Lyttelton himself died August 22, 1773, aged sixty-four. His History is now little read. It took him, it is said, thirty years to write it, and he employed another man to point it--a fact recalling what is told of Macaulay, that he sent the first volume of his 'History of England' to Lord Jeffrey, who overlooked the punctuation and criticised the style. Of a series of Dialogues issued by this writer, Dr Johnson remarked, with his usual pointed severity, 'Here is a man telling the world what the world had all his life been telling him.' His 'Monody' expresses real grief in an artificial style, but has some stanzas as natural in the expression as they are pathetic in the feeling. FROM THE 'MONODY.' At length escaped from every human eye, From every duty, every care, That in my mournful thoughts might claim a share, Or force my tears their flowing stream to dry; Beneath the gloom of this embowering shade, This lone retreat, for tender sorrow made, I now may give my burdened heart relief, And pour forth all my stores of grief; Of grief surpassing every other woe, Far as the purest bliss, the happiest love Can on the ennobled mind bestow, Exceeds the vulgar joys that move Our gross desires, inelegant and low. * * * * * In vain I look around O'er all the well-known ground, My Lucy's wonted footsteps to descry; Where oft we used to walk, Where oft in tender talk We saw the summer sun go down the sky; Nor by yon fountain's side, Nor where its waters glide Along the valley, can she now be found: In all the wide-stretched prospect's ample bound No more my mournful eye Can aught of her espy, But the sad sacred earth where her dear relics lie. * * * * * Sweet babes, who, like the little playful fawns, Were wont to trip along these verdant lawns By your delighted mother's side: Who now your infant steps shall guide? Ah! where is now the hand whose tender care To every virtue would have formed your youth, And strewed with flowers the thorny ways of truth? O loss beyond repair! O wretched father! left alone, To weep their dire misfortune and thy own: How shall thy weakened mind, oppressed with woe, And drooping o'er thy Lucy's grave, Perform the duties that you doubly owe! Now she, alas! is gone, From folly and from vice their helpless age to save? * * * * * O best of wives! O dearer far to me Than when thy virgin charms Were yielded to my arms: How can my soul endure the loss of thee? How in the world, to me a desert grown, Abandoned and alone, Without my sweet companion can I live? Without thy lovely smile, The dear reward of every virtuous toil, What pleasures now can palled ambition give? Even the delightful sense of well-earned praise, Unshared by thee, no more my lifeless thoughts could raise.