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 schoolfellows. From Eton he went to Christchurch, where he retained
the same reputation of superiority, and displayed 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” 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. He stayed not long in Oxford, for in 1728 he began his travels,
and saw France and Italy. When he returned he obtained 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 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 £200, and
Thomson had a pension of £100 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 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. While he was thus conspicuous he
married (1741) Miss Lucy Fortescue, of Devonshire, 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,
and he solaced his grief by writing a long poem to her memory. He did
not, however, condemn himself to perpetual solitude and sorrow, for after
a while he was content to seek happiness again by a second marriage with
the daughter of Sir Robert Rich, but the experiment was unsuccessful. At
length, after a long struggle, Walpole gave way, and honour and profit
were distributed among his conquerors. Lyttelton was made (1744) one of
the Lords of the Treasury, and from that time was engaged in supporting
the schemes of the Ministry.
Politics 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. He found that religion was true, and what he had learned he
endeavoured to teach (1747) 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 happiness of seeing, and
expressed his pleasure in a letter which deserves to be inserted:—
“I have read your religious treatise with infinite pleasure and
satisfaction. The style is fine and clear, the arguments close,
cogent, and irresistible. May the King of Kings, whose glorious
cause you have so well defended, reward your pious labours, and grant
that I may be found worthy, through the merits of Jesus Christ, to be
an eye-witness of that happiness which I don’t doubt he will
bountifully bestow upon you. In the meantime I shall never cease
glorifying God for having endowed you with such useful talents, and
giving me so good a son.
“Your affectionate father,
“THOMAS LYTTELTON.”
A few years afterwards (1751), by the death of his father, he inherited a
baronet’s title, with a large estate, which, though perhaps he did not
augment, he was careful to adorn by a house of great elegance and
expense, and by much attention to the decoration of his park. As he
continued his activity in Parliament, he was gradually advancing his
claim to profit and preferment; and accordingly was made in time (1754)
Cofferer and Privy Councillor: this place he exchanged next year for the
great office of Chancellor of the Exchequer—an office, however, that
required some qualifications which he soon perceived himself to want.
The year after, his curiosity led him into Wales; of which he has given
an account, perhaps rather with too much affectation of delight, to
Archibald Bower, a man of whom he has conceived an opinion more
favourable than he seems to have deserved, and whom, having once espoused
his interest and fame he was never persuaded to disown. Bower, whatever
was his moral character, did not want abilities. Attacked as he was by a
universal outcry, and that outcry, as it seems, the echo of truth, he
kept his ground; at last, when his defences began to fail him, he sallied
out upon his adversaries, and his adversaries retreated.
About this time Lyttelton published his “Dialogues of the Dead,” which
were very eagerly read, though the production rather, as it seems, of
leisure than of study—rather effusions than compositions. The names of
his persons too often enable the reader to anticipate their conversation;
and when they have met, they too often part without any conclusion. He
has copied Fenelon more than Fontenelle. When they were first published
they were kindly commended by the “Critical Reviewers;” and poor
Lyttelton, with humble gratitude, returned, in a note which I have read,
acknowledgments which can never be proper, since they must be paid either
for flattery or for justice.
When, in the latter part of the last reign, the inauspicious commencement
of the war made the dissolution of the Ministry unavoidable, Sir George
Lyttelton, losing with the rest his employment, was recompensed with a
peerage; and rested from political turbulence in the House of Lords.
His last literary production was his “History of Henry the Second,”
elaborated by the searches and deliberations of twenty years, and
published with such anxiety as only vanity can dictate. The story of
this publication is remarkable. The whole work was printed twice over, a
great part of it three times, and many sheets four or five times. The
booksellers paid for the first impression; but the changes and repeated
operations of the press were at the expense of the author, whose
ambitious accuracy is known to have cost him at least a thousand pounds.
He began to print in 1755. Three volumes appeared in 1764, a second
edition of them in 1767, a third edition in 1768, and the conclusion in
1771.
Andrew Reid, a man not without considerable abilities and not
unacquainted with letters or with life, undertook to persuade Lyttelton,
as he had persuaded himself, that he was master of the secret of
punctuation; and, as fear begets credulity, he was employed, I know not
at what price, to point the pages of “Henry the Second.” The book was at
last pointed and printed, and sent into the world. Lyttelton took money
for his copy, of which, when he had paid the pointer, he probably gave
the rest away; for he was very liberal to the indigent. When time
brought the History to a third edition, Reid was either dead or
discarded; and the superintendence of typography and punctuation was
committed to a man originally a comb-maker, but then known by the style
of Doctor. Something uncommon was probably expected, and something
uncommon was at last done; for to the Doctor’s edition is appended, what
the world had hardly seen before, a list of errors in nineteen pages.
But to politics and literature there must be an end. Lord Lyttelton had
never the appearance of a strong or of a healthy man; he had a slender,
uncompacted frame, and a meagre face; he lasted, however, sixty years,
and was then seized with his last illness. Of his death a very affecting
and instructive account has been given by his physician, which will spare
me the task of his moral character:—
“On Sunday evening the symptoms of his lordship’s disorder, which for
a week past had alarmed us, put on a fatal appearance, and his
lordship believed himself to be a dying man. From this time he
suffered from restlessness rather than pain; though his nerves were
apparently much fluttered, his mental faculties never seemed
stronger, when he was thoroughly awake. His lordship’s bilious and
hepatic complaints seemed alone not equal to the expected mournful
event; his long want of sleep, whether the consequence of the
irritation in the bowels, or, which is more probable, of causes of a
different kind, accounts for his loss of strength, and for his death,
very sufficiently. Though his lordship wished his approaching
dissolution not to be lingering, he waited for it with resignation.
He said, ‘It is a folly, a keeping me in misery, now to attempt to
prolong life;’ yet he was easily persuaded, for the satisfaction of
others, to do or take anything thought proper for him. On Saturday
he had been remarkably better, and we were not without some hopes of
his recovery.
“On Sunday, about eleven in the forenoon, his lordship sent for me,
and said he felt a great hurry, and wished to have a little
conversation with me, in order to divert it. He then proceeded to
open the fountain of that heart, from whence goodness had so long
flowed, as from a copious spring. ‘Doctor,’ said he, ‘you shall be
my confessor: when I first set out in the world I had friends who
endeavoured to shake my belief in the Christian religion. I saw
difficulties which staggered me, but I kept my mind open to
conviction. The evidences and doctrines of Christianity, studied
with attention, made me a most firm and persuaded believer of the
Christian religion. I have made it the rule of my life, and it is
the ground of my future hopes. I have erred and sinned; but have
repented, and never indulged any vicious habit. In politics and
public life I have made public good the rule of my conduct. I never
gave counsels which I did not at the time think the best. I have
seen that I was sometimes in the wrong, but I did not err designedly.
I have endeavoured in private life to do all the good in my power,
and never for a moment could indulge malicious or unjust designs upon
any person whatsoever.’
“At another time he said, ‘I must leave my soul in the same state it was
in before this illness; I find this a very inconvenient time for
solicitude about anything.’
“On the evening, when the symptoms of death came on, he said, ‘I
shall die; but it will not be your fault.’ When Lord and Lady
Valentia came to see his lordship, he gave them his solemn
benediction, and said, ‘Be good, be virtuous, my lord; you must come
to this.’ Thus he continued giving his dying benediction to all
around him. On Monday morning a lucid interval gave some small
hopes, but these vanished in the evening; and he continued dying, but
with very little uneasiness, till Tuesday morning, August 22, when,
between seven and eight o’clock, he expired, almost without a groan.”
His lordship was buried at Hagley, and the following inscription is cut
on the side of his lady’s monument:—
“This unadorned stone was placed here by the particular
desire and express directions of the Right Honourable
GEORGE LORD LYTTELTON,
who died August 22, 1773, aged 64.”
Lord Lyttelton’s Poems are the works of a man of literature and judgment,
devoting part of his time to versification. They have nothing to be
despised, and little to be admired. Of his “Progress of Love,” it is
sufficient blame to say that it is pastoral. His blank verse in
“Blenheim” has neither much force nor much elegance. His little
performances, whether songs or epigrams, are sometimes sprightly, and
sometimes insipid. His epistolary pieces have a smooth equability, which
cannot much tire, because they are short, but which seldom elevates or
surprises. But from this censure ought to be excepted his “Advice to
Belinda,” which, though for the most part written when he was very young,
contains much truth and much prudence, very elegantly and vigorously
expressed, and shows a mind attentive to life, and a power of poetry
which cultivation might have raised to excellence.