he exchanged next year for the great office of chancellor of the Exchequer ;. an office, however, that required fome qualifications which he foon perceived himself to want.

The year after, his curiofity 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 deferved, and whom, having once espoused his intereft and fame, he never was perfuaded to difown. Bower, whatever was his moral character, did not want abilities; attacked as he was by an universal outcry, and that outcry, as it feems, the echo of truth, he kept his ground;

ground; at laft, when his defences began: to fail him, he fallied out upon his adverfaries, and his adverfaries retreated.

About this time Lyttelton published his Dialogues of the Dead, which were very eagerly read, though the production ra-ther, as it feems, of leisure than of study, rather effufions than compofitions. The names of his perfons too often enablethe reader to anticipate their converfation; and when they have met, they too often part without 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 his acknowledgements in a note which I have read;

acknow

acknowledgements either for flattery or

juftice.

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

His laft literary production was his Hiftory of Henry the Second, elaborated by the searches and deliberations of twenty years, and published with fuch anxiety as only vanity can dictate.

The ftory of this publication is remarkable. The whole work was printed twice over, a great part of it three times,

3

times, and many fheets four or five times. The bookfellers paid for the first impreffion; but the charges and repeated operations of the Press were at the expence of the author, whose ambitious accuracy is known to have coft him at least a thousand pounds. He began to print in 1755. Three volumes appeared in 1764, a fecond 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 fecret of punctuation; and, as fear. begets credulity, he was employed, I know

I know not at what price, to point the pages of Henry the Second. The book was at laft pointed and printed, and fent into the world. Lyttelton took money for his copy, of which, when he had paid the Pointer, he probably gave the reft away; for he was very liberal to the indigent.

When time brought the Hiftory to a third edition, Reid was either dead or discarded; and the fuperintendence of typography and punctuation was committed to a man originally a combmaker, but then known by the ftile of Dr. Saunders. Something uncommon was probably expected, and fomething uncommon was at last done; for to the edition of Dr. Saunders is appended,

what