It seems to have been one of the peculiarities of George Selwyn, to
preserve not only every letter addressed to him by his correspondents
during the course of his long life, but also the most trifling notes and
memoranda. To this peculiarity, the reader is indebted for whatever
amusement he may derive from the perusal of these volumes. The greater
portion of their contents consists of letters addressed to Selwyn, by
persons who, in their day, moved in the first circles of wit, genius, and
fashion."
We have thus let Mr Jesse speak for himself. If the public are satisfied,
so let it be. But people seldom read prefaces. The title is the thing, and
that title is, "_George Selwyn_ and his contemporaries." If it had been
"Letters of the contemporaries of George Selwyn," we should have
understood the matter.
Still we are not at all disposed to quarrel with the volumes. They contain
a great deal of pleasant matter; and the letters are evidently, in general,
the work of a higher order of persons than the world has often an
opportunity of seeing in their deshabille. The Persian proverb, which
accounted for the fragrance of a pebble by its having lain beside the rose,
has been in some degree realized in these pages. They are evidently of the
Selwyn school; and if he is not here witty himself, he is, like the "fat
knight," the cause of wit in others. We are enjoying a part of the feast
which his science had cooked, and then distributed to his friends to
figure as the _chefs-d'oeuvre_ of their own tables. At all events, though
often on trifling subjects, and often not worth preserving, they vindicate
on the whole the claim of English letter-writing to European superiority.
Taking Walpole as the head, and nothing can be happier than his mixture of
keen remark, intelligent knowledge of his time, high-bred ease of language,
and exquisite point and polish of anecdote; his followers, even in these
few volumes, show that there were many men, even in the midst of all the
practical business and nervous agitation of public life, not unworthy of
their master. We have no doubt that there have been hundreds of persons,
and thousands of letters, which might equally contribute to this most
interesting, and sometimes most brilliant, portion of our literature. The
French lay claim to superiority in this as in every thing else; but we
must acknowledge that it is with some toil we have ever read the boasted
letters of De Sévigné--often pointed, and always elegant, they are too
often frivolous, and almost always local. We are sick of the adorable
Grignan, and her "belle chevelure." The letters of Du Deffand, Espinasse,
Roland, and even of De Staël, though always exhibiting ability, are too
hard or too hot, too fierce or too fond, for our tastes; they are also so
evidently intended for any human being except the one to whom they were
addressed, or rather for all human beings--they were so palpably "private
effusions" for the public ear--sentiments stereotyped, and sympathies for
the circulating library--that they possessed as little the interest as the
character of correspondence.
Voltaire's letters are always spirited. That extraordinary man could do
nothing on which his talent was not marked; but his letters are
epigrammes--all is sacrificed to point, and all is written for the salons
of Paris. What Talleyrand's _might_ be, we can imagine from the singular
subtlety and universal knowledge of that most dexterous player of the most
difficult game which was ever on the diplomatic cards. But as his
definition of the excellence of a letter was--"to say any thing, but mean
nothing," we must give up the hope of his contribution. Grimm's volumes
are, after all, the only collection which belongs to the style of letters
to which we allude. They are amusing and anecdotical, and, in our
conception, by much the most intelligent French correspondence that has
fallen into our hands. But they are too evidently the work of a man
writing as a task, gathering the Parisian news as a part of his profession,
and in fact sending a daily newspaper to his German patron.
Of the German epistolary literature we have seen nothing which approaches
to the excellence of the English school. The conception is generally vague,
vapourish, and metaphysical. And this predominates absurdly through all
its classes. The poet prides himself on being as much a dreamer in his
prose as in his poetry; the scholar is proud of being perplexed and
pedantic; the statesman is naturally immersed in that problematic style,
which belongs to the secrecy of despotic governments, and to the stiffness
of circles where all is etiquette. But Walpole and his tribe have fashion
wholly to themselves, and possess force without heaviness, and elegance
without effeminacy.
We are strongly tempted to ask, whether there may not be letters of the
gay, the refined, and the sparkling George Canning. He was constantly
writing; knew every thing and every body; was engaged in all the high
transactions of his time; saw human nature in all possible shades; and was
a man whose talent, though capable of very noble efforts "on compulsion,"
yet naturally loved a more level rank of times and things. It is perfectly
true to human experience, that there are minds, which, like caged
nightingales and canary-birds, though their wings were formed with the
faculty of cleaving the clouds, yet pass a perfectly contented existence
within their wires, and sing as cheerfully in return for their water and
seeds, as if they had the range of the horizon. Canning's whole song for
thirty years was in one cage or another, and he sang with equal
cheerfulness in them all. The moral of all this is, that we wish Mr Jesse,
or any one else, to apply himself, without delay, to the depositaries of
George Canning's familiar correspondence, and give his pleasant, piquant,
and graceful letters (for we are sure that they are all these) to the
world.
Lord Dudley's letters have disappointed every body: but it is to be
observed, that we have only a small portion of them; that they were
written to a college tutor, a not very exciting species of correspondent
at any time, and who in this instance having nothing to give back, and
plodding his way through the well-meant monotony of college news, allowed
poor Lord Dudley not much more chance of brilliancy, than a smart drummer
might have of producing a reveillé on an unbraced drum. We must live in
hope.
Lord Holland, we think, might, as the sailors say, "loom out large." The
life of that ancient Whig having been chiefly employed in telling other
men's stories over his own table--and much better employed, too, than in
talking his original follies in public--a tolerable selection from his
journals might furnish some variety; for when Whigs are cased up no longer
in the stiff braces and battered armour of their clique, they may
occasionally be amusing men. But Walpole still reigns: his whims, his
flirtings, his frivolities will disappear with his old china and trifling
antiquities; but his best letters will always be the best of their kind
among men.
George Selwyn was a man of fashionable life for the greater part of the
last century, or perhaps we may more justly say, he was a man of
fashionable life for the seventy-two years of his existence; for, from his
cradle, he lived among that higher order of mankind who were entitled to
do nothing, to enjoy themselves, and alternately laugh at, and look down
upon the rest of the world. His family were opulent, and naturally
associated with rank; for his father had been aide-de-camp to the Duke of
Marlborough--a great distinction even in that brilliant age; and his
mother was the daughter of a general officer, and woman of the bedchamber
to Queen Caroline. She is recorded as a woman of talents, and peculiarly
of wit; qualities which seem frequently connected with long life, perhaps
as bearing some relation to that good-humour which undoubtedly tends to
lengthen the days of both man and woman. If the theory be true, that the
intellect of the offspring depends upon the mother, the remarkable wit of
George Selwyn may be adduced in evidence of the position.
George, born in 1719, was sent, like the sons of all the court gentlemen
of his age and of our own, to Eton. After having there acquired classics,
aristocracy, and cricket, all consummated at Oxford, he proceeded to go
through the last performance of fashionable education, and give himself
the final polish for St James's; he proceeded to make the tour of Europe.
What induced him to recommence his boyhood, by returning to Oxford at the
ripe age of twenty-five, is among the secrets of his career, as also is
the occasion of his being expelled from the university; if that occasion
is not to be found in some of the burlesques of religion which he had
learned amongst the fashionable infidels of the Continent, similar to
those enacted by Wilkes in his infamous monkery. But every thing in his
career equally exhibits the times. At an age when he was fit for nothing
else, he was considered fit to receive the salary of a sinecure; and, at
twenty-one, he was appointed to a brace of offices at the mint. His share
of the duty consisted of his enjoying the weekly dinners of the
establishment, and signing the receipts for his quarter's pay.
Within a few years more, he came into parliament; and in his thirty-second
year, by the death of his father and elder brother, he succeeded to the
family estates, consisting of three handsome possessions, one of which had
the additional value of returning a member of parliament. Nor was this all;
for his influence in Gloucestershire enabled him to secure, during many
years, his own seat for Gloucester, thus rendering his borough disposable;
and thus, master of a hereditary fortune, an easy sinecurist, the
possessor of two votes, and the influencer of the third--a man of family,
a man of connexion, and a man of the court--George Selwyn began a path
strewed with down and rose leaves.
In addition to these advantages, George Selwyn evidently possessed a very
remarkable subtlety and pleasantry of understanding; that combination
which alone produced true wit, or which, perhaps, would be the best
definition of wit itself; for subtlety alone may excite uneasy sensations
in the hearer, and pleasantry alone may often be vulgar. But the acuteness
which detects the absurd of things, and the pleasantry which throws a
good-humoured coloring over the acuteness, form all that delights us in
wit.
If we are to judge by the opinion of his contemporaries, and this is the
true criterion after all, Selwyn's wit must have been of the very first
order in a witty age. Walpole is full of him. Walpole himself, a wit, and
infinitely jealous of every rival in every thing on which he fastened his
fame, from a picture gallery down to a snuff-box, or from a history down
to an epigram, bows down to him with almost Persian idolatry. His letters
are alive with George Selwyn. The _bons-mots_ which Selwyn carelessly
dropped in his morning wall through St James's Street, are carefully
picked up by Walpole, and planted in his correspondence, like exotics in a
greenhouse. The careless brilliancies of conversation, which the one threw
loose about the club-rooms of the Court End, are collected by the other
and reset by this dexterous jeweller, for the sparklings and ornaments of
his stock in trade with posterity.
Yet it may reconcile those less gifted by nature and fortune to their
mediocrity; to know that those singular advantages by no means constitute
happiness, usefulness, moral dignity, or even public respect. Selwyn, as
the French Abbé said, "had nothing to do, and he did it." His possession
of fortune enabled him to be a lounger through life, and he lounged
accordingly. The conversations of the clubs supplied him with the daily
toys of his mind, and he never sought more substantial employment. Though
nearly fifty years in parliament, he was known only as a silent voter; and,
after a life of seventy-two years, he died, leaving three and twenty
thousand pounds of his savings to a girl who was not his daughter; and the
chief part of his estates to the Duke of Queensberry, an old man already
plethoric with wealth, of which he had never known the use, and already
dying.
His passion for attending executions was notorious and unaccountable,
except on the ground of that love of excitement which leads others to
drinking or the gaming-table. Those sights, from which human nature
shrinks, appear to have been sought for by Selwyn with an eagerness
resembling enjoyment. This strange propensity was frequently laughed at by
his friends. Alluding to the practice of criminals dropping a handkerchief
as a signal for the executioner, says Walpole, "George never thinks, but
_à la tête tranchée_. He came to town the other day to have a tooth drawn,
and told the man that he would drop his handkerchief for the signal."
Another characteristic anecdote is told on this subject. When the first
Lord Holland, a man of habitual pleasantry, was confined to his bed, he
heard that Selwyn, who had been an old friend, had called to enquire for
his health. "The next time Mr Selwyn calls," said he, "show him up; if I
am alive, I shall be delighted to see him; and, if I am dead, he will be
delighted to see me."
Walpole says, after telling a story of one Arthur Moore, "I told this the
other day to George Selwyn, whose passion is to see corpses and executions.
He replied, 'that Arthur Moore had his coffin chained to that of his
mistress.'
"Said I, 'How do you know?'
"'Why, I--I saw them the other day in a vault in St Giles's.'
"George was walking this week in Westminster Abbey, with Lord Abergavenny,
and met the man who shows the tombs. 'Oh, your servant, Mr Selwyn; I
expected to have seen you here the other day, when the old Duke of
Richmond's body was taken up.'" Walpole then mentions Selwyn's going to
see Cornberry, with Lord Abergavenny and a pretty Mrs Frere, who were in
some degree attached to each other.
"Do you know what you missed in the other room?" said Selwyn to the lady.
"Lord Holland's picture."
"Well, what is Lord Holland to me?"
"Why, do you know," said he, "my Lord Holland's body lies in the same
vault, in Kensington church, with my Lord Abergavenny's mother."
Walpole, speaking of the share which he had in capturing a house-breaker,
says, "I dispatched a courier to White's in search of George Selwyn. It
happened that the drawer who received my message had very lately been
robbed himself, and had the wound fresh in his memory. He stalked up into
the club-room, and with a hollow trembling voice, said, 'Mr Selwyn, Mr
Walpole's compliments to you, and he has got a house-breaker for you.'"
But some of his practical pleasantries were very amusing. Lady Townshend,
a woman of wit, but, in some points of character, a good deal scandalized,
was supposed to have taken refuge from her recollections in Popery. "On
Sunday last," says Walpole, "as George was strolling home to dinner, he
saw my Lady Townshend's coach stop at Caraccioli's chapel. He watched; saw
her go in; her footman laughed; he followed. She went up to the altar; a
woman brought her a cushion; she knelt, crossed her self, and prayed. He
stole up, and knelt by her. Conceive her face, if you can, when she turned
and found him close to her. In his demure voice, he said, 'Pray, ma'am,
how long has your ladyship left the pale of our church?' She looked furies,
and made no answer. Next day he went to see her, and she turned it off
upon curiosity. But is any thing more natural? No; she certainly means to
go armed with every viaticum: the Church of England in on hand, Methodism
in the other, and the Host in her mouth."
Every one knows that _bons-mots_ are apt to lose a great deal by
transmission. It has been said that the time is one-half of the merit, and
the manner the other; thus leaving nothing for the wit. But the fact is,
that the wit so often depends upon both, as to leave the best _bon-mot_
comparatively flat in the recital. With this palliative we may proceed.
Walpole, remarking to Selwyn one day, at a time of considerable popular
discontent, that the measures of government were as feeble and confused as
in the reign of the first Georges, and saying, "There is nothing new under
the sun." "No," replied Selwyn, "nor under the grandson."
Selwyn one day observing Wilkes, who was constantly verging on libel,
listening attentively to the king's speech, said to him, "May Heaven
preserve the ears you lend!" an allusion to the lines of the _Dunciad_--
"Yet, oh, my sons, a father's words attend;
So may the fates preserve the ears you lend."
The next is better. A man named Charles Fox having been executed, the
celebrated Charles asked Selwyn whether he had been present at the
execution as usual. "No," was the keen reply, "I make a point of never
attending rehearsals."
Fox and General Fitzpatrick at one time lodged in the house of Mackay, an
oilman in Piccadilly, a singular residence for two men of the first
fashion. Somebody, probably in allusion to their debts, observed that such
lodgers would be the ruin of Mackay. "No," said Selwyn, "it will make his
fortune. He may boast of having the first pickles in London."
_Nonchalant_ manners were the tone of the time; and to cut one's country
acquaintance (a habit learned among the French _noblesse_) was high
breeding. An old haunter of the pump-room in Bath, who had frequently
conversed with Selwyn in his visits there, meeting him one day in St
James's Street, attempted to approach him with his usual familiarity.
Selwyn passed him as if he had never seen him before. His old acquaintance
followed him, and said, "Sir, you knew me very well in Bath." "Well, sir,"
replied Selwyn, "in Bath I may possibly know you again," and walked on.
When _High Life Below Stairs_ was announced, Selwyn expressed a wish to be
present at its first night. "I shall go," said he, "because I am tired of
low life above stairs."
One of the waiters at Arthur's had committed a felony, and was sent to
jail. "I am shocked at the committal," said Selwyn; "what a horrid idea
the fellow will give of us to the people in Newgate."
Bruce's Abyssinian stories were for a long time the laugh of London.
Somebody at a dinner once asked him, whether he had seen any relics of
musical instruments among the Abyssinians, or any thing in the style of
the ancient sculptures of the Thebaid. "I think I saw one lyre there," was
the answer. "Ay," says Selwyn to his neighbour, "and that one left the
country along with him."
Selwyn did not always spare his friends. When Fox's pecuniary affairs were
in a state of ruin, and a subscription was proposed; one of the
subscribers said that their chief difficulty was to know "how Fox would
take it." Selwyn, who knew that necessity has nothing to do with
delicacies of this order, replied, "Take it, why, quarterly to be sure!"
Mr. Jesse's anecdotes are generally well told, but their version is
sometimes different from ours. Selwyn was one day walking up St James's
Street with Lord Pembroke, when a couple of sweeps brushed against them.
"Impudent rascals!" exclaimed Lord Pembroke. "The sovereignty of the
people," said Selwyn. "But such dirty dogs," said Pembroke. "Full dress
for the court of St Giles's," said Selwyn, with a bow to their sable
majesties.
But Selwyn, with all his affability and pleasantry, had his dislikes, and
among them was the celebrated Sheridan. The extraordinary talent and early
fame of that most memorable and unfortunate man, had fixed all eyes upon
him from the moment of his entering into public life; and Selwyn, who had
long sat supreme in wit, probably felt some fears for his throne. At all
events, he determined to keep one place clear from collision with this
dangerous wit; and, on every attempt to put up Sheridan's name for
admission into Brookes's, two black balls were found in the balloting-box,
one of which was traced to Selwyn, while the other was supposed to be that
of Lord Besborough. One ball being sufficient to exclude, the opposition
was fatal; but Fox and his friends were equally determined, on their side,
to introduce Sheridan; and for this purpose a curious, though not very
creditable, artifice was adopted. On the evening of the next ballot, and
while George and Lord Besborough were waiting, with their usual
determination, to blackball the candidate, a chairman in great haste
brought in a note, apparently from Lady Duncannon, to her father-in-law
Lord Besborough, to tell him that his house in Cavendish Square was on
fire, and entreating him to return without a moment's delay. His lordship
instantly quitted the room, and hurried homewards. Immediately after, a
message was sent to George Selwyn that Miss Fagniani, the child whom he
had adopted, and whom he supposed to be his own, was suddenlly seized with
a fit, and that his presence was instantly required. He also obeyed the
summons. Both had no sooner left the room than the ballot was proceeded
with, the two ominous balls were not to be found, and Sheridan was
unanimously chosen. In the midst of the triumph, Selwyn and Lord
Besborough returned, indignant at the trick, but of course unable to find
out its perpetrators. How Sheridan and his friends looked may be imagined.
The whole scene was perfectly dramatic.
Burke's speeches, which were destined to become the honour of his age, and
the delight of posterity, were sometimes negligently received by the house.
His splendid prolixity, which was fitter for an assembly of philosophers
than an English Parliament, sometimes wearied mere men of business, as
much as his fine metaphysics sometimes perplexed them; and the man who
might have sat between Plato and Aristotle, and been listened to with
congenial delight by both, was often left without an audience. One night,
when Selwyn was hurrying into the lobby with a crowd of members, a
nobleman coming up asked him, "Is the house up?" "No," was the reply, "but
Burke is."
A model of fashionable life, Selwyn unhappily indulged in that vice which
was presumed to be essential to the man of fashion. The early gaming
propensities of Charles Fox are well known; he was ruined, estate,
personal fortune, sinecures and reversions, and all, before he was five
years in public life--ruined in every possible shape of ruin. There were
times when he could not command a guinea in the world. Yet there were
times when he won immensely. At one sitting he carried off £8000, but in a
few more he lost £11,000. He was a capital whist player; and in the cool
calculation of the clubs on such subjects, it was supposed that he might
have made £4000 a-year, if he had adhered to this profitable direction of
his genius. But, like many other great men, he mistook his forte, and
disdained all but the desperation of hazard. There he lost perpetually and
prodigiously, until he was stripped of every thing, and pauperised for
life.
It gives a strong conception of the universality of this vice, to find so
timid and girlish a nature as the late William Wilberforce's initiated
into the same career.
"When I left the University," says Wilberforce, in his later reminiscences,
"so little did I know of general society, that I came up to London stored
with arguments to prove the authenticity of 'Rowley's Poems,' (the
academic and pedantic topic of the day,) and now I was at once immersed in
politics and fashion. The very first time I went to Boodle's, I won
twenty-five guineas of the Duke of Norfolk. I belonged at this time to
five clubs, Miles' and Evans', Brookes', Boodle's, White's, and
Goosetree's. The first time I was at Brookes', scarcely knowing any one, I
joined, from mere shyness, in play at the faro-table, where George Selwyn
kept bank. A friend who knew my inexperience, and regarded me as a victim
dressed out for sacrifice, called to me--'What, Wilberforce, is that you?'
Selwyn quite resented the interference, and turning to him, said in his
most expressive tone--'Oh, sir, don't interrupt Mr Wilberforce, he could
not be better employed.' Nothing could be more harmonious than the style
of those clubs--Fox, Sheridan, Fitzpatrick, and all your leading men
frequented them, and associated upon the easiest terms. You either chatted,
played at cards, or gambled, as you pleased."
We have no idea of entering into any of the scandals of the time. The
lives of all the men of fashion of that day were habitually profligate.
The "Grand Tour" was of but little service to their morals, and Pope's
sarcastic lines were but too true.
"He travell'd Europe round,
And gather'd every vice on foreign ground;
Till home return'd, and perfectly well-bred,
With nothing but a solo in his head;
Stolen from a duel, follow'd by a nun,
And, if a borough choose him--not undone."
But this vice did not descend among the body of the people. It was limited
to the idlers of high life, and even among them it was extinguished by the
cessation of our foreign intercourse at the French revolution; or was at
least so far withdrawn from the public eye, as to avoid offending the
common decencies of a moral people.
Selwyn was probably more cautious in his habits than his contemporaries,
for he survived almost every man who had begun life with him; and he lived
to a much greater age than the chief of the showy characters who rose into
celebrity during his career. He died at the age of seventy-two, January 25,
1791. He had long relinquished gaming, assigning the very sufficient
reason, "It was too great a consumer of four things--time, health, fortune,
and _thinking_." But what man of his day escaped the gout, and the natural
termination of that torturing disease in dropsy? After seven years'
suffering from both, with occasional intervals of relief, he sank at last.
Walpole, almost the only survivor among his early friends, thus wrote on
the day of his expected death:--"I have lost, or am on the point of losing,
my oldest acquaintance and friend, George Selwyn, who was yesterday at the
extremity. Those misfortunes, though they can be so but for a short time,
are very sensible to the old: but him I loved, not only for his infinite
wit, but for a thousand good qualities." He writes a few days after, "Poor
Selwyn is gone; to my sorrow; and no wonder. Ucalegon feels it."
Selwyn, with all his pleasantry, had evidently a quick eye for his own
interest. He contrived to remain in parliament for half a century, and he
gathered the emoluments of some half dozen snug sinecures. Among those
were the Registrar of Chancery in Barbadoes, and surveyor-general of the
lands. Thus he lived luxuriously, and died rich.
Orator Henley is niched in an early part of this correspondence. The
orator was known in the last century as a remarkably dirty fellow in his
apparel, and still more so in his mind. He was the son of a gentleman, and
had received a gentleman's education at St John's, Cambridge. There, or
subsequently, he acquired Hebrew, and even Persian; wrote a tragedy on the
subject of Esther, in which he exhibited considerable poetic powers; and
finished his scholastic fame by a grammar of ten languages! On leaving
college, he took orders, and became a country curate. But the decency of
this life did not suit his habits, and he resolved to try his chance in
London for fortune and fame. Opening a chapel near Newport market,
Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, he harangued twice a-week, on theological subjects
on Sundays, and on the sciences and literature on Wednesdays. The audience
were admitted by a shilling ticket, and the butchers in the neighbourhood
were for a while his great patrons. At length, finding his audience tired
of common sense, he tried, like other charlatans since his day, the effect
of nonsense. His manner was theatrical, his style eccentric, and his
topics varied between extravagance and buffoonery. The history of such
performances is invariably the same--novelty is essential, and novelty
must be attained at all risks. He now professed to reform all literature,
and all religion. But even this ultimately failed him. At length the
butchers deserted him, and, falling from one disgrace to another, he sank
into dirt and debauchery, and died in 1750 at the age of sixty-four,
remembered in the world only by being pilloried in the Dunciad.
"Embrown'd with native bronze, lo! Henley stands,
Tuning his voice, and balancing his hands;
How fluent nonsense trickles from his tongue,
How sweet the periods neither said nor sung.
Still break the benches, Henley, with thy strain,
While Sherlock, Hare, and Gibson preach in vain."