favourable than he seems to have deserved, and whom, having once
espoused his interest and fame, he was never persuaded to disown. Bower,
whatever was his moral character, did not want abilities; attacked as he
was by an universal outcry, and that outcry, as it seems, the echo of
truth, he kept his ground: at last, when his defences began to fail him,
he sallied out upon his adversaries, and his adversaries retreated.

About this time Lyttelton published his Dialogues of the Dead, which
were very eagerly read, though the production rather, as it seems, of
leisure than of study: rather effusions than compositions. The names of
his persons too often enable the reader to anticipate their
conversation; and, when they have met, they too often part without any
conclusion. 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,
in a note which I have read, acknowledgments which can never be proper,
since they must be paid either for flattery or for justice.

When, in the latter part of the last reign, the inauspicious
commencement of the war made the dissolution of the ministry
unavoidable, sir George Lyttelton, losing, with the rest, his
employment, was recompensed with a peerage; and rested from political
turbulence in the house of lords.

His last literary production was his History of Henry the second,
elaborated by the searches and deliberations of twenty years, and
published with such anxiety as only vanity can dictate.

The story of this publication is remarkable. The whole work was printed
twice over, a great part of it three times, and many sheets four or five
times. The booksellers paid for the first impression; but the charges
and repeated operations of the press were at the expense of the author,
whose ambitious accuracy is known to have cost him, at least, a thousand
pounds. He began to print in 1755. Three volumes appeared in 1764; a
second edition of them in 1767; a third edition in 1768; and the
conclusion in 1771.

Andrew Reid, a man not without considerable abilities, and not
unacquainted with letters or with life, undertook to persuade Lyttelton,
as he had persuaded himself, that he was master of the secret of
punctuation; and, as fear begets credulity, he was employed, I know not
at what price, to point the pages of Henry the second. The book was at
last pointed and printed,