Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lyttelton, Thomas (1744-1779)
LYTTELTON, THOMAS, second Baron Lyttelton (1744–1779), commonly called the wicked Lord Lyttelton, son of George, first lord Lyttelton [q. v.], by Lucy, daughter of Hugh Fortescue of Filleigh, Devonshire, was born at Hagley, on 30 Jan. 1744. His boyhood was promising, his ‘figure, behaviour, and parts’ were generally admired; he read Milton with delight; he painted, and even Mrs. Montagu thought his paintings combined the excellences of Claude with those of Salvator Rosa. He was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, where he matriculated on 7 Nov. 1761, but did not graduate. While at Oxford he engaged himself to a daughter of General Warburton, but was sent abroad in the summer of 1763, pending arrangements for the settlement. He travelled for two years in France and Italy, and indulged freely in the fashionable vices, in consequence of which the engagement was broken off. On his return to England in the summer of 1765 he took part in a masque at Stowe, contributing some complimentary verses presented to Earl Temple by a little girl dressed as Queen Mab. Returned to parliament for Bewdley, Worcestershire, 21 March 1768, he made a favourable impression by a maiden speech on the Wilkes case (18 April), but was unseated on petition, 25 Jan. 1769. He then made a second tour in Italy, where his loose and prodigal habits occasioned a complete rupture with his family. He returned, however, apparently penitent, towards the end of 1771, was reconciled to his father, and was married with his approval in Halesowen Church on 26 June 1772 to Apphia, second daughter of Broome Witts of Chipping Norton, and widow of Joseph Peach, formerly governor of Calcutta. He published some extremely moral and insipid verses in his wife's honour in the ‘Westminster Magazine,’ i. 276, in the following April, and soon after deserted her for a barmaid, whom he carried with him to Paris (The Vauxhall Affray; or the Macaronies Defeated, London, 1773, 8vo, pp. 99, 110, and The Rape of Pomona, London, 1773, 4to, attributed to John Courtenay [q. v.]). Recalled to England by the death of his father, he took his seat in the House of Lords on 13 Jan. 1774, and made his maiden speech on 22 Feb. in the great debate on literary property. The question at issue was whether copyright in published works existed at common law, a question on which the judges were divided, but which was eventually determined in the negative. Lyttelton broke a lance with Lord Camden in defence of the rights of authors, but his speech seems to have been rather a rhetorical flourish than a sober argument. He also supported the Booksellers' Copyright Bill on the motion for its second reading, 2 June following. In politics he was a whig, but on American affairs he played at first the part of candid friend to the ministry, and ably defended the measure for settling the government of Quebec (17 June 1774 and 17 May 1775).
On the outbreak of hostilities, however, he severely censured the vacillation which had led to it, and denounced the employment of German mercenaries without consent of parliament as unconstitutional (1 Nov. 1775.). At the same time he inveighed against the opposition as little better than traitors, on 17 Nov. 1775 was sworn of the privy council, and next day was appointed chief justice in eyre of the counties north of Trent. In subsequent debates he supported the Prohibitory Bill, which laid an embargo upon the commerce of the rebellious colonies (15 Dec. 1775); opposed the Duke of Grafton's proposition for conciliation (14 March 1776); and made a powerful reply to Lord Chatham's speech in favour of peace on 30 May 1777; nor was his tone materially modified by the news of Burgoyne's surrender at Saratoga. After Chatham's death he pronounced an eloquent eulogium upon him, 2 June 1778. On 23 April 1779 he denounced in unsparing terms the mismanagement which had sent Keppel to Brest with an inadequate fleet, and avowed his total distrust of the ministry. In the debate on the address on 25 Nov. following he made a vigorous speech on the condition of Ireland, which he had recently visited, enlarging on the strength of the volunteer association, and the propriety of at once conceding free trade. The previous night, at his house in Hill Street, Berkeley Square, Lyttelton dreamed that a bird flew into the room and changed into a woman, who warned him that he had not three days to live (cf. Mrs. Piozzi, Autobiography, ed. Hayward, ii. 94). He told the dream, and the story at once became the talk of the town. Though he affected to make light of it, the occurrence weighed on his mind, but on the morning of the third day he said he felt very well and believed he should ‘bilk the ghost.’ Passing a graveyard with his cousin, Hugh Fortescue, afterwards Lord Fortescue, he remarked on the numbers of ‘vulgar fellows’ who died at five-and-thirty (his own age), adding, ‘But you and I, who are gentlemen, shall live to a good old age.’ The same day, accompanied by Fortescue, Captain (afterwards Admiral) Wolseley, and some ladies, he drove down to Pitt Place, Epsom, where he dined, and passed a cheerful evening in apparently good health. He died the same night (Saturday 27 Nov.), shortly after getting into bed at a quarter past eleven. The death, of which the sole witness was a manservant, was instantaneous, and is attributed to a fit in the subsequent issue of the ‘St. James's Chronicle.’ If, as is elsewhere stated, he suffered from heart disease, and was addicted to the free use of drugs, his death is easily explained. There was no post-mortem examination of the body, which lay in state for some days at Hill Street, and was then removed to Hagley for interment.
The curious correspondence between Lyttelton's dream and his death was from the first regarded by not a few as more than a mere coincidence; and told and retold ‘with advantages,’ the story soon acquired and long retained the rank of a first-rate ghost story, which the pious converted to edificatory uses. Among the believers was Johnson's friend, Dr. Adams, master of Pembroke College, Oxford; and Johnson himself, though not satisfied with the evidence, was ‘willing to believe’ (Boswell, ed. Birkbeck Hill, iv. 298; and cf. Horace Walpole, Letters, ed. Cunningham, vii. 28; Mrs. Delany, Autobiography, v. 498; Pennington, Memoirs of Mrs. Carter, i. 433). An appropriate sequel to the story was furnished by Miles Peter Andrews [q. v.], who averred that on the night and about the hour of Lyttelton's decease he dreamt that Lyttelton came to him and told him ‘all was over.’ Both dreams are recorded in the ‘Scots Magazine,’ 1779, p. 650. There is also an account of Lyttelton's dream in the ‘London Magazine,’ 1779, p. 534. Another in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine,’ 1816, pt. ii. 422, purports to be from a document preserved at Pitt Place, but cannot be of earlier date than 1785, when Hugh Fortescue, whom it calls Lord Fortescue, succeeded to the barony. Yet another account, drawn up by Lyttelton's uncle, Lord Westcote, and preserved at Hagley, bears date 13 Feb. 1780, and was published by permission of the fourth Lord Lyttelton in ‘Notes and Queries,’ 5th ser. ii. 401–2. All these accounts agree in all essential particulars (see also Wraxall, Memoirs, 3rd ed. i. 329; Mrs. Piozzi, Autobiography, ed. Hayward, ii. 94 et seq.; Nash, Worcestershire, Corr. and Add. p. 36).
Lyttelton left the family estates unencumbered, a moderate fortune made at play, and no lawful issue. Lady Lyttelton long survived him, and died in April 1840. The estates devolved upon William Henry Lyttelton, first baron Lyttelton of Frankley of the second creation [q. v.] Lyttelton's libertinism was exceptional even in his age and rank, and secured him a place in the ‘Diaboliad’ [cf. Combe, William]. He is said to have been physically timid, and, though a deist, afflicted with apprehensions in regard to the future state. During his brief public career he gave proof of abilities which, had he lived, must have carried him to a high position in the state. There is an engraving of Lyttelton's head from a miniature in Wraxall's ‘Memoirs,’ ed. Wheatley, i. 226–7.
What purports to be ‘A Letter from Thomas, Lord Lyttelton, to W. Pitt, Earl of Chatham, on the Quebec Bill,’ was published at Boston in 1774, 8vo, but is of doubtful authenticity. In 1775 appeared his ‘Speech … on a Motion made in the House of Lords for a Repeal of the Canada Bill, May 17, 1775,’ London, 4to. A thin volume of verse, entitled ‘Poems by a Young Nobleman of distinguished abilities lately deceased, particularly the State of England, and the once flourishing City of London, in a Letter from an American Traveller, dated from the ruinous Portico of St. Paul's in the year 2199 to a Friend settled in Boston, the Metropolis of the Western Empire. Also Sundry Fugitive Pieces, principally wrote whilst upon his Travels on the Continent,’ was published at London in 1780, 4to. Another edition of the same date has the title ‘Poems by the late Thomas, Lord Lyttelton, to which is added a Sketch of his Lordship's Character,’ 8vo. These poems are probably genuine. The principal piece is in blank verse, modelled somewhat awkwardly on Milton's. The others, in various metres, are spirited and occasionally coarse. A volume of ‘Letters of the late Thomas, Lord Lyttelton,’ published the same year, London, 8vo, was accepted as genuine, but these letters were afterwards claimed by William Combe as his own composition, and have since been generally so regarded (see Quarterly Review, Dec. 1851, art. iv., where they are treated as authentic, and an attempt is made to identify Junius with Lyttelton; and cf. Frost's Life of Thomas, Lord Lyttelton, where the authenticity of the letters is also assumed). Lyttelton also wrote a blasphemous parody of his father's ‘Dialogues of the Dead’ and some other miscellanea, which remained in manuscript. A few notes in his handwriting are preserved in Add. MS. 20730.
[Besides the authorities mentioned in the text, see Foster's Alumni Oxon.; Mrs. Montagu's Letters, iv. 231, 248; Grenville Papers, iii. 170; Phillimore's Memoirs and Corresp. of George, Lord Lyttelton, iv. 773, 789; Chatham Corresp. iv. 344; Cavendish's Debates, i. 27; Walpole's Memoirs of George III, ed. Le Marchant, iii. 216; Walpole's Journal of the reign of George III; Walpole's Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors, ed. Park, iv. 321; Doran's Mann and Manners at the Court of Florence, ii. 110; Howell's State Trials, xx. 584, 587; Notes and Queries, 1st ser. viii. 31, xi. 198, 6th ser. iv. 518; Gent. Mag. (1837) pt. ii. 223; (1840), pt. i. 557; Add. MS. 5851, p. 187; Hist. MSS. Comm. 2nd Rep. App. 37; Commons' Journ. xxxii. 134–6; Lords Journ. xxxiv. 4; Collins's Peerage, viii. 357; Beatson's Polit. Index, iii. 334.]