[cross-reference: return to Footnote 3 of Letter 148]
Byron refers to the following passage in Dallas's letter of January 6, 1808:
"A spirit that brings to my mind another noble author, who was not only a fine poet, orator, and historian, but one of the closest reasoners we have on the truth of that religion, of which forgiveness is a prominent principle: the great and the good Lord Lyttelton, whose fame will never die. His son, to whom he had transmitted genius but not virtue, sparkled for a moment, and went out like a falling star, and with him the title became extinct. He was the victim of inordinate passions, and he will be heard of in this world only by those who read the English Peerage"
(
Correspondence of Lord Byron
, p. 20, the suppressed edition).
Dallas was, of course, aware that Byron's predecessor in the title, William, fifth Lord Byron, was known as the "wicked Lord Byron." George, first Lord Lyttelton (1709-1773), to whom Pope refers (
Imitations of Horace