“On Thursday, the 25th of November, 1779, Thomas, Lord Lyttelton, when he came to breakfast, declared to Mrs. Flood, wife of Frederick Flood, Esq., of the kingdom of Ireland, and to the three Miss Amphletts, who were lodged in his house in Hill Street, London (where he then also was), that he had had an extraordinary dream the night before. He said he thought he was in a room which a bird flew into, which appearance was suddenly changed into that of a woman dressed in white, who bade him prepare to die. To which he answered, ‘I hope not soon, not in two months.’ She replied, ‘Yes, in three days.’ He said he did not much regard it, because he could in some measure account for it; for that a few days before he had been with Mrs. Dawson when a robin-redbreast flew into her room.

“When he had dressed himself that day to go to the House of Lords, he said he thought he did not look as if he was likely to die. In the evening of the following day, being Friday, he told the eldest Miss Amphlett that she looked melancholy; but, said he, ‘You are foolish and fearful. I have lived two days, and, God willing, I will live out the third.’

“On the morning of Saturday he told the same ladies that he was very well, and believed he should bilk the ghost. Some hours afterwards he went with them, Mr. Fortescue, and Captain Wolseley, to Pitt Place, at Epsom; withdrew to his bed-chamber soon after eleven o’clock at night, talked cheerfully to his servant, and particularly inquired of him what care had been taken to provide good rolls for his breakfast the next morning, stepped into his bed with his waistcoat on, and as his servant was pulling it off, put his hand to his side, sunk back and immediately expired without a groan. He ate a good dinner after his arrival at Pitt Place, took an egg for his supper, and did not seem to be at all out of order, except that while he was eating his soup at dinner he had a rising in his throat, a thing which had often happened to him before, and which obliged him to spit some of it out. His physician, Dr. Fothergill, told me Lord Lyttelton had in the summer preceding a bad pain in his side, and he judged that some gut vessel in the part where he felt the pain gave way, and to that he conjectured his death was owing. His declaration of his dream and his expressions above mentioned, consequential thereon, were upon a close inquiry asserted to me to have been so, by Mrs. Flood, the eldest Miss Amphlett, Captain Wolseley, and his valet-de-chambre Faulkner,[11] who dressed him on the Thursday; and the manner of his death was related to me by William Stuckey, in the presence of Mr. Fortescue and Captain Wolseley, Stuckey being the servant who attended him in his bed-chamber, and in whose arms he died.

“Westcote.[12]

“February the 13th, 1780.”

Lord Lyttelton is also asserted to have appeared to Mr. Andrews, his friend and boon companion, at the time of his lordship’s sudden and mysterious death. Of this fact testimony is furnished by Mr. Plumer Ward, M.P., in his “Illustrations of Human Life,” from which (vol. i. p. 165) the following narrative is taken:—

“I had often heard much and read much of Lord Lyttelton’s seeing a ghost before his death, and of himself as a ghost appearing to Mr. Andrews; and one evening, sitting near that gentleman, during a pause in the debates in the House of Commons, I ventured to ask him whether there was any and what truth in the detailed story so confidently related. Mr. Andrews, as perhaps I ought to have expected, did not much like the conversation. He looked grave and uneasy, and I asked pardon for my impertinent curiosity. Upon this he good-naturedly said, ‘It is not a subject I am fond of, and least of all in such a place as this; but if you will come and dine with me, I will tell you what is true and what is false.’ I gladly accepted the proposal, and I think my recollection is perfect as to the following narrative:—‘Mr. Andrews in his youth was the boon-companion, not to say fellow-rake, of Lord Lyttelton, who, as is well known, was a man distinguished for abilities, but also for a profligacy of morals which few could equal. With all this he was remarkable for what may be called unnatural cowardice in one so determinedly wicked. He never repented, yet could never stifle his conscience. He never could allow, yet never could deny, a world to come, and he contemplated with unceasing terror what would probably be his own state in such a world if there was one. He was always melancholy with fear, or mad in defiance; and probably his principal misery here was, that with all his endeavours, he never could extinguish the dread of an hereafter.... Andrews was at his house at Dartford when Lord Lyttelton died at Pitt Place, Epsom, thirty miles off. Andrews’ house was full of company, and he expected Lord Lyttelton, whom he had left in his usual state of health, to join them the next day, which was Sunday. Andrews himself feeling much indisposed on the Saturday evening, retired early to bed, and requested Mrs. Pigou, one of his guests, to do the honours of the supper-table. He admitted that, when in bed, he fell into a feverish sleep, but was waked between eleven and twelve by somebody opening his curtains. It was Lord Lyttelton in a night-gown and cap, which Andrews recognized. He also plainly spoke to him, saying he was come to tell him all was over. The world said he informed him there was another state, and bade him repent, &c. That was not so. And I confine myself to the exact words of this relation.

“‘Now it seems that Lord Lyttelton was fond of horse-play, or what we should call mauvaise plaisanterie; and, having often made Andrews the subject of it, the latter had threatened him with manual chastisement next time it occurred. On the present occasion, thinking this annoyance renewed, he threw the first thing he could find, which were his slippers, at Lord Lyttelton’s head. The figure retreated towards a dressing-room which had no ingress or egress except through the bed-chamber, and Andrews, very angry, leapt out of bed, to follow it into the dressing-room. It was not there. Surprised, he returned to the bedroom, which he strictly searched. The door was locked on the inside, yet no Lord Lyttelton was to be found. He was astonished, but not alarmed, so convinced was he that it was some trick of Lord Lyttelton, who, he supposed, had arrived, according to his engagement, but after he, Andrews, had retired. He therefore rang for his servant, and asked if Lord Lyttelton was not come. The man said, “No.” “You may depend upon it,” replied he, out of humour, “he is somewhere in the house, for he was here just now, and is playing some trick.” But how he could have got into the bedroom with the door locked puzzled both master and man. Convinced, however, that he was somewhere in the house, Andrews, in his anger, ordered that no bed should be given him, saying he might go to an inn, or sleep in the stables. Be that as it may, he never appeared again, and Andrews went to sleep.

“‘It happened that Mrs. Pigou was to go to town early the next morning. What was her astonishment, having heard the disturbance of the night before, to hear on her arrival about nine o’clock that Lord Lyttelton had died the very night he was supposed to have been seen. She immediately sent an express to Dartford with the news; upon the receipt of which, Andrews, (quite well, and remembering accurately all that had passed,) swooned away. He could not understand it, but it had a most serious effect upon him, so that—to use his own expression—he “was not his own man again for three years.”’

“Such is the celebrated story; stript of its ornamentations and exaggerations; and for one, I own, if not convinced that this was a real message from Heaven, which certainly I am not, I at least think the hand of Providence was seen in it; working upon the imagination, if you please, and therefore suspending no law of Nature (though that after all is an ambiguous term), but still Providence, in a character not to be mistaken.”