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Portrait of George Augustus Selwyn at the age of fifty-one: from a pastelle by Hugh Douglas Hamilton, drawn in 1770. Hamilton, who was an Irish artist of considerable reputation, was at this time working in London. After a long visit to Italy he returned to Dublin in 1792 and was elected a member of the Royal Hibernian Academy. This drawing is in the possession of the Earl of Carlisle at Castle Howard, Yorkshire.

Group of George Augustus Selwyn and Frederick, fifth Earl of Carlisle: from a picture by Sir Joshua Reynolds, P.R.A. The dog by the side of Selwyn is his favourite, Raton. Selwyn is dressed in a pale brown coat and breeches, a red vest trimmed with gold lace, and light grey stockings; the Earl of Carlisle in a reddish brown coat and pale yellow vest. He wears the green ribbon and star of the Order of the Thistle. This picture was probably painted about the year 1770, and is in the possession of the Earl of Carlisle at Castle Howard, Yorkshire ....

TABLE OF DATES 1719. Birth. 1739. Matriculated at Hart Hall, Oxford. 1740. Clerk of the Irons and Surveyor of Meltings at the Mint. 1742-3. In Paris; having gone down from Oxford for a time. 1745. Finally left Oxford. 1747. M.P. for Ludgershall. 1751. Death of father and elder brother. 1754. M.P. for Gloucester. 1755. Paymaster of the Works. 1767. Correspondence with fifth Earl of Carlisle commences. 1779. Registrar of the Court of Chancery of Barbadoes. 1780. Loses seat for Gloucester. M.P. for Ludgershall. 1782. Loses office of Paymaster of the Works. 1784. Surveyor-General of Land Revenues of the Crown. 1791. Death.

Health is the first good lent to men; A gentle disposition then Next to be rich by no bye ways, Lastly with friends t'enjoy our days.

HERRICK

It is therefore not surprising that Selwyn has been handed down to posterity as a wit. It is a dismal reputation. Jokes collected in contemporary memoirs fall flat after a century's keeping; the essential of their success is spontaneity, appropriateness, the appreciation even of their teller, often also a knowledge among those who hear them of the peculiarities of the persons whom they mock. When we read one of them now, we are almost inclined to wonder how such a reputation for humour could be gained. Wit is of the present; preserved for posterity it is as uninteresting as a faded flower, nor can it recall to us memories sunny or sad. But Selwyn was a man who while filling a conspicuous place in the fashionable life of the age was also so intimate with statesmen and politicians, and so thoroughly lives in his correspondence, that in following his life we find ourselves one of that singular society which in the last half of the eighteenth century ruled the British Empire from St. James's Street.

Selwyn's life, though passed in a momentous age, was uneventful, but the course of it must be traced.

George Augustus Selwyn, second son of Colonel John Selwyn, of Matson, in Gloucestershire, and of Mary, daughter of General Farrington, of Kent, was born on the 11th of August, 1719. His father, aide-de-camp to Marlborough and a friend of Sir Robert Walpole, was a man of character and ability, well known in the courts of the first and second Georges. Selwyn, however, probably inherited his wit and his enjoyment of society from his mother, who was Woman of the Bedchamber to Queen Charlotte. Horace Walpole writes of her as "Mrs. Selwyn, mother of the famous George, and herself of much vivacity, and pretty."

Selwyn's elder brother died in 1751, and grief at his loss seems to have hastened the death of his father, which occurred in the same year.

To come to more recent times, the manor house was built in 1594 by Sir Ambrose Willoughby. From him the estate was purchased in 1597 by Jasper Selwyn, Counsellor at Law, of Stonehouse, who was the fourth in descent from John Selwyn, one of a Sussex family.

"I stayed two days at George Selwyn's house, called Matson, which lies on Robin Hood's Hill; it is lofty enough for an Alp, yet it is a mountain of turf to the very top, has wood scattered all over it, springs that long to be cascades in twenty places of it, and from the summit of it beats even Sir George Lyttleton's views, by having the city of Gloucester at its foot, and the Severn widening to the horizon. His house is small, but neat. King Charles lay here at the siege, and the Duke of York, with typical fury, hacked and hewed the window-shutters of his chamber, as a memorandum of his being there. Here is a good picture of Dudley, Earl of Leicester, in his later age, . . . and here is the very flower pot and counterfeit association for which Bishop Sprat is taken up, and the Duke of Marlborough sent to the Tower. The reservoirs on the hill supply the city. The late Mr. Selwyn governed the borough by them, and I believe by some wine too. . . .

The charming country estate and house which he had inherited from his father had little attraction for Selwyn, and to the end of his life, if he could not be in town, he preferred Castle Howard, or indeed any house where he would meet with congenial spirits. "This is the second day," he once wrote to Carlisle, "I am come home to dine alone, but so it is, and if it goes on so I am determined to keep a chaplain, for although I do not stand in need of much society, I do not relish being quite alone at this time of day."

Yet, sinecurist as he was, Selwyn often regarded his position as a hard necessity, especially when he was driven into the country to look after his constituents. He would then heartily wish himself out of Parliament: the sorrows of a sinecurist might well be the title of some of the letters written from Matson.

Selwyn's was a life devoid of stirring incidents, and from the date at which his correspondence with Lord Carlisle begins the course of his days is indicated in his letters. It is sufficient, therefore, to state that he died at his house in Cleveland Row, St. James's, on the 25th of January, 1791, still a Member of Parliament, in the place where his life had been passed and among his innumerable friends.

From a letter written by the Marchesa Fagniani to Selwyn in 1772 it is evident that Mie Mie, then about a year old, had been with him for some months, and in 1774 Lord Carlisle congratulates him upon the certainty of the child's remaining with him. The first mention of her in these letters occurs under date of July 23, 1774, where we have a picture of Selwyn, drawn by himself. He is sitting on his steps, the pretty, foreign-looking child in his arms, pleased at the attention she attracts. When she was four she was taken to pay visits with him; but it is difficult at this time to know if he or the Earl of March had charge of her.

Such interest in a young child naturally occasioned remark in London society, and the question of her paternity has never been clearly settled; in the gossip of the time both the Duke of Queensberry and Selwyn were said to be her father. The characters of the two men, however, and various points in their correspondence, seem to fix this relation upon the Duke of Queensberry. Selwyn's interest was that of a man who though without children had a strong and unusual affection for the young. He looked forward to the pleasure her development and education would be to him, and to the solace of her companionship in old age. She enlisted his sympathy and devotion. From the first time he saw her he wished to adopt her, and until the end of his life she was first in his thought, and all his circle approved of his little friend.

He soon made provision for her in his will, writing to Lord Carlisle July 26, 1774, that he must no longer delay in securing her future. In 1776 he placed her at school. After infinite trouble, Campden House was chosen, where every day he either saw her or received communications from the schoolmistress relative to her health, comfort, and happiness.

"Mrs. Terry presents her compliments to Mr. Selwyn; has the pleasure to assure him that dear Mademoiselle Fagniani is as well to-day as her good friend could possibly wish her to be. She is this minute engaged in a party at high romps."

"Mrs. Terry presents her best compliments to Mr. Selwyn; is very sorry to find that he is so uneasy. The dear child's spirits are not depressed. She is very lively; ate a good dinner; and behaves just like other children. She hopes Mr. Selwyn will make no scruple of coming to-morrow morning, or staying his hour, or more if he likes it; she will then talk to him about the head; but in the meantime begs he will not suppose that the dear child suffers by his absence, or that anything is neglected; for if Mrs. Terry thought Mr. Selwyn could suppose such a thing, she would wish to resign the charge. She begs he will come to-morrow."

Mie Mie was a disturbing element, if also a satisfaction, in Selwyn's life, for at all times overhanging present pleasure in her company was the dread of losing her. In August of 1776 the Marchesa Fagniani and her husband came to England. Selwyn had a fairly satisfactory interview, in which it was settled that the child should not leave him for a year. Before the time had expired he was exhausting every means to procure a longer delay; he even applied to the Austrian Ambassador that the Governor of Milan should use his influence with the family; but her return was insisted upon, and in August of 1777 Mie Mie left England to join her parents in Paris. The most careful and elaborate arrangements were made by Selwyn for her safety and comfort while travelling, and a list of the houses where stops were to be made given to faithful attendants.

He dreaded however the pain of parting with the child, and when the day of her departure arrived he absented himself to avoid the farewell, and his spirits and health suffered from her loss. Two months later Carlisle writes, "I never thought your attachment extraordinary. I might, for your sake, have wished it less in the degree; but what I did think extraordinary was that you would never permit what was most likely to happen ever to make its appearance in your perspective. March speaks with great tenderness and real compassion for your sufferings. Have you been at Lady Holland's? Are you in my house? Do not stay too long at Frognal; change the scene; it will do you good. Gratify every caprice of that sort, and write to me everything that comes into your head. You cannot unload your heart to any one who will receive its weight more cheerfully than I shall do."

But next year we hear of Selwyn at Milan negotiating with Mie Mie's relatives for her return. His proposals to make settlements on her met with alternate rebuffs and promises that kept him in a state of intermingled fear and hope. He was finally put off with the understanding that she should return to him in the spring; and in October he turned homeward.

In the spring it was arranged that the Marchesa Fagniani should bring Mie Mie to Paris to be left a few weeks in a convent before Selwyn should claim her. The meeting did not take place without a last trial of patience for him. He arrived in Paris in April, expecting to find the little traveller, but he was informed that the departure from Milan had been delayed for a few days; this was followed by the news of a change of plans, and that Selwyn must go to Lyons to meet the child, who would be conducted there by her mother--a meeting Selwyn had wished to avert. Eventually, early in May, we read the congratulations of his friends on the restoration of what had become dearest to him in the world.

During the month Selwyn spent in Paris, however, waiting for Mie Mie, who was passing the specified time in the convent, fresh difficulties were raised, and he began to doubt if he should ever bring the little girl to England. His health was seriously affected by the strain, and his friends begged him to give up a pursuit which was injuring it and taking him from them; but Mie Mie was at last received from the convent under a vague condition that at some future time she should return to it; a half promise which neither side expected would be fulfilled.

The Rev. Dr. Warner gives us a slight description of Mie Mie. A year had passed; she is nine years old; he is writing to Selwyn:--

"That freshness of complexion I should have great pleasure in beholding. It must add to her charms, and cannot diminish the character, sense, and shrewdness which distinguish her physiognomy, and which she possesses in a great degree, with a happy engrafting of a high-bred foreign air upon an English stock . . .

"But how very pleasant to me was your honest and naive confession of the joy your heart felt at hearing her admired! It is, indeed, most extraordinary that a certain person who has great taste--would he had as much nature!--should not see her with very different eyes from what he does. I can never forget that naive expression of Mme. de Sevigne, 'Je ne sais comment Von fait de ne pas aimer sa fille?'"

But Selwyn was never quite free from the fear that she should be taken from him. In January, 1781, he writes to Lord Carlisle:--

"From Milan things are well; at least, no menaces from thence of any sort, and I am assured, by one who is the most intimate friend of the Emperor's minister there, that he was much more likely to approve than to disapprove of Mie Mie's being with me, knowing as he does the turn and character of the mother."

The relationship from this time was more settled, and as Mie Mie grew into womanhood she became to Selwyn a delightful and affectionate companion.

The other group was of a younger generation, more brilliant and more modern. They might not inappropriately be called the Fox group, since his personality was so conspicuous among them. They talked politics and gambled at Brooks's, they appreciated each other's brightness, and lost their money with the indifference of true friends. There was the gallant and charming soldier Fitzpatrick, the schoolfellow and friend of Fox, the sagacious and versatile but place-seeking Storer. Hare, who, less well-born, had risen by his wit and talents to a place among the cleverest men of the time, "the Hare with many friends," as he was called by the Duchess of Gordon. Frederick, Earl of Carlisle and Crawford, the "petit Craufurt" of Mme. du Deffand; and chief of all was Charles Fox, who to Selwyn was incomprehensible. Selwyn had been his father's friend, and had known him from childhood. He loved him and liked his companionship; yet his unrestrained folly at the gambling-table and on the racecourse, his loose ideas on money matters, and his political opinions, at times annoyed, irritated, and puzzled him almost beyond endurance. With the older and the younger group Selwyn was on the same terms of intimate friendship: now pleasing by his wit, and now helping by his kindness and common sense.

Castle Howard was the place, outside London, which most attracted him. It is even to-day a long way from the metropolis, and one feels something like surprise that such a lover of the town as Selwyn could, even to the end of his life, undertake the tiresome journey to Yorkshire. But in the stately galleries of Vanbrugh's design he renewed his associations with France. There he was not bored by country society; in the home circle he had all the company he needed. He could look out over the rolling uplands and see the distant wolds, contented to observe and enjoy them from afar amidst the books and pictures which his host had collected. If he wanted exercise the spacious gardens were at hand, and the artificial adornment of temples and statuary pleased a taste highly cultivated after the fashion of the times.

In a drawing-room Selwyn was as welcome as in a club, and he could only be said to be out of place in his own country house, more especially at the time of an election for Gloucester. The modern love of landscape, of country life as an aesthetic pleasure, was unknown to him. Civilisation, refinement, seemed to him to be confined to London and Paris, to Bath or Tunbridge Wells. "Now sto per partire, and I ought in point of discretion to set out to-morrow, but I dare say 'twill be Friday evening before I'll have the courage to throw myself off the cart. But then go I must; for on Monday our Assizes begin, and how long I shall stay the Lord knows, but I hope in God not more than ten days at farthest, for I find my aversion to that part of the world greater and more insufferable every day of my life, and indeed have no wish to be absent from home but to go to Castle Howard, which I hope that I shall not delay many days after my return from Gloucestershire" . A week later he had arrived at his home. "The weather is very fine, and Matson in as great beauty as a place can be in, but the beauties of it make very little impression upon me; in short, there is nothing in the eccentric situation in which I am now that can afford me the least pleasure, and everything I love to see in the world is at a distance from me" .

To-day such a man as Selwyn Would have had a choice collection of water colours; he would be ashamed if he could not appreciate the tone and tenderness of an English landscape. But though a friend of Reynolds and of Romney, though he commissioned and appreciated Gainsborough, and valued the masterpieces of the past, in a word, was essentially a man of culture, yet this phase of modern refinement was utterly unknown to him.

As a politician Selwyn, as has already been said, was a sinecurist; he never took a political interest in affairs of state, and he looked at events which have become historical from an unpolitical point of view. But though he writes of parliamentary incidents as a spectator, there is always in his letters a personal characterisation which gives them vividness and life. For his long parliamentary career brought Selwyn continually into contact with many varied personalities of several political generations. When he entered the House of Commons Henry Pelham was Prime Minister, and the elder Pitt had not yet formed that coalition with the Duke of Newcastle which enabled him to command a majority in the House of Commons and to be the greatest War Minister of the century. When Selwyn died, still a Member of Parliament, the younger Pitt was Prime Minister and the French Revolution had upset that old regime which Selwyn had known so well. In his time Pelham, Newcastle, Bute, Grenville, Chatham, Grafton, North, Rockingham, Shelburne, and Portland were successively heads of administrations: of some of these, and of many who served under them, Selwyn was a friend. Of the political and personal life of every one of them he had been an interested spectator. There was no man of the age who had a longer period of parliamentary observation and of personal association with the leading politicians of the time. But this intimacy with political personages never impressed him with the importance of political office. "You will not believe it, perhaps," he once wrote to Lady Carlisle when he had been asked to meet Pitt at dinner, "but a minister of any description, though served up in his great shell of power, and all his green fat about him, is to me a dish by no means relishing, and I never knew but one in my life I could pass an hour with pleasantly, which was Lord Holland." Cabinet Ministers of the eighteenth century belonged to a single section of society, which included every one of note and every one in it knew their faults and their failings; they were not afraid of offending constituents or of being lectured in leading articles. Thus their littleness, rather than their greatness, was apt to impress a daily observer like Selwyn, and to give to his remarks an aspect of depreciation and of pessimism.

That Selwyn was a gossip, no one knew better than himself, and he has incurred the censure of Sir George Trevelyan for repeating tittle-tattle, as he calls it, about Fox and his gambling. But posterity desires to see the real Fox, not an ideal statesman--to see a man as he lived, not only a political figure. Looking back for more than a century we may very well appreciate to the full Fox's great qualities and yet be aware of his weaknesses and his vices, in which he showed the strength of a passionate and virile character in contact with certain characteristics of the society of the age. Instead, therefore, of blaming Selwyn for repeating to correspondents the minor incidents of the time, we ought to be thankful to him for enabling us to picture so many of the leading personages of that day as they were. If we look to a period before or after that of Selwyn, we see an immortal gossip in Pepys, and in Greville another who will be read after the works of eminent historians have been put on upper shelves as out of date. The detailing of the minor facts of life without malice and with absolute truth enables posterity to form a sound judgment on a past age.

Among the amusements of the society in which Selwyn delighted was one which now seems both morbid and cruel: that of attending the execution of those condemned to capital punishment. Even to his friends and immediate successors, no less than to those who have written of him, the fact that a man so full of kindness, who took pleasure in the innocent companionship of children, could with positive eagerness witness the hanging of a thief at Tyburn, has been a cause of surprise. When one is conversant with the history of the time the astonishment is ridiculous. The sight of a man on the gallows no more disturbed the serenity of the most good-natured of men at the end of the eighteenth century than do the dying flutters of a partridge the susceptibilities of the most cultured of modern sportsmen. Selwyn was ever trying to get as much amusement out of life as possible, and he would have been acting contrary to all the ideas of the fashionable society of his age if he had sat at home when a criminal was to die. It was said of Boswell, just as it was of Selwyn, that he was passionately fond of attending executions. We need not therefore be surprised that Selwyn did as others of his time. Gilly Williams was a kind and good-natured man, yet we find him writing to Selwyn:

"Harrington's porter was condemned yesterday. Cadogan and I have already bespoken places at the Braziers, and I hope Parson Digby will come time enough to be of the party. I presume we shall have your honour's company, if your stomach is not too squeamish for a single serving."

But another and more widespread habit is often referred to in his letters. The gambling which Selwyn disapproved, but indulged in for years, is constantly alluded to in his correspondence. The hold which this vice had upon nearly every one who regarded himself as belonging to the best society of London has never been more clearly and vividly depicted than in Selwyn's letters. It was the protest-- always varying, always taking new forms, but always present--against the monotony of life. Fortunes were nightly lost at Brooks's and White's, and substantial sums were gambled away by ladies of position and of fashion in the most exclusive drawing-rooms in order to kill time. Selwyn himself was a sagacious and careful man; but he was nevertheless a moderate gambler; he always perceived the folly of it; and yet for a great many years, he was constantly risking part of by no means a large fortune. The green table was the Stock Exchange and turf of the time, men and women frequented the clubs and drawing-rooms where the excitement of gambling could be enjoyed as they now flock to the race-course or telegraph to their brokers in Throgmorton Street. The nobleman now enjoys his pleasure side by side with the publican, and his example is followed by his servants on the course. Gambling in Selwyn's time was more select--a small society governed England and gambled in St. James's Street, while in more democratic days peers, members, and constituents pursue the same excitement together on the race-course or in the City. Great as were the sums which were lost at commerce, hazard, or faro, they were less than the training-stable, the betting-ring, and the stock-jobber now consume; and the same influences which have destroyed the Whig oligarchy and the King's friends have changed and enlarged the manner and the habit of gambling in England.

Of Selwyn the humourist it would be easy to collect pages of witticisms. Walpole's letters alone contain dozens of them, and there is not a memoir of the eighteenth century in which is not to be found one of "George's" jokes. Though often happy, as when seeing Mr. Ponsonby, the Speaker of the Irish Parliament, parting freely with bank-notes at Newmarket, he remarked, "How easily the Speaker passes the money bills," or, as when Lord Foley crossed the Channel to avoid his creditors, he drily observed that it was "a passover not much relished by the Jews," yet their repetition now is tiresome.

Manner and appearance assisted his wit, an impassive countenance hid his humour so that his sallies surprised by their unexpectedness. He knew how to appropriate opportunity, and saw the humour of a situation. A reputation for wit is thus gained not only by what is said, but by the mere indication of the ridiculous. This it is impossible to reproduce, and the celebrity of Selwyn as a wit must be allowed to rest on the opinion of his contemporaries.

There is a popular idea that in the eighteenth century England and France were essentially hostile nations, immemorial enemies, yet at no time had there been more sympathy between two sections of society than there existed between the governing and fashionable men and women of Paris and London; in literature, art, and dress they held the same opinions. Englishmen braved the Channel and underwent the fatigue and trouble of the two land journeys with cheerfulness in order to enjoy the society of St. Germain. They were received not as strange travellers, but as valued friends.

There is an irresistible fascination in the study of the men and women of the eighteenth century of France and England; they, their manners and customs, have disappeared for ever, but Gainsborough's gracious women, Sir Joshua Reynolds's charming types, and Romney's sensitive heads, have in England immortalised the reign of beauty of this period; in France the elegance and grace of the time are shown in the canvases of Greuze, Vanloo, and Fragonard, in the cupids and doves and garlands which adorned the interiors of Mme. de Pompadour.

It was a time of great intellectual development and progress in both countries. It was the epoch of the salons, of the philosophers and encyclopaedists, of a brilliant society whose decadence was hidden in a garb of seductive gaiety, its egotism and materialism in a magnificent apparelling of wit and learning. Literary standing in France at once gave the entree to society of the highest rank and to circles the most exclusive. David Hume, whose reputation as philosopher and historian, had been already established there, was received with enthusiasm when he accompanied Lord Hertford to Paris as Secretary of Embassy, though his manner, dress, and speech were awkward and uncouth; but his good-humoured simplicity was accepted and appreciated as was his learning. He had begun in England a correspondence with the Comtesse de Boufflers, he was made welcome too in the salons of Mme. Geoffrin and of Mile, de Lespinasse, and he soon became intimate with d'Alembert and Turgot. His reception was no less cordial at court, where the children of the Dauphin met him, prepared with polite little speeches about his works. He had such admiration for Rousseau that he brought him to England, assisting him there in spite of Horace Walpole's ill-natured jest on the flight of the susceptible French philosopher.

During Burke's visit to Paris in 1773 he was often present at Mme. du Deffand's supper parties, who said that although he spoke French with difficulty he was most agreeable; here and at other salons he met the encyclopaedists and obtained the insight into French morals and philosophy which, in his case, strengthened conservative principles.

When "Clarissa Harlowe" appeared in Paris, the book created a sensation and was more talked of there than in England. Diderot compared Richardson, as the father of the English novel, to Homer, father of epic poetry. In England men of letters were far less recognised in society. Walpole remarked, "You know in England we read their works, but seldom or never take notice of authors. We think them sufficiently paid if their books sell, and of course leave them in their colleges and obscurity, by which means we are not troubled with their vanity and impatience." But Walpole overdrew the picture, for though literature did not hold the place in London that it did in Paris, yet wit was never more appreciated, and learning added to the equipment of the first of the fine gentlemen of the time. Of this unique state of society and of international friendliness Selwyn and his friends were the products. We cannot too clearly realise them as types which can never recur.

The secret of Selwyn's charm lies in the contrasts of his character; his versatility and cosmopolitan sympathies attract us now as they attracted in his lifetime men very different in habits, pursuits, and mind.

Frederick, fifth Earl of Carlisle--Lady Sarah Bunbury--The Duke of Grafton--Carlisle, Charles Fox, and the Hollands abroad--Current events--Card-playing--A dinner at Crawford's--Lady Bolingbroke --Almack's--The Duke of Bedford--Lord Clive--The Nabobs--Corporation of Oxford sell the representation of the borough--Madame du Deffand --Publication of Horace Walpole's "Historic Doubts on Richard the Third"--Newmarket--London Society--Gambling at the Clubs--A post promised to Selwyn--Elections--A purchase of wine--Vauxhall.

The frequent French interpolations with which his letters are interspersed now strike us as affectations. They were, however, a fashion of the day; nor should we forget that Selwyn spent so much of his life in Paris that the language came to him as easily as his own.

In 1767 Selwyn and Carlisle had not long been friends. "Don't lead your new favourite Carlisle into a scrape," wrote Gilly Williams to Selwyn in the previous year. The words were written without serious intent, but they are noticeable because they are so opposite to the whole course of the rising friendship. The relations of the two men were remarkable.

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