LYTTELTON. 1709-1773. Son of Sir Thomas Lyttelton, of Hagley, in Worcestershire Educated at Eton and Oxford - Visits France and Italy — Obtains a seat in Parliament Made Secretary to Frederick Prince of Wales - His Friendship with Pope and Thomson Is twice married Publishes his Observations on the Conversion of St. Paul' - Inherits his Father's Baronetcy - Is created a Peer Writes The History of the Reign of Henry II.' Death, and Burial at Hagley. GEORGE LYTTELTON, the son of Sir Thomas Lyttelton, of Hagley in Worcestershire,' was born in 1709. He was educated at Eton, where he was so much distinguished, that his exercises were recommended as models to his school-fellows. From Eton he went to Christ-Church, where he retained the same reputation of superiority, and displayed [1728] his abilities to the public in a poem on Blenheim.' He was a very early writer, both in verse and prose. His Progress of Love' [1732], and his 'Persian Letters,' were both written when he was very young; and indeed the character of a young man is very visible in both. The verses cant of shepherds and flocks, and crooks dressed with flowers; and the letters have something of that indistinct and headstrong ardour for liberty which a man of genius always catches when he enters the world, and always suffers to cool as he passes forward.3 He stayed not long at Oxford; for in 1728 he began his 1 By Christian, the younger of two sisters of Sir Richard Temple of Stowe, created successively Baron and Viscount Cobham. 2 His Blenheim,' fol., 1728, is his earliest production in print. 3 In the Persian Letters,' as in all his other works, Lyttelton is but an imitator-the idea, the name, and some of the details are borrowed from the 'Lettres Persannes' of the President Montesquieu, then in high repute.--CROKER: Quar. Rev., No. 155, p. 229. travels, and saw France and Italy. When he returned, he obtained [April, 1735] a seat in Parliament, and soon distinguished himself among the most eager opponents of Sir Robert Walpole, though his father, who was Commissioner of the Admiralty, always voted with the Court. For many years the name of George Lyttelton was seen in every account of every debate in the House of Commons. He opposed the standing army; he opposed the Excise; he supported the motion for petitioning the King to remove Walpole. His zeal was considered by the courtiers not only as violent, but as acrimonious and malignant; and when Walpole was at last hunted from his places, every effort was made by his friends, and many friends he had, to exclude Lyttelton from the secret committee. The Prince of Wales, being (1737) driven from St. James's, kept a separate court, and opened his arms to the opponents of the ministry. Mr. Lyttelton became [Oct. 1737] his secretary, and was supposed to have great influence in the direction of his conduct. He persuaded his master, whose business it was now to be popular, that he would advance his character by patronage. Mallet was made under-secretary, with 2007, and Thomson had a pension of 1007. a year. For Thomson Lyttelton always retained his kindness, and was able at last to place him at ease. Moore courted his favour by an apologetical poem, called The Trial of Selim,' for which he was paid with kind words, which, as is common, raised great hopes, that were at last disappointed. Lyttelton now stood in the first rank of opposition; and Pope, who was incited, it is not easy to say how, to increase the clamour against the ministry, commended him among the other 4 He entered as a Gentleman Commoner of Christ-Church, 4th December, 1725. Some of his verses are dated from Oxford in 1725, which must be the old style for the spring of 1726; and he seems not to have left it till the spring of 1728.-CROKER: Quir. Rec., No. 155, p. 227. He sat for Okehampton. He could not have opposed the Excise, as that scheme was brought forward in 1733, when Lyttelton was not a member. 7 Edward Moore, author of The Gamester,' and editor of 'The World,' died 1757. 8 patriots. This drew upon him the reproaches of Fox, who, in the House, imputed to him as a crime his intimacy with a lampooner so unjust and licentious. Lyttelton supported his friend, and replied, that he thought it an honour to be received into the familiarity of so great a poet. 9 While he was thus conspicuous, he married (1741) Miss Lucy Fortescue, of Devonshire,10 by whom he had a son, the late Lord Lyttelton, and two daughters, and with whom he appears to have lived in the highest degree of connubial felicity but human pleasures are short; she died in childbed about five years afterwards,11 and he solaced his grief by writing a long poem to her memory.12 : He did not, however, condemn himself to perpetual solitude and sorrow; for, after a while, he was content to seek happiness This is said ironically. He has also remembered him in his will. "Item, I desire Mr. Lyttelton to accept of the busts of Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, and Dryden, in marble, which his royal master the Prince was pleased to give me." These interesting busts are still at Hagley. They are smaller than life, and on black marble pedestals. 9 Compare Johnson in his 'Life of Pope,' p. 82. 12To the Memory of a Lady lately deceased, a Monody.' Millar [Novem ber], 1747, fol., pp. 15; and one of the last poems, if not the very last, that appeared in folio, a fashion that prevailed between 1680 and 1750. A parody appeared at the time also, in folio, entitled 'A sorrowful Ditty, or the Lady's Lamentation for the Death of her favourite Cat. A Parody. London: printed for J. Tomlinson, near St. Paul's, 1748.' The Burlesque Ode on the Monody by Smollett in 'Peregrine Pickle,' under the notion of a Pastoral on the death of his Grandmother, is different from this. again by a second marriage [10 Aug., 1749] with the daughter of Sir Robert Rich; but the experiment was unsuccessful.13 At length, after a long struggle, Walpole gave way, and honour and profit were distributed among his conquerors. Lyttelton was made (December, 1744) one of the Lords of the Treasury, and from that time was engaged in supporting the schemes of the ministry. Polities did not, however, so much engage him as to withhold his thoughts from things of more importance. He had, in the pride of juvenile confidence, with the help of corrupt conversation, entertained doubts of the truth of Christianity; but he thought the time now come when it was no longer fit to doubt or believe by chance, and applied himself seriously to the great question. His studies being honest, ended in conviction.1 He found that religion was true, and what he had learned he endeavoured to teach (1717), by Observations on the Conversion of St. Paul; a treatise to which infidelity has never been able to fabricate a specious answer. This book his father had the 15 . 13 Gilbert West speaks of Miss Rich as "an intimate and dear friend of his former wife, which," he adds, "is some kind of proof of her merit."-Letter to Doddribje, dated Wickham, 17th June, 1719. Mr. Lyttelton has not married a woman without fortune or a reasonable share of beauty: she has five thousand pounds at present, and will have as much more at her father's death. She has a good complexion, fine hair, and good teeth; has very good sense; lived a more reasonable retired life than young ladies now do; was an intimate friend of his first wife's; and from that friendship sprung his affection. He is a man who gives into neither the vices nor pleasures of the gay world; likes his own home; and those domestic sort of men always marry, and love their wife, be she who she will." - LADY HERVEY, Aug. 28, 1749 Letters,' p. 161). There is at Wickham a walk made by Pitt; and what is of far more importance, at Wickham Lyttelton received that conviction which produced his Observations on St. Paul.' Jonsson: Life of West. 15 The Observations on St. Paul were written to satisfy the scruples of the author of The Seasons': "My refuge and consolation is in philosophy Christian philosophy--which I heartily wish you may be a disciple of as well as myself. Indeed, my dear friend, it is far above the Platonick. I have sent you a pamphlet on a subject relative to it, which we have formerly talked of. I writ it in Kew Lane last year; and I writ it with a particular view to your satisfaction. You have therefore a double right to it; and I wish to God it may appear to you as convincing as it does to me, and bring you to add the faith to the heart of a Christian.LY ITELTON to Thomson, May 21, 1747. (Phillimore's Lyttelton,' i. 307.) |