He must remember that, in 1642, Sir Henry Wotton
"spent some inquiry whether the duke had any ominous presagement
before his end," but found no evidence. Sir Henry told Izaak Walton a
story of a dream of an ancestor of his own, whereby some robbers of
the University chest at Oxford were brought to justice. Anthony Wood
consulted the records of the year mentioned, and found no trace of any
such robbery. We now approach a yet more famous ghost than Sir
George's. This is Lord Lyttelton's. The ghost had a purpose, to warn
that bad man of his death, but nobody knows whose ghost she was!
LORD LYTTELTON'S GHOST
"Sir," said Dr. Johnson, "it is the most extraordinary thing that has
happened in my day." The doctor's day included the rising of 1745 and
of the Wesleyans, the seizure of Canada, the Seven Years' War, the
American Rebellion, the Cock Lane ghost, and other singular
occurrences, but "the most extraordinary thing" was--Lord Lyttelton's
ghost! Famous as is that spectre, nobody knows what it was, nor even
whether there was any spectre at all.
Thomas, Lord Lyttelton, was born in 1744.
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