Lyttelton was a prominent politician for the whig opposition and the group the Cobham circle. Though he began his published career as a poet, as a writer himself Lyttelton also contributed substantially to the opposition campaign. Lyttelton was close to Frederick Prince of Wales, and Lyttelton was widely perceived as the ‘Maecenas’ who brought deserving poets to his royal notice. In practice only a handful of poets—Richard Glover, James Thomson, and David Mallet—received financial reward, but Lyttelton undoubtedly helped use Frederick's influence to inspire and mobilize a campaign of patriot writing in the late 1730s. He had a complex relationship with Pope. He was also a literary patron himself, though he received some ridicule and Lyttelton was accused of using his wealth to gratify his vanity and unfairly sway literary opinion. Towards the end of his life he eschewed politics in favor of writing.