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 Christ-church, where he retained the same
reputation of superiority, and displayed his abilities to the publick 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 staid not long at 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 a 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 two
hundred pounds; and Thomson had a pension of one hundred pounds 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
child-bed 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 awhile, 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.
Politicks 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 mean time, 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 counsellor: 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 had 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 an 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 Fénélon 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 charges
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 errours in nineteen pages.
But to politicks 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[200] 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 by
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 hepatick 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 any thing
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 vitious habit. In politicks, and
publick life, I have made publick 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 any thing.'
"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.
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[Footnote 200: Dr. Johnstone, of Kidderminster.]