sign, Lyttelton in March 1767 sent George Grenville ‘a project of a ministry to be formed … by a coalition of the Grenvillians with the Rockinghams and Bedfords,’ in which he assigned himself the place of ‘cabinet councillor extraordinary’ without office (Grenville Papers, iv. 8; see also Lord Albemarle, Memoirs of the Marquis of Rockingham, ii. 30–2). In the same month he took part in the debate on the bill for giving an income of 8,000l. to the royal dukes, and objected at length to the manner in which the provision was to be made (Memoirs, ii. 713–720). On 2 Feb. 1770 he spoke in favour of Rockingham's resolution condemning the proceedings of the House of Commons against Wilkes (ib. pp. 756–8), and in 1772 strongly discountenanced the idea of the secession of the whig party from the house. He died at Hagley on 22 Aug. 1773, aged 64, and was buried in the parish church, where an inscription to his memory was cut by his desire on the monument erected by him to his first wife.
Lyttelton was descended from William, the eldest son of Sir Thomas Littleton [q. v.], author of the ‘Treatise on Tenures,’ and upon his father's death inherited the Hagley property, which had been in the possession of the family since 1564. His powerful political connection was the chief cause of his importance in parliament. Through the marriage of his maternal aunt, Hester Temple (afterwards Countess Temple), with Richard Grenville of Wootton, Buckinghamshire, Lyttelton was first cousin to Richard Temple Grenville, earl Temple [q. v.], and to George Grenville [q. v.]; while by the marriage of his sister Christian with Thomas Pitt of Boconnoc, Cornwall, he became connected with William Pitt, who in 1754 married Lyttelton's first cousin, Hester Grenville. With Pitt and the Grenvilles Lyttelton formed the small but powerful party which was known until the death of his maternal uncle, Lord Cobham, in 1749, as the ‘Cobhamites,’ and subsequently as ‘the Grenville cousins’ or ‘the cousinhood.’
Lyttelton, who is known as ‘the good Lord Lyttelton,’ was an amiable, absent-minded man, of unimpeachable integrity and benevolent character, with strong religious convictions and respectable talents. In spite of his ‘great abilities for set debates and solemn questions’ (Chatham Correspondence, i. 106), his ignorance of the world and his unreadiness in debate made him a poor practical politician. In appearance he was thin and lanky, with a meagre face and an awkward carriage, but ‘as disagreeable as his figure was, his voice was still more so, and his address more disagreeable than either’ (Lord Hervey, Memoirs, 1884, ii. 99). Lord Chesterfield draws an amusing picture of Lyttelton's ‘distinguished inattention and awkwardness,’ which he holds up as a terrible warning to his son (Letters and Works of the Earl of Chesterfield, i. 316–17). As an author Lyttelton had at one time a considerable reputation. He was painstaking and industrious, but never original. The most important of his prose works were: 1. ‘Letters from a Persian in England to his friend at Ispahan,’ 1735. 2. ‘Observations on the Conversion and Apostleship of St. Paul,’ 1747. 3. ‘Dialogues of the Dead,’ 1760. 4. ‘The History of the Life of Henry the Second,’ &c., 1767–71. The best of his poetical pieces is the ‘Monody’ to the memory of his wife, 1747. Among his numerous correspondents, whose letters are preserved at Hagley, were Bolingbroke, Chesterfield, Doddridge, George Grenville, Marchmont, Pitt, Pope, Admiral Rodney, Thomson, Voltaire, and Warburton. Bolingbroke originally wrote his ‘Idea of a Patriot King’ in the form of a letter to Lyttelton, who declined the honour (14 April 1748) on account of his close connection with many of Walpole's best friends (Memoirs, ii. 428). Lyttelton was a liberal patron of literature. His friendship with Pope, who refers to him in the ‘First Epistle of the First Book of Horace’ (line 30),
Still true to virtue, and as warm as true,
formed the subject of an attack upon him in the House of Commons by Fox in 1740 (Memoirs, i. 115–16). He befriended Thomson, who describes his patron in the ‘Castle of Indolence’ (canto i. stanzas 65 and 66), and whose own description in the same poem was written by Lyttelton (ib. stanza 68). Through his influence Thomson's posthumous tragedy, ‘Coriolanus,’ was acted in January 1749 at Covent Garden Theatre for the benefit of Thomson's family. Quin spoke the prologue, which was written by Lyttelton, and contains the oft-quoted lines (Works, iii. 199):
Not one immoral, one corrupted thought,
One line which, dying, he could wish to blot.
An edition of the ‘Works of James Thomson’ was published under Lyttelton's superintendence in 1750 (London, 12mo, 4 vols.). In this edition Lyttelton made many corrections, cutting down the five parts of ‘Liberty’ into three. From an interleaved copy at Hagley it appears that Lyttelton intended to make considerable alterations in the ‘Seasons.’ A manuscript copy of them will be found in a volume of Thomson's ‘Works’ (1768) now in
