George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life | Page 2

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