336 THE BK(HXX1X(JS <>F CANALS I'AHT V. 



next heir to the title and estates. His mother seems 

 almost entirely to have neglected him. In the first year 

 of her widowhood she married Sir Richard Lyttleton, 

 and from that time forward took the least possible notice 

 of her boy. He did not give much promise of surviving 

 his consumptive brothers, and his mind was considered 

 so incapable of improvement, that he was left in a great 

 measure without either domestic guidance or intellectual 

 discipline and culture. Horace Walpole writes to Mann 

 in 1761 : " You will be happy in Sir Richard Lyttleton 

 and his Duchess; they are the best-humoured people in 

 the world." But the good humour of this handsome 

 couple was mostly displayed in the world of gay life, 

 very little of it being reserved for home use. Possibly, 

 however, it may have been even fortunate for the young 

 Duke that he was left so much to himself, and to profit 

 by the wholesome neglect of special nurses and tutors, 

 who are not always the most judicious in their bringing 

 up of delicate children. 



At seventeen, the young Duke's guardians, the Duke 

 of Bedford and Lord Trentham, finding him still alive 

 and likely to live, determined to send him abroad on his 

 travels the wisest thing they could have done. They 

 selected for his tutor the celebrated traveller, Robert 

 Wood, author of the well-known work on Troy, Baal- 

 bec, and Palmyra; afterwards made Under-Secretary of 

 State by the Earl of Chatham. Wood was an accom- 

 plished scholar, a persevering traveller, and withal a man 

 of good business qualities. His habits of intelligent ob- 

 servation could not fail to be of service to his pupil, and 

 it is not unnatural to suppose that the great artificial 

 watercourses and canals which they saw in the course 

 of their travels had some effect in afterwards determining 

 the latter to undertake the important works of a similar 

 character by which his name became so famous. During 

 their residence in Italy the Duke and his tutor visited all 

 the galleries, and Mr. Wood sat to Mengs for his portrait. 



