l poem called the
"Trial of Selim," for which he was paid with kind words, which, as is
common, raised great hopes, that were at last disappointed.

Lyttelton now stood in the first rank of Opposition, and Pope, who was
incited, it is not easy to say how, to increase the clamour against the
Ministry, commended him among the other patriots. This drew upon him
the reproaches of Fox, who in the House imputed to him as a crime his
intimacy with a lampooner so unjust and licentious. Lyttelton supported
his friend; and replied that he thought it an honour to be received into
the familiarity of so great a poet. While he was thus conspicuous he
married (1741) Miss Lucy Fortescue, of Devonshire, by whom he had a son,
the late Lord Lyttelton, and two daughters, and with whom he appears
to have lived in the highest degree of connubial felicity; but human
pleasures are short; she died in childbed about five years afterwards,
and he solaced his grief by writing a long poem to her memory. He did
not, however, condemn himself to perpetual solitude and sorrow, for
after a while he was content to seek happiness again by a second
marriage with the daughter of Sir Robert Rich, but the experiment was
unsuccessful. At length, after a long struggle, Walpole gave way, and
honour and profit were distributed among his conquerors. Lyttelton was
made (1744) one of the Lords of the Treasury, and from that time was
engaged in supporting the schemes of the Ministry.

Politics did not, however, so much engage him as to withhold his
thoughts from things of more importance. He had, in the pride of
juvenile confidence, with the help of corrupt conversation, entertained
doubts of the truth of Christianity; but he thought the time now come
when it was no longer fit to doubt or believe by chance, and applied
himself seriously to the great question. His studies, being honest,
ended in conviction. He found that religion was true, and what he
had learned he endeavoured to teach (1747) by "Observations on the
Conversion of St. Paul," a treatise to which infidelity has never
been able to fabricate a specious answer. This book his father had
the happiness of seeing, and expressed his pleasure in a letter which
deserves to be inserted:--

"I have read your religious treatise with infinite pleasure and
satisfaction. The style is fine and clear, the arguments close, cogent,
and irresistible. May the King of Kings, whose glorious cause you have
so well defended,