Thus the Doctor was willing to believe what it suited him to believe, even though he had the tale at third or fourth hand; for Lord Westcote was not with the wicked Lord Lyttelton at the time of his death, on November 27, 1779. Dr. Johnson’s observations were made on June 12, 1784. To Lord Westcote’s narrative we shall return. As a study in Russian scandal, and the growth and development of stories, this anecdote of Lord Lyttelton deserves attention. So first we must glance at the previous history of the hero. Thomas Lord Lyttelton was born, says Mr. Coulton (in the ‘Quarterly Review,’ No. 179, p. 111), on January 30, 1744.* He was educated at Eton, where Dr. Barnard thought his boyish promise even superior to that of Charles James Fox. His sketches of scenery in Scotland reminded Mrs. Montagu of the vigour of Salvator Rosa, combined with the grace of Claude Lorraine! At the age of nineteen, already affianced to Miss Warburton, he went on the Grand Tour, and excelled the ordinary model of young debauchery abroad. Mr. James Boswell found a Circe at Siena, Lyttelton found Circes everywhere. He returned to England in 1765; and that learned lady, Mrs. Carter, the translator of Epictetus, ‘admired his talents and elegant manners, as much as she detested his vices.’ In 1768 he entered the House of Commons, and, in his maiden speech, implored the Assembly to believe that America was more important than Mr. Wilkes (and Liberty). Unseated for bribery in January 1769, he vanished from the public view, more or less, for a season; at least he is rarely mentioned in memoirs, and Coulton thinks that young Lyttelton was now engaged--in what does the reader suppose? In writing ‘The Letters of Junius’!** *The writer was not Croker, but Mr. Coulton, ‘a Kentish gentleman,’ says Lockhart, February 7, 1851, to his daughter Charlotte. **If Lyttelton went to Italy on being ejected from Parliament, as Mr. Rigg says he did in the ‘Dictionary of National Biography,’ Coulton’s theory will be hard to justify. He was clever enough; his rank was like that assumed as his own by Junius; his eloquence (as he proved later in the House of Lords) was vituperative enough; he shared some of Junius’s hatreds, while he proclaimed, like Junius, that the country was going to the dogs. Just as Junius was ending his Letters, the prodigal, Thomas Lyttelton, returned to his father’s house; and Chatham wrote to congratulate the parent (February 15, 1772). On May 12, 1772, Junius published his last letter in ‘The Public Advertiser;’ and on June 26 Mr. Lyttelton married a widow, a Mrs. Peach. He soon left his wife, and was abroad (with a barmaid) when his father died in 1773. In January 1774 he took his seat in the Lords. Though Fox thought him a bad man, his first speech was in favour of securing to authors a perpetual copyright in their own works. He repeated his arguments some months later; so authors, at least, have reason for judging him charitably.