E-text prepared by Marjorie Fulton
GEORGE SELWYN: HIS LETTERS AND HIS LIFE
Edited by
E. S. ROSCOE AND HELEN CLERGUE
London
T. Fisher Unwin
Paternoster Square
1899
PREFACE
IN the histories and memoirs of the eighteenth century the name of
George Selwyn often occurs. The letters which he received have
afforded frequent and valuable material to the student of the reign
of George the Third. A large number of these were published by the
late Mr. Jesse in the four volumes entitled "George Selwyn and his
Contemporaries." Except, however, that Selwyn was regarded as the
first humourist of his time, little was known about him, for
scarcely any letters which he wrote had until recently been found.
But in the Fifteenth Report of the Historical Manuscript Commission
there were printed, amongst a mass of other material, more than two
hundred letters from his untiring pen which had been preserved at
Castle Howard. No one who has had an opportunity of examining the
originals can fail to recognise the skill and labour with which the
Castle Howard correspondence of Selwyn--wanting in most instances
the date of the year--was arranged by Mr. Kirk on behalf of the
Commission.
A correspondence, however, which illustrates vividly phases of an
interesting and important period of English history, appeared to be
deserving of presentation to the public in a separate volume, and
with the explanations necessary to make the allusions in it fully
understood.
A selection has therefore, in the following pages, been made from
the Castle Howard letters. The aim of the editors has been to choose
those which appeared most interesting and representative, and to
place them in definite groups, supplementing them with such a
narrative, remarks, and notes as would, without enveloping the
correspondence in a quantity of extraneous material, enable the
whole to present the life of Selwyn, and at the same time add
another to the pictures of the age in which he lived.
The dates of the letters are those ascribed to them by Mr. Kirk.
The frequently incorrect spelling of proper names has not been
altered.
The editors desire cordially to thank Lord Carlisle, not only for
the permission to publish this correspondence, but for the kind
assistance which he has given in other ways to the undertaking.
E. S. R. H. C.
November, 1899.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1. GEORGE SELWYN: His LIFE, His FRIENDS, AND His AGE
CHAPTER 2. 1767-1769. THE CORRESPONDENCE COMMENCES ....
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.
CHAPTER 3. 1773-1777; 1779 AND 1780 POLITICS AND SOCIETY.
Fox's debts--Lord Holland--News from London--Interviews with
Fox--The Fire at Holland House--A Visit to Tunbridge--Provision for
Mie Mie--County business and electioneering at Gloucester--Lotteries
--Fox and Carlisle--Highway adventures--London Society--Newmarket
intelligence--An evening in town--Charles Fox and America--Carlisle
declines a court post--money from Fox--Selwyn and gambling--A
Private Bill committee--Selwyn in bad spirits--The Royal Society
--Book-buying--Political affairs--London parks--Gainsborough--The
Duchess of Kingston--Selwyn's private affairs--"The Diaboliad"--A
dinner at the French Ambassador's--Politics and the clubs--In Paris
--Electioneering again.
CHAPTER 4. 1781. THE DISASTERS IN AMERICA.
A drum at Selwyn's--George, Lord Morpeth--Dr. Warner--Sale of the
Houghton pictures--The House of Commons--Pitt's first speech--Selwyn
unwell--Play at Brooks's--London gaieties--Fox and his new clothes
--Gambling--The bailiffs in Fox's house--"Fish" Crawford--Montem at
Eton--Mie Mie's education--Second speech of Pitt--Lord North--A
Court Ball--Society and politics--The Emperor of Austria
--Conversation with Fox--Personal feelings--American affairs--rd
North and Mr. Robinson--State of politics--London Society.
CHAPTER 5. 1782. THE FALL OF LORD NORTH.
Fox's political principles--The fifth Duke of Bedford--A little
dinner--A debate in the Commons--The attack on Lord George Germaine
--An evening at Brooks's--Pitt and his friends--Possible changes in
the Cabinet--Faro at White's--A story of the Duke of Richmond--An
Address to the King--A Levee--Play and politics at Brooks's
--Government and the Opposition--Selwyn and his offices--The
position of the King--Fears of change of administration--The King's
objections to Fox--Probable debates--Political prospects--Debates
and divisions--The fate of the King's friends--Illness of Lord
Morpeth--Annoyance of Selwyn at the state of affairs--Fox and
Selwyn--Fall of Lord North--A new Ministry--Official changes--Fox
and Carlisle--Carlisle's position--Morpeth and Mie Mie.
CHAPTER 6. 1786-1791. THE CLOSING CENTURY.
Political Events--At Richmond--The Duke of Queensberry's villa
--Princess Amelia--The King's illness--The French Revolution
--Proposed visit to Castle Howard--In Gloucestershire--Affairs in
France--The Emigres--Society at Richmond--The French Revolution
--Richmond Theatre--French friends--Christening of Lady Caroline
Campbell's child--Selwyn's bad health--Death.
INDEX
NOTE ON ILLUSTRATIONS
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
CHAPTER 1. GEORGE SELWYN--HIS LIFE, HIS FRIENDS, AND HIS AGE
During the latter half of the eighteenth century no man had more
friends in the select society which comprised those who were of the
first importance in English politics, fashion, or sport, than George
Selwyn. In one particular he was regarded as supreme and
unapproachable; he was the humourist of his time. His ban mots were
collected and repeated with extraordinary zest. They were enjoyed by
Members of Parliament at Westminster, and by fashionable ladies in
the drawing-rooms of St. James's. They were told as things not to be
forgotten in the letters of harassed politicians. "You must have
heard all the particulars of the Duke of Northumberland's
entertainment," wrote Mr. Whateley in 1768 to George Grenville, the
most hardworking of ministers; "perhaps you have not heard George
Selwyn's bon mot."* But as usually happens when a man becomes known
for his humour jokes were fathered on Selwyn, just as half a century
later any number of witticisms were attributed to Sydney Smith which
he had never uttered. It was truly remarked of Selwyn at the time of
his death: "Many good things he did say, there was no doubt, and
many he was capable of saying, but the number of good, bad, and
indifferent things attributed to him as bon mots for the last thirty
years of his life were sufficient to stock a foundling hospital for
wit."*
* Grenville Correspondence, vol. 11. p. 372.
* Gentleman's Magazine, 1791, p. 94.
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.
His sister Albinia married Thomas Townshend, second son of Charles
Viscount Townshend. By this marriage the families of Selwyn and
Walpole were connected.
The home of the family was at Matson, a village two and a half miles
south-east of Gloucester, on the spurs of the Cotswold hills,
looking over the Severn valley--once called Mattesdone. There is a
good deal of obscurity as to the ownership of the manor in mediaeval
times, but it appears to have been in the possession of what may
popularly speaking be called the family of Mattesdone. The landowner
described himself by the place; "Ego Philippus de Mattesdone" are
the words of an ancient document preserved among the records of the
Monastery of St. Peter at Gloucester.*
* "Historia et Cartularium Monasterii Sancti Petri Gloucestria,"
edited by W. Hart, vol. i. p. 100.
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.
In 1751 the direct entail was broken by Colonel Selwyn, and the
property was re-entailed on the descendants of his daughter, Mrs.
Townshend, though it was left by will to George Selwyn for his life.
On his death it devolved on Thomas, Lord Sydney, and has since
remained in the possession of the Townshend family.** Walpole has
given a description of the place in the days when he used to visit
it.
** Bigland, "History of Gloucestershire," vol. ii. p. 200.
"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. . . .
"A little way from the town are the ruins of Lantony Priory; there
remains a pretty old gateway, which G. Selwyn has begged to erect on
the top of his mountain, and it will have a charming effect."*
* "The Letters of Horace Walpole," vol. ii. p. 354.
Selwyn's schooldays were passed at Eton with Gray and Walpole. In
1739 he became an undergraduate of Hertford College, Oxford, or Hart
Hall as it was called. It was to Hertford also that later Charles
Fox went, "a college which has in our own day been munificently
re-endowed as a training school of principles and ideas very
different from those ordinarily associated with the name of its
greatest son." Hertford was in the middle of the eighteenth century
a college where the so-called students neither toiled at books nor
at physical exercise. They passed a short and merry time at the
University, fashioned as nearly as might be on the mode of life of a
man about town. In 1740 he was appointed to the vague-sounding
office of Clerk of the Irons and Surveyor of the Meltings in the
Mint, a sinecure which, after the manner of the time, required no
personal attention from the holder. Even in those early days Selwyn,
who went by the sobriquet of "Bosky," had many friends--not only
among college boys, but in London society. "You must judge by what
you feel yourself," wrote Walpole to General Conway, the soldier and
statesman, on the occasion of a severe illness from which Selwyn
suffered in 1741, "of what I feel for Selwyn's recovery, with the
addition of what I have suffered from post to post. But as I find
the whole town have had the same sentiments about him (though I am
sure few so strong as myself), I will not repeat what you have heard
so much. I shall write to him to-night, though he knows, without my
telling him, how very much I love him. To you, my dear Harry, I am
infinitely obliged for the three successive letters you wrote me
about him, which gave me double pleasure, as they showed your
attention for me at a time that you knew I must be so unhappy, and
your friendship for him."* But then came an interval in Selwyn's
academic career--if such it may be called--since he was certainly
in Paris, much in want of money, at the end of 1742 and the
beginning of 1743. It is probable that he had gone down from Oxford
for some irregularity; he ultimately was obliged to leave the
University for the same reason. For though he re-entered his college
in 1744 he only remained there until the following year, when he was
sent down for an irreverent jest after dinner, having taken more to
drink than was good for him. His friends, especially Sir Charles
Hanbury Williams and some in authority at Oxford also, thought that
Selwyn was harshly treated. Whether that were so or not this was the
end of his University career. It was not a promising beginning of a
life, and for some years he was regarded as a good-natured
spendthrift. The death of his elder brother and father however in
1751 produced a sense of responsibility, but even before this date
he had been endeavouring to regain his father's goodwill. "I don't
yet imagine," wrote his friend, Sir William Maynard, shortly before
the death of Colonel J. Selwyn, "you are quite established in his
good opinion, and if his life is but spared one twelvemonth you may
have an opportunity of convincing him you are in earnest in your
promises of a more frugal way of life." As too often happens the son
had not time in his father's lifetime to regain his good opinion.
Certainly Selwyn made no attempt to give up pleasure, though he was
bent on it no doubt with a more frugal mind. He was a man of fashion
and of pleasure, having his headquarters in London, paying visits
now and again to great country houses as Trentham and Croome. To
Bath he went as one goes now to the Riviera. In Paris too he
delighted; when in the autumn of 1762 the Duke of Bedford was in
France negotiating the treaty which is known in history as the Peace
of Paris, it was Selwyn who accompanied the Duchess when she joined
her husband. "She sets out the day after to-morrow," wrote Walpole
on September 8th, "escorted to add gravity to the Embassy by George
Selwyn." After the treaty was completed on February 10th of the
following year, as a memento of his visit the Duke presented Selwyn
with the pen with which this unpopular document was signed.* Indeed
in those days he was constantly in Paris, much to the regret of his
friends at home--"Do come and live among your friends who love and
honour you," wrote Gilly Williams to him in the autumn of 1764, but
in spite of their wishes he stayed on throughout the winter in the
French capital, and when his friend Carlisle went in 1778 to America
as a peace commissioner Selwyn tried to console himself for his
absence by a stay in Paris. "George is now, I imagine, squaring his
elbows and turning out his toes in Paris," wrote Hare to Carlisle in
December of that year. Neither politics nor pleasure could prevent
continual and long visits to France.
* Horace Walpole to H. S. Conway, Florence, March 25, 1741.
* Bedford Correspondence, vol. iii. P. 206.
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."
All this time he was a Member of Parliament. There is a little
village of small red cottages with thatched roofs lying among the
Wiltshire downs between Savernake Forest and Andover. It is called
Ludgershall, and has a quiet out-of-the-world look. In the
eighteenth century it was a pocket borough, returning two Members to
Parliament, and was the property of the Selwyn family. The
representation was as much in their hands as the trees in the
adjoining fields. In 1747 George Selwyn had found it convenient to
enter the House of Commons. In Ludgershall there were no
constituents to take him to task; to be able to go to Westminster
when he wished added to the variety of life. It kept him in touch
with the politicians and statesmen of St. James's Street, and it
made him a marketable quantity--his price was another sinecure, the
place of Paymaster of the Works. But this he did not receive until
he had inherited the family property, which gave him a hold on the
city of Gloucester. For this city he was a Member from 1754 to 1780,
when, losing his seat at the general election, he gladly returned to
his former constituency. The seat at Ludgershall was never in the
nature of a true political representation, and even when Member for
Gloucester Selwyn seems to have attended but little to the House of
Commons. He was one of a legion of sinecures--a true specimen of the
place-man of the age. Possessed of some political influence, he was
able to find in politics a means of increasing his income. It would
be absurd to censure him because he was a sinecurist; he was acting
according to the customs of the time. The man who in the reign of
George III. had the opportunity of obtaining posts which carried
with them salaries and no duties would have been regarded as
Quixotic if he had thrown such opportunities away. In this Selwyn is
thoroughly representative of his time, and his frequent anxiety lest
he should be deprived of his offices is indicative of an
apprehension which was felt by many others.
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.
In one sense his life had been solitary, for he was never married;
but an unusual love for the young which was a charming and
remarkable characteristic, singularly opposed to many of his habits,
had been centred on the child whom he called Mie Mie,* the daughter
of an Italian lady, the Marchesa Fagniani, who was for some time in
England with her husband. The origin of Selwyn's interest in the
child is obscure, but the story of his affection is striking and
unusual.
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.
* Maria Fagniani (1771-1856). She was married in 1792, the year
after Selwyn's death, to the Earl of Yarmouth, afterwards third
Marquis of Hertford. She led a life of pleasure (1802-7), travelling
on the continent with the Marshal Androche. She had three children,
and died at Rue Tailbout, Paris.
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?'"
* The Duke of Queens berry.
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.
Selwyn was a universal friend; he was equally at home with
politicians, dilettanti, and children; he was a man of such
consistent good nature, so unaffectedly kind-hearted, that every
one, statesman, gambler, or schoolboy, liked to be in his company.
Yet among Selwyn's many friends and acquaintances two groups are
remarkable. The first was formed of men of his own age--Walpole,
Edgecumbe, Gilly Williams, and Lord March comprise what may be
called the Strawberry Hill group. It was at Walpole's famous villa
that they liked best to meet, and it is by Reynolds that Walpole's
"out-of-town party" has been handed down to us.** They were an odd
coterie--cultivated, artificial, gossiping. None of them ever
married; to do so seemed to have been unfashionable, if not
unpopular; and when we see the results of many marriages among their
friends, they were best, perhaps, as bachelors. They considered
themselves free to act as they pleased; and this freedom became
notorious by the life-long dissipation of March, and by the free
living of Edgecumbe, who died at forty-five after a life misspent at
the gaming-table. That he possessed a bright mind and ingenious wit
is proved by his verses and by the estimate of his friends. The
amusing coat of arms which the friends designed for White's Club was
painted by him, while he was one of the first to recognise the
genius of Reynolds.
** The group of Selwyn, Edgecumbe, and Williams which was painted
for Horace Walpole in 1781, and subsequently became the property of
the late Lord Taunton, now belongs to his daughter, the Hon. Mrs.
Edward Stanley, and is at Quantock Lodge, Bridgwater. It is a
charming and interesting picture. A replica by Sir J. Reynolds, the
property of Lord Cadogan, is at Chelsea House.
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" (August, 1774). 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" (August 9, 1774).
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."
Another friend, Henry St. John, begins a letter to Selwyn by telling
how he and his brother went to see an execution. "We had a full
view of Mr. Waistcott as he went to the gallows with a white cockade
in his hat." Not to be wanting in the ordinary courtesies of the
time, Selwyn's correspondent presently remarks, as one nowadays
would do of a day's grouse-shooting: "I hope you have had good sport
at the Place de Greve, to make up for losing the sight of so
notorious a villain as Lady Harrington's porter. Mais laisons la ce
discours triste, and let us talk of the living and lively world."
Selwyn made his world brighter by his wit and pleasantries, and the
sight of an execution did not depress his spirits. "With his strange
and dismal turn," wrote Walpole, "he has infinite fun and humour in
him."* And the author of a social satire blunted his thrusts at
Selwyn by a long explanatory note which concludes with the remark
that "George is a humane man."*
* Letters, vol. ii. 315.
* "The Diaboliad," P. 18. See Chapter 3.
It was Selwyn's fate--and in every generation we find some one of
whom the same may be said--to have his characteristics or foibles
exaggerated. It occurred to him in regard to witticisms and the
sight of executions; he did not complain of this, for he knew it
would be useless, but he disliked to be regarded as an habitual
jester or as possessing an unnatural taste for horrors.*
* "George, as soon as the King had spoken to him, withdrew and went
away, the King then knighted the ambitious squire. The King
afterwards expressed his astonishment to the group-in-waiting that
Mr. Selwyn should not stay to see the ceremony, observing that it
looked so like an execution that he took it for granted Mr. Selwyn
would have stayed to see it. George heard of the joke, but did not
like it: he is, on that subject, still very sore." ("Journals and
Correspondence of Lord Auckland," vol. ii. p. 210).
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.
"Je suis bien eloignee," wrote Madame du Deffand, in 1767, who, of
those who knew him, has left us the most finished portrait, "de
croire M. Selwyn stupide, mais il est souvent dans les espaces
imaginaires. Rien ne le frappe ni le reveille que le ridicule, mais
il l'attrape en volant; il a de la grace et de la finesse dans ce
qu'il dit mais il ne sais pas causer de suite; il est distrait,
indifferent; il s'ennuierait souvent sans une tres bonne recette
qu'il a contre l'ennui, c'est de s'endormir quand il veut. C'est un
talent que je lui envie bien; si je l'avais, j'en ferais grand
usage. Il est malin sans etre mechant; il est officieux, poli; hors
son milord March, il n'aime rien: on ne saurait former aucune
liaison avec lui, mais on est bien aise de l'encontrer, d'etre avec
lui dans le meme chambre, quoi qu'on n'ait rien a lui dire." *
* "Correspondance complete de Mme. du Deffand," vol. i. p. 87.
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.
Of this francophile feeling of the eighteenth century Selwyn was the
most remarkable example. He was as much at home in the salon of Mme.
du Deffand, or at one of President Henault's famous little dinners,
as in the drawing-room of Holland House or the card-room at
Brooks's. He introduced Walpole and Crawford to French society,
adding to the social and literary connection between Paris and
London during a time when political ties were broken. He was a
favourite, too, with the French Queen.* Under date of February 10,
1764, the Earl of March writes to him from Fontainebleau: "The Queen
asked Madame de Mirepoix--si elle n'avoit pas beaucoup entendu me
dire de Monsieur Selwyn et elle? Elle a repondu, oui, beaucoup,
Madame. J'en suis bien aise, dit la Reine."
* Maria Leschitinskey, daughter of Stanislaus, King of Poland, and
Queen of Louis XV.
The correspondence of Mme. du Deffand contains frequent allusions to
the intimacy between the first English and French society of the
period. David Hume, Lord Ossory, Lady Hervey, Lord March, the Duke
of York,* and other well-known English names, are mingled with
Rousseau, Voltaire, d'Alembert, and the Duc and Duchesse de
Choiseul. This oddly assorted company moves in the world of M. de
Maurepas and of the Duc d'Aiguillon, and is seen in the charming
salons of Mme. Geoffrin and Mme. d'Epinay; the beauty of Lady
Pembroke is commented on, the charm of Lady Sarah Bunbury analysed,
Lady Grenville eulogised.
* Edward, Duke of York (1739-1767), brother of George III., visited
Paris the summer of 1767, on his way to Italy, where he died Sept.
17th.
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.
The first Lord Holland, Horace Walpole, the Duke of Queensberry,
each a type of the society of the eighteenth century; the
unscrupulous politician, the cultivated amateur and man of letters,
the sportsman with half the opera dancers in London in his pay--of
all he was the closest friend. The most intimate of them, the Duke
of Queensberry, led an extravagant and a dissipated life, in
contrast with which Selwyn's was homely and simple. He could leave
the gambling table of the club to play with Mie Mie or a schoolboy
from Eton; while his friends were crippled by dice and cards and
became seekers after political places by which they might live, he
was prudent in his play and neither ruined himself nor others. He
had a self-control and a sound sense, which were not common in his
generation; we see them in the tranquil, contemplative eyes of
Reynolds's portraits, ready in a moment to gleam with humour. By
reason of his unfailing good-nature, he was always at the service of
a friend. Himself without ambition, he watched men, not possessed of
his tact and ability, rise to positions which he had never the least
desire to fill. In an age of great political bitterness and the
strongest personal antagonism he continued the tranquil tenor of his
way, amused and amusing, hardly ever put out except by the illness
or the misfortune of a friend. "George Selwyn died this day
se'night," wrote his friend Storer to Lord Auckland; "a more
good-natured man or a more pleasant one never, I believe, existed.
The loss is not only a private one to his friends, but really a
public one to society in general."* Gaiety of temperament and sound
sense, a quick wit and a kind heart, sincerity and love of society,
culture without pedantry, a capacity to enjoy the world in each
stage of life: these are seldom found united in one individual as
they were in George Selwyn, and he is thus for us perhaps the
pleasantest personality of English society in the eighteenth
century.
* "Journal and Correspondence of Lord Auckland," vol. ii. p. 383.