o was a commissioner of the
admiralty, always voted with the court.

For many years the name of George Lyttelton was seen in every account of
every debate in the house of commons. He opposed the standing army; he
opposed the excise; he supported the motion for petitioning the king to
remove Walpole. His zeal was considered by the courtiers not only as
violent, but as acrimonious and malignant; and, when Walpole was at last
hunted from his places, every effort was made by his friends, and many
friends he had, to exclude Lyttelton from the secret committee.

The prince of Wales, being, 1737, driven from St. James's, kept a
separate court, and opened his arms to the opponents of the ministry.
Mr. Lyttelton became his secretary, and was supposed to have great
influence in the direction of his conduct. He persuaded his master,
whose business it was now to be popular, that he would advance his
character by patronage. Mallet was made under-secretary, with two
hundred pounds; and Thomson had a pension of one hundred pounds a year.
For Thomson, Lyttelton always retained his kindness, and was able, at
last, to place him at ease.

Moore courted his favour by an apologetical poem, called the Trial of
Selim; for which he was paid with kind words, which, as is common,
raised great hopes, that were at last disappointed.

Lyttelton now stood in the first rank of opposition; and Pope, who was
incited, it is not easy to say how, to increase the clamour against the
ministry, commended him among the other patriots. This drew upon him the
reproaches of Fox, who, in the house, imputed to him, as a crime, his
intimacy with a lampooner so unjust and licentious. Lyttelton supported
his friend; and replied, that he thought it an honour to be received
into the familiarity of so great a poet.

While he was thus conspicuous, he married, 1741, Miss Lucy Fortescue, of
Devonshire, by whom he had a son, the late lord Lyttelton, and two
daughters, and with whom he appears to have lived in the highest degree
of connubial felicity; but human pleasures are short; she died in
child-bed about five years afterwards; and he solaced his grief by
writing a long poem to her memory.

He did not, however, condemn himself to perpetual solitude and sorrow;
for, after awhile, he was content to seek happiness again by a second
marriage with the daughter of sir Robert Rich: but the experiment was
unsuccessful.

At length, after a long struggle, Walpole gave way,