" I have read your religious treatise with " infinite pleasure and satisfaction. The style " is fine and clear, the arguments close, co

gent, and irrefistible. May the King of "kings, whose glorious cause you have fo " 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 en"dowed you with such useful talents, and " giving me so good a fon.

"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 expence, and by much attention to the decoration of his park,

As

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 never was perfuaded 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 fallied out upon his adversaries, and his adversaries retreated.

About

About this time Lyttelton published his Dialogues of the Dead, which were very eagerly read, though the production rather, as it seems, of leifure 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 conclufion. 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, acknowledgements which can never be proper, fince they must be paid either for flattery or for justice.

When, in the latter part of the last reign, the inaufpicious commencement of the war made the dissolution of the ministry unavoidable, Sir George Lyttelton, lofing with the reft his employment, was recompenfed with a peerage; and rested from political turbulence in the House of Lords.

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His last literary production was his Hiftory 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 expence 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 conclufion in 1771.

Andrew Reid, a man not without confiderable abilities, and not unacquainted with letters or with life, undertook to perfuade Lyttelton, as he had perfuaded himself, that he was master of the secret of punctuation; and, as fear begets credulity, he was employed,

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ployed, 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 feen before, a list of errors 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 flender uncompacted frame, and a meagre face: he lasted however fixty years, and was then seized with his last illness. Of his death a very affecting and instructive ac