A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature/Lyttelton, George, 1st Lord Lyttelton

Lyttelton, George, 1st Lord Lyttelton (1709-1773). -- Poet, s. of Sir Thomas L., of Hagley, Worcestershire, ed. at Eton and Oxf., was the patron of many literary men, including Thomson and Mallet, and was himself a somewhat voluminous author. Among his works are Letters from a Persian in England to his friend in Ispahan (1735), a treatise On the Conversion of St. Paul (1746), Dialogues of the Dead (1760), which had great popularity, and a History of the Reign of Henry II., well-informed, careful, and impartial, but tedious. He is chiefly remembered by his Monody on the death of his wife. The stanza in The Castle of Indolence in which Thomson is playfully described (canto 1, st. lxviii.), is by L., who is himself referred to in lxv. He took some part in public affairs, and was Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1756.