, which M r Fortescue seemed inclined there- 
 fore wholly to disbelieve. S. L." * 
 
 How are we to reconcile this statement with 
 the account which Lord Westcote received from 
 his nephew's other guests ? The question becomes 
 more perplexing as we push the investigation 
 farther, every teller of the story varying the 
 circumstances, and omitting some of the details 
 or adding others. 
 
 Sir Nathaniel Wraxall says that, dining at 
 Pitt Place about four years after the death of 
 Lord Lyttelton, he " had the curiosity to visit 
 the bed-chamber where the casement window, 
 
 * This document, the narratives of Sir Digby ISTeave and 
 Russel, the Guildford organist, and the letter of Mr. G. M. 
 Fortescue to the Hon. Miss Lyttelton, given in succeeding 
 pages, were communicated to Notes and Queries by the present 
 Lord Lyttelton, and are reproduced in the present volume by 
 the kindness and courtesy of Dr. Doran.
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 353 
 
 at which Lord Lyttelton asserted the dove ap- 
 peared to flutter was pointed out to me ; and 
 at his stepmother's — the Dowager Lady Lyttel- 
 ton's, in Portugal Street, Grosvenor Square, 
 who, being a woman of very lively imagination, 
 lent an implicit faith to all the supernatural 
 facts which were supposed to accompany or pre- 
 cede Lord Lyttelton's end — I have frequently 
 seen a painting which, she herself executed in 
 1780, expressly to commemorate the event. It 
 hung in a conspicuous part of her drawing- 
 room. The dove appears at the window, while 
 a female figure, habited in white, stands at the 
 foot of the bed announcing to his lordship his 
 dissolution. Every part of the picture was 
 faithfully designed after the description given 
 to her by the valet de chambre who attended 
 him, to whom his master related all the cir- 
 cumstances." 
 
 The Eev. Bouchier Wray Savile, in his work 
 on apparitions, reports the conversation as it is 
 given in Lord Westcote's document, but says 
 that the lady of the dream was Mrs. Amphlctt. 
 Both accounts are contradicted by the statement 
 in Nash's " Worcestershire," that Lord Lyttelton 
 made a vain attempt to address the figure. Mr. 
 Savile refers to an account of what passed at 
 Pitt Place, written by Mr. Kussel, a music-master, 
 
 2 A
 
 354 THE LIFE OF 
 
 at Guildford ; and says, quoting this narrative, 
 that Lord Lyttelton's valet " came down to fetch 
 some mint water, leaving his lordship alone. At 
 that moment the clock of the parish church, which 
 of course had not been tampered with, began 
 slowly to strike the true midnight hour. The 
 valet returned to his master, and called out loudly ; 
 the company ran upstairs, and found his lordship 
 quite dead." 
 
 Unfortunately for the credibility of this story, 
 Mr. Russel is said to have given a different version 
 of the affair to Mrs. Lefroy, who committed it 
 to paper, as follows : — 
 
 "Lord Lyttelton occasionally resided at a 
 house in or near Epsom, where Mr. Russel was 
 in the habit of attending him, and performing 
 for his amusement. Having received a summons 
 for one particular evening, Mr. Eussel rode to 
 Epsom, and, putting up his horse at an inn there, 
 walked to Lord Lyttelton's house. On entering 
 the courtyard, he was struck with the number of 
 carriages which filled it. On reaching the house, 
 he was conducted to an apartment in which was 
 a pianoforte, — the room served as an ante-room 
 to the dressing-room. The folding-doors between 
 the two apartments were thrown open, and as he 
 sat at the pianoforte, Mr. Russel could perceive
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 355 
 
 that the drawing-room contained a large party, 
 almost entirely consisting of gentlemen. Mr. 
 Eussel had not played long, when he was astonished 
 at hearing a loud noise of shouting and laughter 
 from the company in the drawing-room, the 
 gentlemen pulling out their watches and exclaim- 
 ing, 'We shall jockey the ghost after all; there 
 will be no ghost to-night, I fancy/ and other words 
 to that effect. A lady, related to Lord Lyttelton, 
 came from the drawing-room, apologising to Mr. 
 Eussel for the interruption to his music caused 
 by all this noise, adding that Lord Lyttelton had 
 been suffering from great depression of spirits, 
 and that the present party had been assembled 
 for the purpose of amusing him and dissipating 
 his melancholy. Many times during the course 
 of the evening these shouts and exclamations 
 were heard. 
 
 "Mr. Russel was at last given to understand 
 that he might finish. Lord Lyttelton came to 
 him, and, having paid him handsomely for his 
 performance, desired him to take his supper in 
 the house. This Mr. Russel declined, but said 
 that, with his lordship's leave, he would take a 
 glass of wine, and for this purpose he would step 
 into the butler's pantry as he went out. He did 
 so, and while drinking the wine, Lord Lyttelton 
 came into the pantry, and seating himself on the 
 
 2 a 2
 
 356 THE LIFE OF 
 
 plate-chest, complained to the butler of feeling 
 very unwell, and in great pain. The butler pro- 
 posed mixing him a glass of brandy and rhubarb, 
 and Lord Lyttelton agreeing to it, Mr. Russel 
 wished his lordship a good night, and took leave 
 of him. On his way through the offices, one of 
 the gardeners whom he happened to meet lighted 
 him out, and was making some observation to 
 him on the uproar which had been so often 
 heard during the evening, wdien, just as they 
 reached the outer door, a most dreadful scream 
 was heard from the interior of the house. ' And 
 this,' said the gardener, ' is worse than all the 
 rest.' 
 
 " Mr. Russel wished him good night, and 
 stopping only a few minutes at a lady's house in 
 Epsom to deliver a message, proceeded to the inn 
 where he had left his horse. Just as he reached 
 the inn door, he heard some one exclaiming, ' I 
 must have a horse to ride to London immediately, 
 for my lord is dead.' On looking at the person 
 who spoke, Mr. Russel perceived it to be the 
 gardener who had lighted him out of the house. 
 He now informed him that Lord Lyttelton had 
 fallen off the plate-chest speechless, and died as 
 he was being carried upstairs." 
 
 It is impossible to reconcile this narrative
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 357 
 
 with the statement of Mr. Fortescue, which must 
 be regarded as the more worthy of credence. 
 But there is yet another account, namely, that 
 given to the present Lord Lyttelton by Sir 
 Bigby Neave, in September, 1860, and which is 
 as follows : — 
 
 "In 1828, Mr. Taylor, of Worcester Park, 
 near Ewell, who was then above eighty years 
 of age, told me, then residing at Pit Place, that 
 he was in the neighbourhood during the year 
 1779, and heard particulars of the illness and 
 death of Lord Lyttelton from an Italian painter 
 visiting at Pit Place at the time of Lord 
 Lyttelton's death. 
 
 "Lord Lyttelton had come to Pit Place in 
 a very precarious state, and was ordered not to 
 take any but the gentlest exercise. Walking in 
 the conservatory with Lady AfHick and two Misses 
 Afflicks, a robin perched on an orange-tree close 
 ,to them. Lord L. attempted to catch it ; 
 but failing, and being laughed at by the ladies, 
 said he would catch it if it was the death of 
 him, and succeeded, putting himself in a great 
 heat by the exertion. He gave the bird to 
 Lady Afflick, who walked about with it in her 
 hand. 
 
 " Lord Lyttelton became so ill and feverish
 
 358 THE LIFE OF 
 
 that lie went off to London for advice to a house 
 in Bruton Street. In his delirium he imagined 
 that a lady with a bird in her hand, drawing his 
 curtain, told him he would die. 
 
 " Dreams being the Galamatia of waking 
 thoughts, it needed no ghost to fix such an im- 
 pression on the mind of a sick man, and this 
 may be said to clear away supernatural agency 
 thus far. As to death occurring at the moment 
 indicated by an apparition, and the putting on 
 of the clock by his friends — from the habits of 
 his boon companions in the house at the time, 
 and the report of the Italian painter, his in- 
 formant, Mr. Taylor was satisfied as to its being 
 a fable invented to mystify the public, as the 
 actual circumstances attending his death were as 
 follows : — 
 
 " Being in bed opposite a chimney-piece with 
 a mirror over it, he desired a valet to give him 
 some medicine, which was on the chimney-piece. 
 Seeing' him mixing it with a tooth-brush, Lord 
 Lyttelton raised himself up and rated him, but 
 he was so weak that his head sunk below the 
 pillow on to his chest, and he gasped for breath. 
 His valet, instead of relieving him, in his fright 
 left the room, and death ensued before assistance 
 could be given. 
 
 " Digby Neave.
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 359 
 
 "Mr. Taylor, of Worcester Park, told me the 
 names of the party in the house. I only recol- 
 lect that Mr. Michael Angelo Taylor was one of 
 them. He named that Lord L. had become 
 possessed of Pit Place in payment of a debt of 
 honour." 
 
 It is obvious that the most credible member 
 of this " cloud of witnesses ' : is Mr. Fortescue, 
 whose only surviving son addressed the following 
 letter to the Hon. Miss Lyttelton, no longer ago 
 than September, 1874 : — 
 
 " Dropmore, Maidenhead, Sept. 4, 1874. 
 
 " Dear Miss Lyttelton, — My father attached 
 no credit to the Lyttelton Ghost Story. 
 
 " He told me once that he was at Pitt Place 
 at the time that Lord Lyttelton died there ; that 
 though in weak health, Lord L. was in good 
 spirits, giving certainly no evidence of his having 
 received any premonition of an early demise ; 
 and that, on the night of his death, there was, 
 as far as he knew or heard, no unwillingness on 
 Lord L.'s part to retire to bed, and no putting 
 forward of the clock ; and that it Avas not till 
 some time after the event that he heard of the 
 female apparition having announced to him
 
 3G0 THE LIFE OF 
 
 (Lord L.) the day and hour of his death, &c. 
 My father, I think, told me, that Miles Peter 
 Andrews and another gentleman, whose name 1 
 have forgotten, were guests with him at Pitt 
 Place at the time. 
 
 " G. M. Fortescue." 
 
 Andrews was the gentleman to whom, ac- 
 cording to a ridiculous story which has been told 
 by Plumer Ward and others, the ghost of Lord 
 Lyttelton appeared at Dartford on the night of 
 the unfortunate peer's decease. According to this 
 story, Andrews was at Pitt Place in the course 
 of the day, but left, before night, for Dartford, 
 thirty miles off. Mr. Savile relates that " the 
 party at Pitt Place were additionally horrified by 
 receivinof intelligence on the following- mommo: 
 that the mother of the Miss Amphletts had ex- 
 pired in Warwickshire, unknown to them, at the 
 very time when she appeared to Lord Lyttelton, 
 on the Thursday night, and warned him of his 
 coming doom." But, a little farther on, Mr. 
 Savile says that Mrs. Cameron (a married sister 
 of the Misses Amphlett) stated that she heard 
 Mrs. Flood tell Mrs. Amphlett the story of 
 the ghost of Lord Lyttelton appearing to 
 Andrews ! 
 
 After all this contradictory evidence, which is
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 361 
 
 adduced only for the purpose of sifting to the 
 bottom the rubbish which has been heaped over 
 the facts, we may ask ourselves whether there 
 was even a dream ? Thus much may be ad- 
 mitted ; but the most remarkable matter con- 
 nected with Lord Lyttelton's death seems to me 
 to be the observation which the unfortunate noble- 
 man made to Mr. Fortescue in the churchyard, 
 as to " vulgar fellows " dying at thirty-five — 
 the ase at which lie died himself so soon after- 
 wards. 
 
 Whatever may have been present to Lord 
 Lyttelton's mind in the vivid and remarkable 
 dream concerning which so much has been written, 
 liis character disposes us to believe that the im- 
 pression that remained on waking must have 
 been deep and grave. Elizabeth Carter, who 
 knew him well, wrote to her friend Mrs. Vesey: 
 " We have received a very circumstantial and 
 authentic account of Lord Lyttelton's dream, which 
 you mention. Through all the affectation of dis- 
 regarding it, it appeared plainly, I think, that it 
 made a strong impression on his mind, though 
 not in such a way as seemed to be much for 
 his benefit, or he would have made a different 
 kind of preparation for the event." 
 
 The lady's biographer, Pennington, with more 
 of the spirit of Christian charity than most of
 
 362 THE LIFE OF 
 
 those who have written about Lord Lyttelton, 
 observes upon this passage of the pious and 
 learned Elizabeth's letter, that her reasoning 
 " seems by no means conclusive. In all cases of 
 supposed warnings, whether occasioned by a 
 troubled conscience within, or by any natural, 
 though perhaps not easily accounted for, circum- 
 stance without, God only can judge of the effect 
 which may be produced by it on the heart. 
 Lord Lyttelton never appears to have braved 
 the prediction, though he often alluded to it in 
 conversation ; and God only knows what resolu- 
 tions of amendment he may have made, how sin- 
 cerely determined on repentance, and how fervent 
 have been in private prayer to Him during those 
 three days." 
 
 It is a curious illustration of the pertinacity 
 with which errors are clung to by persons who 
 may readily inform themselves of the truth, that 
 most narrators of the story of Lord Lyttelton's 
 dream and death repeat the mistake as to the 
 interval between the prophecy and its fulfilment. 
 Lord Lyttelton spoke for the last time in the 
 House of Lords on Thursday night, went down 
 to Epsom on Friday morning, dreamed his re- 
 markable dream on Friday night, and died at 
 i<h*iu?<U»\ midnight on Saturday. The mistake seems to 
 have originated in a statement made to the Rev.
 
 THOMAS LOKD LYTTELTON. 363 
 
 William Mason by Horace "Walpole, that Lord 
 Lyttelton had on Thursday expressed to a friend 
 a presentiment that he should live only till Satur- 
 day, and that on Saturday he had said, " If I 
 survive to-day I shall go on." The remark which 
 he made on the day of his death is said, upon 
 other authority, to have been, " I believe I shall 
 jockey the ghost after all ; " and this he is said 
 to have made to Mrs. Flood, when night was 
 approaching, and he found himself still as well 
 as usual. 
 
 The account of his last moments given by 
 the newspapers of the period agrees substantially 
 with the details communicated by Horace Walpole 
 to Sir Horace Mann and the Rev. William Mason. 
 The cause of death is said to have been " a con- 
 cretion of blood about the heart and arteries, to 
 which surgeons give the name of polypus," and 
 which is said to have burst. The record of his 
 death in the Annual Register is unaccompanied 
 by a single line of comment, and appears to have 
 been copied verbatim from the journals of Novem- 
 ber 29th. On the 30th the Gazetteer contained 
 the following paragraph, which, on the following 
 day, was adopted, without acknowledgment, by 
 the Morning Chronicle : — " The death of Lord 
 Lyttelton is sincerely to be lamented. His lord- 
 ship, as is too frecjuently the case with men of
 
 364 THE LIFE OF 
 
 high birth, great fortune, and superior abilities, 
 gave too much way to the levities of youth ; but, 
 from the greater regularity of his late conduct, 
 there was reason to believe that his character 
 would have merited the esteem, as much as his 
 talents deserved the respect, of the world. His 
 Parliamentary character was most deservedly high, 
 as an able, manly, and most eloquent speaker, 
 possessing all that independence of spirit and 
 noble disdain of Court influence, from any pecu- 
 niary consideration, which so well becomes the 
 character of a real nobleman, and which is so 
 necessary for the preservation of our excellent 
 Constitution. His speech in the House of Lords 
 on Thursday was replete with political knowledge 
 and the most clear and forcible reasoning." 
 
 He had made his will a few weeks before his 
 death, appointing as executors his uncle, Lord 
 Westcote, who was the sixth son of Sir Thomas 
 Lyttelton, and succeeded to the title and the 
 estate of Hagley ; his brother-in-law, Lord 
 Valentia; and his friend Eoberts. The Arley 
 estate was bequeathed to his nephew, the Honour- 
 able George Annesley, subject to the payment 
 of the following annuities : two hundred pounds 
 to Lady Valentia, three hundred pounds to Mrs. 
 Dawson, and one hundred pounds to Clara Hay-
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON. 365 
 
 wood. To each of these ladies, and to others of 
 his friends, munificent bequests were made out 
 of the personalty : to Lady Valentia, one thou- 
 sand pounds ; to Mrs. Dawson, one thousand 
 pounds ; to Clara Haywood, two thousand pounds ; 
 to his niece and godchild, to whom he had given 
 the fanciful name of Honeysuckle, two thousand 
 pounds ; to Margaret Amphlett, five thousand 
 pounds ; to Christina Amphlett, two thousand five 
 hundred pounds ; to the Hon. Mr. Fortescue, three 
 thousand pounds ; Miles Peter Andrews, seventeen 
 hundred pounds and his gold watch ; to George 
 Bodens, five hundred pounds ; and to another 
 gentleman, named O'Byrne, five hundred pounds 
 A diamond bow, which had cost fourteen hun- 
 dred and thirty-eight pounds, was directed to 
 be sold, and the proceeds to be divided equally 
 between Margaret and Christina Amphlett. 
 
 The residue of his personal property was be- 
 queathed to the executors, with the exception of 
 his manuscripts, which were confided to Boberts, 
 who selected from them the contents of the small 
 volume of short poems published in the follow- 
 ing year. These effusions do not entitle Lord 
 Lyttelton to an exalted place among the British 
 poets, but most of them will bear comparison 
 with the best of the fugitive poetry of the period, 
 without discredit to the author. One piece is
 
 366 THE LIFE OF 
 
 remarkable for its striking resemblance to the 
 lines of Byron, commencing — " Born in a garret, 
 in a kitchen bred," for which it may have served 
 as a model. The amatory poems are conceived 
 with exuberant warmth and too vivid suggestive- 
 ness ; but the best of them are marked by the 
 lightness, grace, and fancy of the similar compo- 
 sitions of Moore. 
 
 The readers of this biography may form their 
 opinions of Lord Lyttelton's character for them- 
 selves. They have been shown the man as he 
 was, with all his faults and with all the sterling 
 qualities which endeared him even to those who 
 frowned upon his early frailties ; and have seen 
 how his traditional repute as "the wicked Lord 
 Lyttelton " grew out of the calumnies of po- 
 litical opponents, who disliked and feared him 
 for his honesty and his independence, and the 
 condemnatory generalisations of the Pharisees, 
 who would have had it believed that a man 
 who could not pronounce their Shibboleths after 
 their own manner must necessarily be a monster 
 of vice. The character of a strictly virtuous 
 man is not claimed for him : judged by the 
 standard of the present day, how many of those 
 who mingled in the public life of the last 
 century can justly receive that character ? But 
 his failings were more than counterbalanced by
 
 THOMAS LORD LYTTELTOX. 367 
 
 the noble qualities which are sufficiently attested 
 by the sneers of his political opponents, and by 
 the amiability which won for him the regard 
 of men like the Earl of Chatham and Earl 
 Temple, of women like Mrs. Montagu and Miss 
 Carter. 
 
 If we turn from his private life to his public 
 career, where shall we find, among the men of 
 his generation, another who, in his thirty-sixth 
 year, displayed equal talents ; or, at any period 
 of life, as much of the honesty and indepen- 
 dence which made him so conspicuous by their 
 uniqueness on the political arena of the eighteenth 
 century ? It is not much, perhaps, that he had 
 few rivals as an orator ; there was eloquence 
 enough and to spare, in that day, in both 
 Houses of Parliament. The public men avIio 
 were more rare in the Georgian era than orators 
 were those who, as has been said of Andrew 
 Marvel, were " bold enough to be honest, and 
 honest enough to be bold ; " and among the 
 few to whom that character can be applied 
 Thomas Lord Lytteltox shines conspicuously 
 to the mental vision of all who do not shun 
 the light. 
 
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 give a life-like presentation of this humble philosopher. . . . The many inci- 
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 esprit de corps, and his wanderings about the country, either in the performance 
 of his work or, when that was slack, taking a hand at the harvest, form an interest- 
 ing chapter of social history. The completeness of the work is considerably 
 enhanced by detailed descriptions of the district he lived in, and of his numerous 
 friends and acquaintance." — Athetueum. 
 
 Scots (Ancient)— An Examination of the An- 
 cient History of Ireland and Iceland, in so far as it concerns 
 the Origin of the Scots ; Ireland not the Hibernia of the 
 Ancients ; Interpolations in Bede's Ecclesiastical History and 
 other Ancient Annals affecting the Early History of Scotland 
 and Ireland — the three Essays in one volume, crown Svo, cloth 
 (pub 4s) Edinburgh, 1SS3 
 
 The first of the above treatises is mainly taken up with an investigation of the 
 early History of Ireland and Iceland, in order to ascertain which has the better 
 claim to be considered the original country of the Scots. In the second and 
 third an attempt is made to show that Iceland was the ancient Hibernia, and 
 the country from which the Scots came to Scotland; and further, contain aj 
 review of the evidence furnished by the more genuine of the early British Annals 
 against'the idea that Ireland was the ancient Scotia. 
 
 Magic and Astrology — Grant (James)— The 
 
 Mysteries of all Nations : Rise and Progress of Superstition, 
 Laws against and Trials of Witches, Ancient and Modern 
 Delusions, together with Strange Customs, Fables, and Talcs 
 relating to Mythology, Miracles, Poets, and Superstition, 
 Demonology, Magic and Astrology, Trials by Ordeal, Super- 
 
 stition in the Nineteenth Century, 
 (pub 12s 6d) 
 
 An interesting work on the subject of Superstition, valuable alike to archaeo- 
 logists and general readers. It is chiefly the result of antiquarian research and 
 actual observation during a period of nearly forty years. 
 
 £ S. D. 
 
 2 6 
 
 i 6 
 
 I thick vol, Svo, cloth 
 1880 
 
 060 
 
 040 
 
 2 6 
 
 Scut Carriage Free to any part of the United Kingdom on 
 receipt of Postal Order for the amount. 
 
 JOHN GRANT, 25 & 34 George IY. Bridge, Edinburgh.
 
 1 6 25 &* J4 George IV. Bridge, Edinburgh. 
 
 A Story of the Shetland Isles. 
 
 Saxby {Jessie M., author of '" Daala-Mist," &c.) — Rock- 
 Bou/nl, a Story of the Shetland Isles, second edition, revised, 
 crown 8vo, cloth (pub 2s), 6d. Edinburgh, 1877. 
 
 "The life I have tried to depict is the life I remember twenty years ago, 
 when the islands were far behind the rest of Britain in all that goes to make up 
 modern civilisation." — Extract from Preface. 
 
 Bur ti (R. Scott) — The Practical Directory for the Im- 
 provement of Lauded Property, Rural and Suburban, and the 
 Economic Cultivation of its Farms (the most valuable work on 
 the subject), plates and woodcuts, 2 vols, 4to, cloth (pub £3 3s), 
 15s, Paterson. • 
 
 Burnet's Treatise on Painting, illustrated by 130 Etchings 
 from celebrated pictures of the Italian, Venetian, Flemish, Dutch, 
 and English Schools, also woodcuts, thick 4to, half morocco, gilt 
 top (pub £4 10s), £2 2S. 
 
 The Costumes of all Nations, Ancient and Modern, 
 exhibiting the Dresses and Habits of all Classes, Male and Female, 
 from the Earliest Historical Records to the Nineteenth Century, 
 by Albert Kretschmer and Dr Rohrbach, 104 coloured plates 
 displaying nearly 2000 full-length figures, complete in one hand- 
 some volume, 4to, half morocco (pub £4 4s), 45s, Sotheran. 
 
 Dryden's Dramatic Works, library Edition, with Notes 
 and Life by Sir Walter Scott, Bart., edited by George Saints- 
 bury, portrait and plates, 8 vols, 8vo, cloth (pub £4 4s), £1 10s, 
 Paterson. 
 
 Zessing's (DrJ.) Ancient Oriental Carpet Patterns, after 
 Pictures and Originals of the 15th and 16th Centuries, 35 plates 
 (size 20 x 14 in.), beautifully coloured after the originals, 1 vol, 
 royal folio, in portfolio (pub £3 3s), 21s, Sotheran. 
 
 The most beautiful Work on the " Stately Homes of England." 
 Nash's Mansions of England in the Olden Time, 104 
 Lithographic Views faithfully reproduced from the originals, with 
 new and complete history of each Mansion, by Anderson, 4 vols 
 in 2, imperial 4to, cloth extra, gilt edges (pub £6 6s), £2 10s, 
 Sotheran. 
 
 Richardson's (Samuel) Works, library Edition, with 
 Biographical Criticism by Leslie Stephen, portrait, 12 vols, 8vo, 
 cloth extra, impression strictly limited to 750 copies (pub £6 6s), 
 £2 5s, London. 
 
 Sent Carriage Free to any part of the United Kingdom on 
 receipt of Postal Order for the amount. 
 
 JOHN GRANT, 25 & 34 George IV. Bridge, Edinburgh.
 
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