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GEORGE SELWYN.

(FROM THE Edinburgh Review, JULY, 1844.)

George Selwyn and his Contemporaries; with Memoirs and Notes. By JOHN HENEAGE JESSE. 4 vols. London: 1843-4.

THERE is a charm in the bare title of this book. It is an open sesame to a world of pleasant things. As at the ringing of the manager's bell, the curtain rises, and discovers a brilliant tableau of wits, beauties, statesmen, and men of pleasure about town, attired in the quaint costume of our great-grandfathers and greatgrandmothers; or, better still, we feel as if we had obtained the reverse of Bentham's wish to live a part of his life at the end of the next hundred years, -by being permitted to live a part of ours about the beginning of the last, with an advantage he never stipulated for, that of spending it with the pleasantest people of the day.

Let us suppose that only twenty-four hours were granted us; how much might be done or seen within the time! We take the privilege of long intimacy to drop in upon Selwyn in Chesterfield Street, about half-past ten or eleven in the morning; we find him in his dressing-gown, playing with his dog Raton : about twelve we walk down arm-in-arm to White's, where Selwyn's arrival is hailed with a joyous laugh, and Topham Beauclerk hastens to initiate us into the newest bit of scandal. The day is warm, and a stroll to Betty's fruit-shop (St. James's Street) is proposed. Lord March is already there, settling his famous bet with young Mr. Pigot, that old Mr. Pigot would die

before Sir William Codrington. Just as this grave affair is settled, a cry is raised of "the Gunnings are coming," and we all tumble out to gaze and criticise. At Brookes's, our next house of call, Sir Charles Hanbury Williams is easily persuaded to entertain the party by reading his verses, not yet printed, on the marriage of Mr. Hussey (an Irish gentleman) with the Duchess of Manchester (the best match in the kingdom), and is made happy by our compliments; but looks rather blank on Rigby's hinting that the author will be obliged to fight half the Irishmen in town, which, considering the turn of the verses, seemed probable enough. To change at once the subject and the scene, we accompany Sir Charles and Rigby to the House of Commons, where we find "the Great Commoner" making a furious attack on the Attorney-General (Murray), who (as Walpole phrases it) suffered for an hour. After hearing an animated reply from Fox (the first Lord Holland) we rouse Selwyn, who is dozing behind the Treasury Bench, and, wishing to look in upon the Lords, make him introduce us below the bar. We find Lord Chesterfield speaking, the Chancellor (Hardwicke) expected to speak next, the Duke of Cumberland just come in, and the Duke of Newcastle shuffling about in a ludicrous state of perturbation, betokening a crisis; but Selwyn grows impatient, and we hurry off to Strawberry Hill, to join the rest of the celebrated partie quarrée, or "out of town" party, who are long ago assembled. The petit souper appears on the instant, and as the champagne circulates, there circulates along with it a refined, fastidious, fashionable, anecdotic, gossiping kind of pleasantry, as exhilarating as its sparkle, and as volatile as its froth. We return too late to see Garrick, but time enough for the house-warming fête at Chesterfield house, where the Duke of Hamil ton loses a thousand pounds at faro, because he

chooses to ogle Elizabeth Gunning instead of attending to his cards.

We shall, perhaps, be reminded that (making light of an anachronism or two) we have seen nothing of Fielding, Richardson, Smollett, Johnson, Collins, Akenside, Mason, or Gray; but our gay friends, alas! never once alluded to them, and for us to waste any part of so short a period in looking for men of letters, would be to act like the debtor in the Queen's Bench Prison, who, when he got a day rule, invariably spent it in the Fleet.

According to Mr. Jesse, we owe this new glimpse into these times to a habit of Selwyn's, which it is difficult to reconcile with his general carelessness. "It seems to have been one of his peculiarities to preserve not only every letter addressed to him during the course of his long life, but also the most trifling notes and unimportant memoranda." Such was the practice of the most celebrated wit of the eighteenth century; the most celebrated wit of the nineteenth did precisely the reverse. "Upon principle," (said Sydney Smith, in answer to an application about letters from Sir James Mackintosh,) "I keep no letters, except those on business. I have not a single letter from him, nor from any human being, in my possession."* We should certainly prefer being our contemporary's correspondent; but we must confess that we are not sorry to come in for a share of the benefits accruing from Selwyn's savings to his posterity. With the help of the materials thus supplied, or collected by Mr. Jesse, we will endeavour, before tapping (to borrow Walpole's word) the

* Life of Mackintosh, by his Son, vol. ii. p. 99.-"We talked of letterwriting. It is now,' said Johnson, 'become so much the fashion to publish letters, that, in order to avoid it, I put as little into mine as I can.' 'Do what you will, sir,' replied Boswell, 'you cannot avoid it.'"- Bos well's Life of Johnson, vol. viii. p. 80.

chapter of Selwyn's correspondence, to sketch an outline of his life.

George Augustus Selwyn entered the world with every advantage of birth and connexion; to which that of fortune was added in good time. His father, Colonel John Selwyn, of Matson in Gloucestershire, where the family ranked as one of the best in the county, had been aide-de-camp to the Duke of Marlborough, commanded a regiment, sat many years in Parliament, and filled various situations about the court. His mother, a daughter of General Farrington, was woman of the bedchamber to Queen Caroline, and enjoyed a high reputation for social humour. As his father was a plain, straightforward, commonplace sort of man, it is fair to presume that he inherited his peculiar talent from her; thus adding another to the many instances of gifted men formed by mothers, or endowed by them with the best and brightest of their qualities. Schiller, Goethe, the Schlegels, Victor Hugo, Canning, Lord Brougham, occur to us on the instant; and Curran said-"The only inheritance I could boast of from my poor father, was the very scanty one of an unattractive face and person, like his own; and if the world has ever attributed to me something more valuable than face or person, or than earthly wealth, it was that another and a dearer parent gave her child a fortune from the treasure of her mind."

Selwyn was born on the 11th August, 1719. He was educated at Eton, and on leaving it entered at Hertford College, Oxford. After a short stay at the university, he started on the grand tour, and on his return, though a second son with an elder brother living, made London and Paris his head-quarters, became a member of the clubs, and associated with the wits and men of fashion. Before he had completed his twenty-first year, he was appointed Clerk of the

Irons and Surveyor of the Meltings at the Mint; offices usually performed by deputy. At all events, occasional attendance at the weekly dinner, formerly provided for this department of the public service, was the only duty they imposed on Selwyn; the very man to act on Colonel Hanger's principle, who, when a friend in power suggested that a particular office, not being a sinecure, would hardly suit him, replied, "Get me the place, and leave me alone for making it a sinecure." The salary must have been small, for in a letter from Paris (September, 1742), he says that his entire income, including the allowance made him by his father, was only 2201. a year; and he appears to have been constantly in distress for money. In a letter to his former Eton tutor, Mr. Vincent Mathias (Paris, November, 1742), he entreats his advice as to the best mode of getting the Colonel to advance a small sum over and above his yearly income; and gives a pitiable description of his circumstances, "without clothes, linen, books, or credit."

In 1744, Selwyn returned to Hertford College, and resumed the life of a college student;-unaccountably enough, for he was then a formed man of the world, and twenty-five. Probably he had thoughts of pursuing a profession, or, to please his father, pretended that he had. His influential position in the London world at this time, is shown by letters from Rigby and Sir Charles Hanbury Williams.

"The Right Hon. Richard Rigby to George Selwyn.

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Tuesday, March 12 (1745), 7 o'clock. "Dear George,-I thank you for your letter, which I have this moment received and read; and, that you may not be surprised at my readiness in answering it, I will begin with telling you the occasion of it. I am just got home from a cock-match, where I have won forty pounds in ready money, and, not having dined, am waiting till I hear the