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CENTURY OF ANECDOTE.

COURT AND FASHIONABLE LIFE.

GEORGE SELWYN.

SELWYN, with brilliant wit and classic taste, combined qualities of a very contradictory nature. With good humour, kindness of heart, and great fondness for children, he united a morbid interest in the details of human suffering, and more especially a taste for witnessing criminal executions. Even frightful details of suicide and murder, the investigation of a disfigured corpse, or an acquaintance in his shroud, afforded him pleasure. When the first Lord Holland was on his death-bed, he was told that his friend Selwyn had called to inquire after his health. "The next time Mr. Selwyn calls,' said Lord H., “show him up—if I am alive I shall be delighted to see him, and if I am dead he will be glad to see me."

Selwyn told a friend that Arthur More had had his coffin chained to that of his mistress. "How do you know?""Why, I saw them the other day in a vault in St. Giles's."

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"Oh!

He was walking in Westminster Abbey with Lord Abergavenny, and met the man who showed the tombs. 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 having captured a housebreaker, sent to White's for Selwyn: the drawer, who had himself been lately robbed, received the message. He stalked up into the club-room, stopped short, and, in a hollow, trembling voice, said: "Mr. Selwyn,

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Mr. Walpole's compliments to you, and he has got a housebreaker for you."

Lord Pembroke met Selwyn, on the 1st of May, very much annoyed in the street with chimney-sweepers, who were clamorous, surrounded, daubed, and persecuted him; in short, they would not let him go till they had forced money from him. At length he made them a low bow, and cried, "Gentlemen, I have often heard of the majesty of the people; I presume your highnesses are in court mourning." This is Hannah More's version. Walpole gives Selwyn's words on meeting the chimney-sweepers wearing their crowns of gilt paper: "We have heard so much lately of the majesty of the people, that I suppose they are taken for the princes of the people, and that this is a Collar-day."

At the trials of Lords Kilmarnock and Balmerino, observing Mrs. Bethel, who had a hatchet-face, looking wistfully at the rebel lords, "What a shame it is," said Selwyn, "to turn her face to the prisoners till they are condemned."

Some ladies bantering him on his want of feeling, in attending to see Lord Lovat's head cut off, "Why," he said, "I made amends by going to the undertaker's, to see it sewn on again." At the undertaker's, after the head had been sewn on, and with the body, placed in the coffin, Selwyn, imitating the voice and manner of the Lord Chancellor at the trial, exclaimed, "My Lord Lovat, your lordship may rise."

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Alluding to the practice of stage-criminals dropping a handkerchief on the scaffold, as a signal to the executioner to strike, "George," says Walpole, never thinks but à la tête tranchée. He came to town t'other day to have a tooth drawn, and told the man that he would drop his handkerchief for the signal."

He went to Paris purposely to see Damien broken on the wheel, for attempting to assassinate Louis XV.: he got near the scaffold among the crowd, but was repulsed by one of the executioners, who, however, being told of Selwyn's object, caused the people to make way for him, exclaiming, "Faites place pour monsieur; c'est un Anglais, et un amateur."

He delighted in a hoax. Dining with the Mayor and Corporation of Gloucester in 1758, when news arrived of our expedition having failed before Rochfort, the Mayor, turning to Selwyn, said: "You, sir, who are in the ministerial secrets, can, no doubt, inform us of the cause of this misfortune?"

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Selwyn, though utterly ignorant upon the subject, said, "I will tell you in confidence the reason, Mr. Mayor the fact is, that the scaling-ladders, prepared for the occasion, were found, on trial, to be too short." The Mayor believed this solution, and told it to his friends; though Selwyn was aware that Rochfort lies on the river Charente, some leagues from the sea-shore, and that our troops had never even effected a landing on the French coast.

Walpole, speaking of the witty and notorious Lady Townshend, writes: "On Sunday, George Selwyn was strolling home to dinner. He saw my Lady Townshend's coach stop at Caraccioli's chapel. He watched it, saw her go in; her footman laughed; he followed. She went up to the altar, a woman brought her a cushion; she knelt, crossed herself, 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, madam, how long has your ladyship left the pale of our church?' She looked furies, and made no answer. Next day, he went to her, and she turned it off upon curiosity; but is anything more natural? No, she certainly means to go armed with every viaticum; the Church of England in one hand, Methodism in the other, and the Host in her mouth."

Selwyn's wit at the club is very amusing. One night, at White's, Sir L. Fawkener, the postmaster-general, was losing a large sum at piquet, when Selwyn, pointing to the successful player, said: "See, how he is robbing the mail." Observing Mr. Speaker Ponsonby tossing about bank-bills, at a hazardtable, at Newmarket, "Look," said Selwyn, "how easily the Speaker passes the money-bills."

Walpole observing that there had existed the same indecision, irresolution, and want of system, in the politics of Queen Anne, that now distinguished those of the reign of George III., added, "But there is nothing new under the sun. "No," said Selwyn, "nor under the grandson."

A namesake of Charles Fox having been hung at Tyburn, the latter inquired of Selwyn whether he had attended the execution? "No," replied George, "I make a point of never frequenting rehearsals."

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Selwyn was once wearied with the inquiries of a fellowpassenger in a stage-coach as to the state of his health. length, to the repeated question of "How are you now, sir?”

Selwyn replied: "Very well, I thank you; and I mean to continue so for the rest of the journey."

A member of the Foley family having hurried off to the Continent, to avoid the importunities of his creditors,-"It is a pass-over," remarked Selwyn, "that will not be much relished by the Jews."

Selwyn held several Government appointments, to which the wits of the day said, was added the post of "ReceiverGeneral of Waif and Stray Jokes."

In Parliament, he often amused the House, during a long debate, by snoring in unison with the First Minister, Lord North. And when Burke was wearying his hearers by those long speeches which obtained for him the name of the "Dinner-bell," a nobleman entering the House just as Selwyn was quitting it, inquired, "Is the House up?" "No," replied George, "but Burke is.'

Selwyn resided in Cleveland-row, St. James's, in the house rendered memorable by the quarrel which took place between Sir Robert Walpole and Lord Townsend, in the reign of George I., when the First Minister and Secretary of State seized each other by the throat; a scene which Gay burlesqued in the Beggar's Opera, under the characters of Peachum and Lockit.

When Lord Weymouth was about to be married, or, as he said, turned off, Selwyn told him he wondered that he had not been turned off before, for he still sat up drinking all night and gaming.

Selwyn, happening to be at Bath when it was nearly empty, was induced, for the mere purpose of killing time, to cultivate the acquaintance of an elderly gentleman he was in the habit of meeting in the rooms. In the height of the following season George encountered his old associate in St. James'sstreet. He endeavoured to pass unnoticed, but in vain. "What! don't you recollect me?" exclaimed the cuttee. "I recollect you perfectly," replied Selwyn," and when I next go to Bath I shall be most happy to become acquainted with you again."

Bruce was one day asked before Selwyn if the Abyssinians have any music? He replied, "They have one Lyre." George whispered his neighbour, "They have one less since he left the country."

When a report was circulated that Sir Joshua Reynolds

was to stand for the borough of Plympton on the next occasion of an election, the macaronies, club-men, and gentlemen generally laughed at the idea of an artist, or of a literary man, presuming to have a chance to get into the House of Commons. "He is not to be laughed at, however," said Selwyn; ❝he may very well succeed in being elected, for Sir Joshua is the ablest man I know, on a canvas."

In Walpole's time, an artist made a sketch as a companion to Copley's "Death of Lord Chatham." As the latter exhibits all the great men of Britain, the former was to record the Beauties. The subject chosen was the Daughter of Pharaoh saving Moses. The Princess-Royal was the Egyptian Infanta, accompanied by the Duchesses of Gloucester, Cumberland, Devonshire, Rutland, Lady Duncannon, &c. The sketch was to be seen over against Brooks's: George Selwyn said he could recommend a better companion for this piece, which should be the Sons of Pharaoh (faro) at the opposite house.

MASQUERADES.

During the food-riots in London, in 1772, when the condition of the middle and lower classes was one of extreme distress, they found little sympathy among persons of fashion. In the very midst of these distresses sprung up a rage for masquerades. At one of these licentious entertainments given at the Pantheon, in Oxford-street, it was calculated that not less than 10,000 guineas were expended by the revellers in dress and other luxuries. The trade of the metropolis would have profited by this, to a certain extent, had payment of liabilities been a recognised duty of the time. As a sample of the sort of persons, and their conduct at these orgies, may be cited from the various reports in different journals, the presence of groups of gentlemen from the universities, some of them attired as "Tom-fools, with cap and bells"; of clergymen, who gained applause for originality by trying to represent "old sober hackney-coachmen"; and of ladies, the Duchess of Ancaster at their head, in male attire. Dr. Goldsmith is named among those who masqueraded in "an old English dress"; and after lists of noble ladies, descriptions of their dresses, and praises of their wit and beauty, we find a sample of the easy virtue of the times in the presence of a group of "a lady abbess, and her nuns." The licence of speech, action, and allusion was astounding. At the Pantheon,