Ch. 5: Junius and Lord Lyttelton's Ghost - Page 2

to his father's house; and Chatham wrote to congratulate the parent (February 15, 1772). On May 12, 1772, Junius published his last letter in 'The Public Advertiser;' and on June 26 Mr. Lyttelton married a widow, a Mrs. Peach. He soon left his wife, and was abroad (with a barmaid) when his father died in 1773. In January 1774 he took his seat in the Lords. Though Fox thought him a bad man, his first speech was in favour of securing to authors a perpetual copyright in their own works. He repeated his arguments some months later; so authors, at least, have reason for judging him charitably.

Mr. Carlyle would have admired Lyttelton. His politics (at one juncture) were 'The Dictatorship for Lord Chatham'! How does this agree with the sentiments of Junius? In 1767-69 Junius had exhausted on Chatham his considerable treasury of insult. He is 'a lunatic brandishing a crutch,' 'so black a villain,' 'an abandoned profligate,' and he exhibits 'THE UPSTART INSOLENCE OF A DICTATOR!' This goes not well with Lyttelton's sentiments in 1774. True, but by that date (iii. 305) Junius himself had discovered 'that if this country can be saved, it must be saved by Lord Chatham's spirit, by Lord Chatham's abilities.' Lyttelton and Junius are assuredly both of them ruffianly, scandal-loving, inconsistent, and patrician in the manner of Catiline. So far, the likeness is close.

About America Lyttelton wavered. On the whole, he recognised the need of fighting; and his main idea was that, as fight we must, we should organise our forces well, and fight with our heads as well as with our hands. He disdained the policy of the ostrich. The Americans were in active rebellion; it could not be blinked. He praised Chatham while he opposed him. He was 'fighting for his own hand.' Ministers felt the advantage of his aid; they knew his unscrupulous versatility, and in November 1775 bought Lyttelton with a lucrative sinecure--the post of Chief Justice of Eyre beyond the Trent. Coulton calls the place 'honourable;' we take another view. Lyttelton was bought and sold, but no one deemed Lyttelton a person of scrupulous conscience.

The public prospects darkened, folly was heaped on folly, blunder on blunder, defeat on defeat. On April 24, 1779, Horace Walpole says that Lord Lyttelton 'has again turned against the Court on obtaining the Seals'* November 25, 1779, saw Lyttelton go boldly into Opposition. He reviewed the whole state of the empire. He poured out a torrent of invective. As to his sinecure, he said, 'Perhaps he might not keep it long.' 'The noble Lords smile at what I say!'

*Is this a slip, or misprint, for 'on NOT obtaining the Seals'?

They need not have smiled. He spoke on Thursday, November 25; on Saturday, November 27, the place in Eyre was vacant, and Lord Lyttelton was a dead man.

The reader will keep in mind these dates. On Thursday, November 25, 1779, the first day of the session, Lyttelton overflows in