Originally published in Terrific Register (Sherwood, Jones, and Co.; 1825).
There have been two Lord Lytteltons, both of whom were marked and distinguished men in their respective generations—the great and good Lord Lyttelton, and his son, the witty and profligate, who is the hero of the present narrative.
Lord Lyttelton, in the winter of the our 1778, had retired from the metropolis, with a party of his loose and dissipated companions, to profane the Christmas by their riotous debaucheries, at his country house, Pit Place, near Epsom, in Surrey. They had not long abandoned themselves to the indulgence of these desperate orgies, when a sudden and unexpected gloom was cast over the party by the extraordinary depression of spirits and dejection of countenance which were observed to take possession of their host: all his vivacity had departed—he fled from the society which be had so solicitously collected round him; his laugh became forced; his eye was fixed upon the ground, and his attention always wandering from the present topic of conversation or amusement; his mind was occupied with a subject that distressed it; and if, unchecked by the visible melancholy of the master of the mansion, the spirits of the guests rose to their accustomed vivacity, as the wine and jest and song and laughter circulated about the table, a sigh, coming from the very inmost recesses of the heart, with a painful and laborious effort, as if it would rend the bosom from which it with difficulty escaped, instantly checked the awakening gaiety of the party, and, in spite of every endeavour of Lord Lyttelton to restore a brighter tone of feeling, communicated a sympathetic sadness to the associates. It was in vain that he attempted to silence the enquiries of the guests on the subject of his uneasiness; they were convinced that he was ill, or had met with some loss at play, or was crossed in love; and his denial of all these imputations only excited a more eager curiosity to be informed of the real origin of his depression. Thus urged, he at last determined to reveal the secret that so painfully distressed him.
The night before, on his retiring to his bed, after his servant was dismissed and his light extinguished, he had heard a noise resembling the fluttering of a dove at his chamber window. This attracted his attention to the spot; when, looking in the direction of the sound, he saw the figure of an unhappy female, whom he had seduced and deserted, and who, when deserted, had put a violent end to her own existence, standing in the aperture of the window from which the fluttering sound had proceeded. The form approached the foot of the bed:—the room was preternaturally light; the objects of the chamber were distinctly visible:—raising her hand, and pointing to a dial which stood on the mantelpiece of the chimney, the figure, with a severe solemnity of voice and manner, announced to the appalled and conscience-stricken man, that, at that very hour, on the third day after the visitatian, his life and his sins would be concluded, and nothing but their punishment remain if he availed himself not of the warning to repentance which he had received. The eye of Lord Lyttelton glanced on the dial; the hand was on the stroke of twelve:—again the apartment was involved in total darkness:—the warning spirit disappeared, and bore away at her departure all the lightness of heart and buoyancy of spirit, ready flow of wit, and vivacity of manner, which had formerly been the pride and ornament of the unhappy being to whom she had delivered her tremendous summons.
Such was the tale that Lord Lyttelton delivered to his companions: they laughed at his superstition, and endeavoured to convince him that his mind must have been impressed with this idea by some dream of a more consistent nature than dreams generally are, and that he had mistaken the visions of his sleep for the visitations of a spirit. He was counselled, but not convinced: he felt relieved by their distrust, and, on the second night after the appearance of the spectre, he retreated to his apartment, with his faith in the reality of the transaction somewhat shaken; and his spirits, though not revived, certainly lighted of somewhat of their oppression.
On the succeeding day the guests of Lord Lyttelton, with the connivance of dis attendant, had provided that the clocks throughout the house should be advanced an hour and a half: by occupying their host's attention during the whole day with different and successive objects of amusement, they contributed to prevent his discovering the imposture. Ten o'clock struck; the nobleman was silent and depressed: eleven struck; the depression deepened, and now not even a smile, or the slightest movement of his eye indicated him to be conscious of the efforts of his associates, as they attempted to dispel his gloom:—twelve struck:
"Thank God! I'm safe," exclaimed Lord Lyttelton: "The ghost was a liar, after all: some wine, there:—congratulate me, my friends—congratulate me on my reprieve:—why, what a fool was I to be cast down by so silly and absurd a circumstance!—But, however, it's time for bed:—we'll be up early, and out with the hounds to-morrow:—by my faith, it's half-past twelve; so good night, good night:" and he returned to his chamber, convinced of his security, and believing that the threatened hour of peril was now past.
His guests remained together to await the completion of the time so ominously designated by the vision. A quarter of an hour had elapsed:—they heard the valet descend from his master's room:—it was just twelve:—Lord Lyttelton's bell rang violently:—the company ran in a body to his apartment:—-the clock struck one at their entrance[1]:—the unhappy nobleman lay extended on the bed before them, pale and lifeless, and his countenance terribly convulsed.
This is the account which the narrator received from a lady, a relation of Lord Lyttelton's: the subsequent passage is from Sir Nathaniel Wraxhall; "Dining at Pit Place, about four years after the death of Lord Lyttelton, in the year 1783, I had the curiosity to visit the bed-chamber, where the casement window, at which Lord Lyttelton asserted the dove appeared to flutter, was pointed out to me; and, at his step-mother's, the dowager Lady Lyttelton's in Portugal Street, Grosvenor Square, who, being a woman of very lively imagination, lent an implicit faith, to all the supernatural facts which were supposed to have accompanied or produced Lord Lyttelton's end, I have frequently seen a painting which she herself executed, in 1780, expressly to commemorate the event: it bung in a conspicuous part of her drawing room. There the dove appears at the window, while a female figure, habited in white, stands at the foot of the bed, announcing to Lord Lyttelton his dissolution.
Every part of the picture was faithfully designed, the description given to her by the valet-de-chambre who attended him, to whom his master rated all the circumstance."
1. It had been advanced an hour; and it was, in fact, but twelve, the hour intimated by the spectre.
Note: Text reformatted for legibility.