"The fact is, my lord, I am engaged to dine at the next house and and -' "And, sir, you thought you might as well save your own dinner by spoiling mine?' "Exactly so, my lord, but ' "Sir, I wish you a good evening.' Though he brazened the matter out, he said he never was more frightened; for he had a prescriptive reverence for legal dignitaries, and we doubt whether an invitation from one of the Royal Family would have given him more gratification than an invitation from a judge. We well remember the pleasure with which he dwelt upon a dinner at Baron Gurney's, where he met Lord Denman; and his attachment to Lord Abinger was based full as much on that distinguished person's unrivalled forensic reputation, as on his general acquirements, literary taste, polished manners, and sociability. He was rather fond of a joke on his own branch of the profession; he always gave a peculiar emphasis to the line in his song on the contradictions in names, "Mr. Makepeace was bred an attorney," and would frequently quote Goldsmith's lines on Hickey, the associate of Burke and other distinguished contemporaries: "He cherished his friends, and he relished a bumper; Yet one fault he had, and that was a thumper. Then, what was his failing? come, tell it, and burn ye : The following playful colloquy in verse took place at a dinner-table between Sir George Ross and himself, in allusion to Craven Street, Strand, where he resided: : "J. S.-At the top of my street the attorneys abound, Fly, Honesty, fly to some safer retreat, For there's craft in the river, and craft in the street.' "Sir G. R.-'Why should Honesty fly to some safer retreat, From attorneys and barges, 'od rot 'em? For the lawyers are just at the top of the street, He had a proper, unaffected, philosophical respect for rank; but he had formed too true and precise an estimate of his own position to be ever otherwise than at his ease, and no one knew better that the great charm of society is the entire absence of pretension and subserviency,—the thorough, practical, operating conviction in the minds of all present that they are placed for the time on a perfect footing of equality. He had a keen relish for life, but he spoke calmly and indifferently about dying—as in the verses on revisiting Chigwell: "I fear not, Fate, thy pendent shears: And wormwood at the bottom." This is not quite reconcileable with a remark he once made to the writer, that if he could go back to any former period of his life, he would prefer going back to forty. He was about that age when he first sprang into celebrity. On the occasion of another visit to Chigwell he wrote thus: On giving up the solicitorship to the Ordnance, he found that his income would not suffice for his habitual wants, and he invested his moneyed capital (about 30007.) in an annuity. "It looks selfish," he remarked, "as regards my brother's children; but please to observe, that when my brother married, he cut me off from all chance of inheriting from him; and although my life is not worth many years' purchase, it may last twenty years, and I should be made miserable by the possibility of ever coming to want." He did not live long enough to receive more than the first quarter of the annuity. We are informed by his friend and physician, Dr. Paris, by whose skill and attention his life was more than once unexpectedly prolonged, that he did not suffer much during his last illness. He died on the 24th December, 1839, and was buried in the vaults under St. Martin's Church. The funeral, by his own desire, was strictly private. 149 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 |