"Sir," said Dr. Johnson, "it is the most extraordinary thing that hashappened in my day." The doctor's day included the rising of 1745 andof the Wesleyans, the seizure of Canada, the Seven Years' War, theAmerican Rebellion, the Cock Lane ghost, and other singularoccurrences, but "the most extraordinary thing" was--Lord Lyttelton'sghost! Famous as is that spectre, nobody knows what it was, nor evenwhether there was any spectre at all.Thomas, Lord Lyttelton, was born in 1744. In 1768 he entered theHouse of Commons. In 1769 he was unseated for bribery. He thenvanishes from public view, probably he was playing the prodigal athome and abroad, till February, 1772, when he returned to his father'shouse, and married. He then went abroad (with a barmaid) till 1773,when his father died. In January, 1774, he took his seat in the Houseof Lords. In November, 1779, Lyttelton went into Opposition. OnThursday, 25th November, he denounced Government in a magnificentspeech. As to a sinecure which he held, he said, "Perhaps I shall notkeep it long!"_Something had Happened_!On the night before his speech, that of Wednesday, 24th November,Lyttelton had seen the ghost, and had been told that he would die inthree days. He mentioned this to Rowan Hamilton on the Friday. {129a}On the same day, or on Friday, he mentioned it to Captain Ascough, whotold a lady, who told Mrs. Thrale. {129b} On the Friday he went toEpsom with friends, and mentioned the ghost to them, among others toMr. Fortescue. {129c} About midnight on 28th November, Lord Lytteltondied suddenly in bed, his valet having left him for a moment to fetcha spoon for stirring his medicine. The cause of death was not stated;there was no inquest.This, literally, is all that is _known_ about Lord Lyttelton's ghost.It is variously described as: (1) "a young woman and a robin" (HoraceWalpole); (2) "a spirit" (Captain Ascough); (3) a bird in a dream,"which changed into a woman in white" (Lord Westcote's narrative of13th February, 1780, collected from Lord Lyttelton's guests andservants); (4) "a bird turning into a woman" (Mrs. Delany, 9thDecember, 1779); (5) a dream of a bird, followed by a woman, Mrs.Amphlett, in white (Pitt Place archives after 1789); (6) "a flutteringnoise, as of a bird, followed by the apparition of a woman who hadcommitted suicide after being seduced by Lyttelton" (Lady Lyttelton,1828); (7) a bird "which vanished when a female spirit in whiteraiment presented herself" (Scots Magazine, November-December, 1779).Out of seven versions, a bird, or a fluttering noise as of a bird (acommon feature in ghost stories), {130a} with a woman following oraccompanying, occurs in six. The phenomena are almost equallyascribed to dreaming and to waking hallucination, but the common-senseof the eighteenth century called all ghosts "dreams". In the Westcotenarrative (1780) Lyttelton explains the dream by his having latelybeen in a room with a lady, Mrs. Dawson, when a robin flew in. Yet,in the same narrative, Lyttelton says on Saturday morning "that he wasvery well, and believed he should bilk the _ghost_". He was certainlyin bed at the time of the experience, and probably could not be surewhether he was awake or asleep. {130b}Considering the remoteness of time, the story is very well recorded.It is chronicled by Mrs. Thrale before the news of Lyttelton's deathreached her, and by Lady Mary Coke two days later, by Walpole on theday after the peer's decease, of which he had heard. Lord Lyttelton'shealth had for some time been bad; he had made his will a few weeksbefore, and his nights were horror-haunted. A little boy, his nephew,to whom he was kind, used to find the wicked lord sitting by his bedat night, because he dared not be alone. So Lockhart writes to hisdaughter, Mrs. Hope Scott. {131} He had strange dreams of being inhell with the cruel murderess, Mrs. Brownrigg, who "whipped threefemale 'prentices to death and hid them in the coal-hole". Such a manmight have strange fancies, and a belief in approaching death mightbring its own fulfilment. The hypothesis of a premeditated suicide,with the story of the ghost as a last practical joke, has nocorroboration. It occurred to Horace Walpole at once, but he laid nostress on it.Such is a plain, dry, statistical account of the most extraordinaryevent that happened in Dr. Johnson's day.However, the story does not end here. On the fatal night, 27thNovember, 1779, Mr. Andrews, M.P., a friend of Lyttelton's wasawakened by finding Lord Lyttelton drawing his curtains. Suspecting apractical joke, he hunted for his lordship both in his house and inthe garden. Of course he never found him. The event was promptlyrecorded in the next number of the Scots Magazine, December, 1779.
