His father died in 1751 without tying up the property, which brought with it the power of nominating two members for Ludgershall, and interest enough at Gloucester to ensure his own return for that city. The change of circumstances made little change in his course of life. He had sat in Parliament for the family borough since 1747, when Gilly Williams writes: I 'congratulate you on the near approach of Parliament, and figure you to myself before a glass at your rehearsals. I must intimate to you not to forget closing your periods with a significant stroke ' of the breast, and recommend Mr Barry as a pattern, who I ' think pathetically excels in that beauty.' Spranger Barry, the actor, is the intended model; but Selwyn was not ambitious of senatorial honours, and when obliged to attend the House, and be in readiness for a division, he used either to withdraw to one of the committee-rooms for conversation, or to fall asleep. He generally sided with the court party, and was well rewarded for his constancy; being at the same time Clerk of the Irons and Surveyor of the Meltings at the Mint, Registrar of the Court of Chancery in Barbadoes, (where he had an estate,) and Paymaster of the Works-described as a very lucrative appointment. It was abolished in 1782 by Burke's Economical Reform Bill; but in the course of the next year he was made Surveyor-General of the Works by Mr Pitt.

In 1768 he was opposed at Gloucester by a timber-merchant, and the manner in which his friends speak of his opponent is characteristic of the times. Gilly Williams calls him a d-d carpenter;' and Lord Carlisle asks

Why did you not set his timber yard a-fire? What can a man mean who has not an idea separated from the foot square of a Norway deal plank, by desiring to be in Parliament? Perhaps, if you could have got any body to have asked him his reasons for such an unnatural attempt, the fact of his being unable to answer what he had never thought about, might have made him desist. But these beasts are monstrously obstinate, and about as well bred as the great dogs they keep in their yards.'

It is currently related that Selwyn did his best to keep Sheridan out of Brookes's, and was only prevented from black-balling him for the third or fourth time by a trick. According to one version, the Prince of Wales kept Selwyn in conversation at the door till the ballot was over. According to Wraxall's, he was suddenly called away by a pretended message from his adopted daughter. Some attribute his dislike to aristocratic prejudice; others to party feeling; and Mr Jesse says that it arose in a great degree from Sheridan's having been one of the party which had deprived Selwyn of a lucrative post' that of `Pay

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master of the Works. Yet Mr Jesse himself states that the black-balling occurred in 1780, and that the place was abolished in 1782. We are uncharitable enough to think that an established wit would feel something like an established beauty at the proposed introduction of a rival, and that a tinge of jealousy might have been the foundation of the dislike.

Selwyn had taken to gaming before his father's death-probably from his first introduction to the clubs. In 1748, Gilly Williams asks- What do you intend? I think the almanack bids you take care of colds, and abstain from physic; I say, ' avoid the knowing ones, and abstain from hazard.' His stakes were high, though not extravagantly so, compared with the sums hazarded by his contemporaries. In 1765 he lost a thousand pounds to Mr Shafto, who applies for it in the language of an embarrassed tradesman

July 1, 1765.

DEAR SIR, I have this moment received the favour of your letter. I intended to have gone out of town on Thursday, but as you shall not receive your money before the end of this week, I must postpone my journey till Sunday. A month would have made no difference to me, had I not had others to pay before I leave town, and must pay; therefore must beg that you will leave the whole before the week is out, at White's, as it is to be paid away to others to whom I have lost, and do not choose to leave town till that is done. Be sure you could not wish an indulgence I should not be happy to grant, if in my power.'

Mr Jesse states, that latterly Selwyn entirely got the better of his propensity to play: observing, that it was too great a consumer of four things-time, health, fortune, and thinking. But an extract from the late Mr Wilberforce's Diary throws some doubt on the accuracy of this statement: The first time I was at Brookes's, scarcely knowing any one, I joined, from mere shyness, at the faro-table, where George Selwyn kept bank. A friend who knew my inexperience, and regarded me as a victim decked out for sacrifice, called out to me, "What,

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• Wilberforce! is that you ?" Selwyn quite resented this interference, and turning to him said, in his most impressive tone, "Oh, sir! don't interrupt Mr Wilberforce, he could not be better employed." This occurred in 1782, when Selwyn was sixty-three.

Previously we find him, in 1776, undergoing the process of dunning from Lord Derby; and in 1779 from Mr Crawford, Fish Crawford' as he was called, each of whom, like Mr Shafto, had a sum to make up.'

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Gaming was his only vice. He indulged moderately in the pleasures of the table. In 1765 Williams writes, You may eat boiled chicken and kiss Raton (his dog) as well on this

side the water.' As regards gallantry, we have good authority for doubting whether he was quite so much an anchorite as was supposed; but his coldness was a constant subject of banter among his friends. Lord Holland says- My Lady Mary goes (to a masquerade,) dressed like Zara, and I wish you to attend her dressed like a black eunuch.'-Lord Carlisle In regard to her, (a mysterious unknown,) in every other light but as a friend, you shall see I shall be as cold as a stone, or as yourself." Readers of the Rolliad' may recall a broader joke; and Mr Jesse has ventured to print one of Gilly Williams's, levelled at Walpole as well as Selwyn, which we cannot venture to transcribe. As to his alleged intrigue with the Marchesa Fagniani, there is no better proof of it than his extreme fondness for her daughter, (Maria, Dowager-Marchioness of Hertford,) whom the gossips thence inferred to be his own. In contemporary opinion, Lord March shared the honours of paternity with Selwyn. He was equally intimate with her mother, and he left her an immense fortune at his death. blance, too, must go for something; and Dr Warner, after an interview with Lord March, says The more I contemplate his 'face, the more I am struck with a certain likeness to the lower part of it; his very chin and lips, and they are rather singular. But you will never be d'accord upon this interesting subject, as I am sorry to be too much convinced; but that you know better than I.' In considering this question, it must not be forgotten that Selwyn's passion for children was one of the marked features of his character. Lord Carlisle's and Lord Coventry's, particularly Lady Anne Coventry, (afterwards Lady Anne Foley,) were among his especial favourites.

Resem

Selwyn paid frequent visits to Paris, and spoke French to perfection. I shall let Lord Huntingdon know (says Lord March) that you are thought to have a better pronunciation than any one that ever came from this country.' The Queen of Louis XV. took pleasure in conversing with him. I dined 'to-day (we are still quoting from Lord March) at what is called no dinner, at Madame de Coignie's. The Queen asked Madame de Mirepoix, "Si elle n'avait pas beaucoup entendu médire 'de Monsieur Selwyn et elle?" Elle a repondu, "Oui, beaucoup, Madame.""J'en suis bien-aise," dit la Reine.'

He was received on a perfect footing of equality, and, as it were, naturalized in that brilliant circle of which Madame du Deffand was the centre; and he often lingered longer in it than was agreeable to his English friends. Lady Hertford (writes 'Lord March in 1766) made a thousand enquiries about you; asked how long you intended to stay, and hoped you would

soon be tired of blind women, old Presidents, and Premiers,'alluding to Madame du Deffand, the President Henault, and the Duc de Choiseul. Williams sarcastically enquires, Cannot we get you an hospital in this island, where you can pass your evenings with some very sensible matrons? and, if they are not quite blind, they may have some natural infirmity equivalent ' to it.'

Nothing proves Selwyn's real superiority more strongly than his reception in this brilliant coterie, and the enjoyment he found in it; for when he began making his periodical visits to Paris, national prejudice was at its height; the French regarded the English as barbarians, and the English entertained a contemptuous aversion for the French. So late as 1769, Lord Carlisle thus amusingly alludes to the sentiments of the former

I am very sorry to hear Mr Wood's family were splashed by the sea. People who never travel know very little what dangers we run. I dare

say most of your French acquaintances here wonder you do not go to

England by land, but I believe they are very easy about us after we are gone. They think we are very little altered since the landing of Julius Cæsar; that we leave our clothes at Calais, having no further occasion for them, and that every one of us has a sun-flower cut out and painted upon his like the prints in Clarke's Cæsar. I do not think that all entertain this idea of us; I only mean the sçavans; those who can read.'

The French might be pardoned for supposing that the English left their clothes at Calais, for the tailors of Paris were then as much in requisition as the milliners; and Selwyn is invariably loaded with commissions for velvet coats, silk small-clothes, brocade dressing-gowns, lace ruffles, and various other articles, by the gravest as well as the gayest of his friends. As for the notion of reaching England by land, geography and the use of the globes were rare accomplishments in both countries. When Whiston foretold the destruction of the world within three years, the Duchess of Bolton avowed an intention of escaping the common ruin, by going to China.

Selwyn not only overcame the national prejudice in his own individual instance, but paved the way for the reception of his friends. It was he who made Horace Walpole acquainted with Madame du Deffand, and Gibbon with Madame de Geoffrin.

His habit of dozing in the House of Commons has been already noticed. He occasionally dozed in society. We hear (says Williams) of your falling asleep standing at the old Pre'sident's (Henault's,) and knocking him and three more old women into the fire. Are these things true?' Walpole also hints at it. 'When you have a quarter of an hour, awake and to spare, I wish you would bestow it on me.' He is by no

means singular, as might be shown by many remarkable instances besides that of Lord North, who (according to Gibbon) 'might well indulge a short slumber on the Treasury bench, when supported by the majestic sense of Thurlow on the one side, and the skilful eloquence of Wedderburne on the other.' Lord Byron, in one of his Journals, records a dinner party of twelve, including Sheridan, Tierney, and Erskine, of whom five were fast asleep before the dessert was well upon the table. In another, he relates :— At the Opposition meeting of the peers in 1812, ' at Lord Grenville's, where Lord Grey and he read to us the 'correspondence upon Moira's negotiation, I sat next to the pre"sent Duke of Grafton, and said what is to be done next? “Wake "the Duke of Norfolk," (who was snoring away near us,) replied he; "I don't think the negotiators have left any thing else for us to do this turn." Considering the hours kept by modern wits and senators, they may be excused for dropping into a pleasing state of forgetfulness occasionally; but Selwyn had no such excuse. His mode of life is exhibited in a droll sketch, in a letter to himself, written by Lord Carlisle at Spa, in 1768.

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rise at six; am on horseback till breakfast; play at cricket till dinner; and dance in the evening till I can scarce crawl to bed at eleven. There is a life for you! You get up at nine; play with Raton till twelve in your nightgown; then creep 'down to White's to abuse Fanshawe; are five hours at table; 'sleep till you can escape your supper reckoning; then make two wretches carry you, with three pints of claret in you, three miles " for a shilling.'

Wits are seldom given to ruralities. Jekyll used to say that, if compelled to live in the country, he would have the road before his door paved like a street, and hire a hackney coach to drive up and down all day long. Selwyn partook largely of this feeling. The state of a gentleman's cellar was then, whatever it may be now, a fair indication of the use he made of his house, and Matson was very slenderly stocked. When Gilly Williams took up his quarters there in passing through Gloucester, he writesI asked Bell to dine here, but he is too weak to venture so far; 'so the Methodist and I will taste your new and old claret. I ' have been down in the cellar: there are about nine bottles of • old, and five dozen of new.' Yet Matson was a highly agreeable residence, charmingly situated, and rich in historical associations. Charles II. and James II. (both boys at the time) were quartered there during the siege of Gloucester by the Royalists in 1643; and they amused themselves by cutting out their names, with various irregular emblazonments, on the window-shutters.