On all this, and on the story of the ghostly 'warning' to Lord Lyttelton, delivered in the night of Wednesday, November 24, Coulton builds a political romance. In his view, Lyttelton, expelled from Parliament, lavished his genius and exuded his spleen in the 'Letters of Junius.' Taking his seat in the Lords, he fights for his own hand, is bought and muzzled, wrenches off his muzzle, blazes into a fierce attack on the wrongs which he is weary of witnessing, the hypocrisy which he is tired of sharing, makes his will, sets his house in order, plays one last practical joke by inventing the story of the ghostly warning, surrounds himself with dissolute company, and at midnight on November 27 deliberately fulfils his own prediction, and dies by his own hand. It is a tale creditable to Coulton's fancy. A patrician of genius, a wit, a profligate, in fatigue and despair, closes his career with a fierce harangue, a sacrilegious jest, a debauch, and a draught of poison, leaving to Dr. Johnson a proof of 'the spiritual world,' and to mankind the double mystery of Junius and of the Ghost.
As to the identity of Junius, remembering the warning of Lord Beaconsfield, 'If you wish to be a bore, take up the "Letters of Junius,"' we shall drop that enigma; but as to the alleged suicide of Lord Lyttelton, we think we can make that seem extremely improbable. Let us return to the course of events, as stated by Coulton and by contemporaries.
The warning of death in three days, says Coulton, occurred (place not given) on the night of November 24, 1779. He observes: 'It is certain that, on the morning after that very day' (November 25), 'Lord Lyttelton had related, not to one person alone, but to several, and all of them people of credit, the particulars of a strange vision which he said had appeared to him the preceding night.' On Thursday, the 25th, as we saw, he spoke in the Lords.
On Friday, the 26th, he went down to his house at Epsom, Pitt Place, where his party, says Coulton, consisted of Mr. (later Lord)
Fortescue, Captain (later Admiral) Wolsley, Mrs. Flood, and the Misses Amphlett. Now, the town had no kind of doubt concerning the nature of Lord Lyttelton's relations with two, if not three, of the Misses Amphlett. His character was nearly as bad, where women were concerned, as that of Colonel Charteris. But Walpole, writing to Mann on November 28 (the day after Lord Lyttelton's death), says:
'Lord Lyttelton is dead suddenly. SUDDENLY, in this country, is always at first construed to mean BY A PISTOL. . . The story given out is, that he looked ill, AND HAD SAID HE SHOULD NOT LIVE THREE DAYS; that, however, he had gone to his house at Epsom. . . with a caravan of nymphs; and on Saturday night had retired before supper to take rhubarb, returned, supped heartily, went into the next room again, and died in an instant.'
Nothing here of a dream or ghost. We only hear of a prophecy, by Lyttelton, of his death.
Writing to Mason on Monday, November 29, Walpole avers that Lord Lyttelton was 'attended only by four virgins, whom he had picked up in the Strand.' Here Horace, though writing from Berkeley Square, within two days of the fatal 27th, is wrong. Lord Lyttelton had the Misses Amphlett, Captain Wolsley, Mr. Fortescue, and Mrs. Flood with him. According to Walpole, he felt unwell on Saturday night (the 27th), 'went to bed, rung his bell in ten minutes, and in one minute after the arrival of his servant expired!' 'He had said on Thursday that he should die in three days, HAD DREAMT SO, and felt that it would be so. On Saturday he said, "If I outlive to-day, I shall go on;" but enough of him.'
Walpole speaks of a DREAM, but he soon has other, if not better, information. Writing to Mason on December 11, he says that ghost stories from the north will now be welcome. 'Lord Lyttelton's vision has revived the taste; though it seems a little odd that an APPARITION should despair of getting access to his Lordship's bed, in the shape of a young woman, without being forced to use the disguise of a robin-redbreast.' What was an apprehension or prophecy has become a dream, and the dream has become an apparition of a robin-redbreast and a young woman.
If this excite suspicion, let us hasten to add that we have undesigned evidence to Lord Lyttelton's belief that he had beheld an APPARITION--evidence a day earlier than the day of his death. Mrs.
Piozzi (then Mrs. Thrale), in her diary of Sunday, November 28, writes: 'Yesterday a lady from Wales dropped in and said that she had been at Drury Lane on Friday night. "How," I asked, "were you entertained?" "Very strangely indeed! Not with the play, though, but the discourse of a Captain Ascough, who averred that a friend of his, Lord Lyttelton, has SEEN A SPIRIT, who has warned him that he will die in three days. I have thought of nothing else since."'
Next day, November 29, Mrs. Piozzi heard of Lord Lyttelton's death.*
*Notes and Queries. Series V., vol. ii. p. 508. December 26,1874.
Here is proof absolute that the story, with apparition, if not with robin, was current THE DAY BEFORE LORD LYTTELTON'S DECEASE.
Of what did Lord Lyttelton die?
'According to one of the papers,' says Coulton, vaguely, 'the cause of death was disease of the heart.' A brief 'convulsion' is distinctly mentioned, whence Coulton concludes that the disease was NOT cardiac. On December 7, Mason writes to Walpole from York:
'Suppose Lord Lyttelton had recovered the breaking of his blood- vessel!'
Was a broken blood-vessel the cause of death? or have we here, as is probable, a mere inference of Mason's?
Coulton's account is meant to lead up to his theory of suicide.
Lord Lyttelton mentioned his apprehension of death 'somewhat ostentatiously, we think.' According to Coulton, at 10 P.M. on Saturday, Lord Lyttelton, looking at his watch, said: 'Should I live two hours longer, I shall jockey the ghost.' Coulton thinks that it would have been 'more natural' for him to await the fatal hour of midnight 'in gay company' than to go to bed before twelve.