on the idiosyncrasies of the time from the naïve point of view of an outsider. On attending a wedding ceremony in "one of their Mosques", for example, the visitor remarks that "Marriage here is esteemed a Religious Ceremony, and that I believe is one Reason among others why so little Regard is paid to it". Oliver Goldsmith was later to borrow the same approach for his Chinese philosopher in Letters from a Citizen of the World to his Friends in the East (1760). There were, nevertheless, French models for both in the Lettres Persanes of Montesquieu (1721) and the Lettres Chinoises (1735) of Jean-Baptiste de Boyer, Marquis d'Argens, both of which had been translated soon after into English. Another work with prior French counterparts was Lyttelton's Dialogues of the Dead (1760). Though these had Classical precedents, the more immediate models were François Fénelon's Dialogues des morts anciens et modernes and Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle's Nouveaux Dialogues des morts, which had also appeared in popular English translations as Dialogues of the Dead. The themes treated in Lyttelton's are political, literary and philosophical, although the characters sometimes stray from their expected role. Joseph Addison and Jonathan Swift's conversation is of politics, while Charles XII of Sweden proposes to Alexander the Great an alliance against Alexander Pope for insulting them both in a satire. Included among these conversations were three that Lyttleton had encouraged the bluestocking leader Elizabeth Montagu to write (Dialogues 26–8). All of Lyttelton's writing was collected shortly after his death by his nephew, G. E. Ayscough. In 1791 an edition of his poems appeared in Germany accompanied by J. G. Weigel's prose translations. During his lifetime Lyttelton's Observations on the Conversion and Apostleship of St. Paul was translated into French in 1750 by Jean Deschamps (1707–67) and again in 1754 by the Abbé Antoine Guénée (1717-1803); his Dialogues of the Dead was also translated into French in 1760 as Dialogues des morts by Élie de Joncourt (1697-1765) and Jean Deschamps. Hagley Hall and grounds Lyttelton spent many years and a fortune developing Hagley Hall and its park, which contained many follies as well as memorials to the poets Milton, Pope, Thomson and the neighbouring landscaper William Shenstone. Also included among the latter was a 'druid's temple' of standing stones commemorating Ossian that Lyttelton had erected outside his grounds on nearby Clent Hill. The hall itself was designed by Sanderson