George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life. George Augustus Selwyn
and Mrs. Garrick.(52) I say as much as I can of Lady Sarah, and her name shall be in every other line, if it will excuse the borishness of my letters in other particulars.
March leaves Lord Spencer's to-day. He and Varcy like [lie] to-night
at St. Alban's, and are to be in town to-morrow. The Northampton
Election will cost God knows what. I dine to-day at Ossory's.(53)
Lady Sarah, Miss Blake, Sir Ch[arles], &c., Sec., dine here on
Tuesday. I chose that, being a post day.
I believe that the best thing I can do is to ask Lord Shelbourne(54) for the courier's place. I should be glad of it, if it was tenable with my seat in Parliament. Sir G. Mac sat last night at supper between Lady Bute(55) and his future, who by the way is laide a faire peur. I was asking Lady Carlisle which was the most likely, some years ago, to have a Blue Ribband, du beau-pere et du gendre.
Little Harry is not come to town. Sir Charles goes down into the country next week, but not Lady Sarah that I know of. I expect Hemmins every hour with the St. Andrew. He has so much abuse from me every day, that I believe he wishes that I had been crucified instead of St. Andrew. He swears that one man left the work in the middle of it, and said he would not have his eyes put out in placing those small diamonds that compose the motto.
Mr. Brereton is returned to the Bath, and the street robbers seem dispersed. The hard weather is gone for the present, so that London will be pleasanter than it has been, for the Jockeys and Macaronis.(56) Garrick criticised your picture of mine, which he saw at Humphry's; he has that and Sir Charles's; it is like, but not so good and spirited a likeness as Reynolds's(57) certainly. But I am much obliged to you for it. If you sit to Pompeio I shall hope to have a better, and with your Order.
The Duke of Cumb[erlan]d attacked the Duke of Buccleugh last night for wearing his under his coat; son Altesse R. a une bovardise fort intiressante il faut lui rendre justice.
I should not have troubled you so soon if this alarm from Turin, and the courier, &c., had not filled my head. My best compliments to Lord and Lady Holland and my love to Charles and Harry.(58) Charles is in my debt a letter; I shall be glad to hear from him. Crawfurd desired me to make his (ex)cuses to you, that he has not answered your last; he gains no ground; I think he is immaigri, et d'une inquietude perpetuelle qui porte sur rien.
The Duke of N[ewcast]le(59) seems to have gained strength and life since that manly resolution which he took last week of being no longer a Minister of this country. Let what would happen, he has given a conge to his friends to do what they will, and it shall not be looked upon as desertion. That is undoubtedly the most capital simpleton that ever the caprice of fortune placed in the high offices which he filled, and for so long a time.
The last paragraph of this letter can scarcely belong to this date, for the Duke of Newcastle was not in Chatham's Ministry, which was formed on the fall of the first Rockingham Administration in July, 1766.
(46) Lord Clive had recently returned from India in bad health. He lived, however, till 1774.
(47) Sisters of Lord Carlisle.
(48) Henry Frederick, younger brother of George III.; notorious for his dissipation.
(49) Jane Maxwell, Duchess of Gordon, wife of Alexander, fourth Duke. She was a social leader of the Tory party, and a confidante of Pitt. Horace Walpole called her "one of the empresses of fashion."
(50) Lady Almeria Carpenter was famous for her beauty. She was lady-in-waiting to the Duchess of Gloucester and mistress to the Duke. "The Duchess remained indeed its nominal mistress, but Lady Almeria constituted its ornament and its pride." (Wraxall, vol. v. p. 201).
(51) John Russell, fourth Duke of Bedford (1710–71), died 1756. He was appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland in 1762; he went as Ambassador to Paris, where he negotiated the unpopular Treaty of Paris. He was at the head of the place-seeking politicians called the Bloomsbury Gang, from his town house in Bloomsbury Square; and when, in 1767, his faction came into power, the Duke of Bedford, who was worthy of better clients, made a feeble effort to arrive at an understanding with Lord Rockingham about a common policy; but he could not keep his followers for five minutes together off the subject that was next their hearts. Rigby bade the two noblemen take the Court Calendar and give their friends one, two, and three thousand a year all round ("The Early History of Charles James Fox," p. 132). An overbearing manner and the character of his followers made him unpopular. In 1731 he married Lady Diana Spencer, daughter of the third Earl of Sunderland, and sister of the third Duke of Marlborough. He married for the second time, in 1737, Gertrude, eldest daughter of the first Earl Gower. At the death of their only son, Lord Tavistock, in 1767, the Duke and Duchess of Bedford were harshly charged with want of respect for his memory.
(52) David Garrick (1717–79). In 1749 he married Eva Marie Violette, of Vienna, a dancer who had been received in the best houses in England. "I think I never saw such perfect affection and harmony as existed between them" (Dr. Beattie). Selwyn criticised disparagingly his Othello.
(53) John, second Earl of Upper Ossory (1745–1818). He was the brother of Richard Fitzpatrick and of Mary Fitzpatrick, wife of the second Lord Holland. He was educated at Eton and Oxford. "The man I have liked the best in Paris is an Englishman, Lord Ossory, who is the most sensible young man I ever saw" ("Walpole's Letters," vol. iv. p. 426). He married Annie, daughter of Lord Ravensworth, shortly after her divorce from the Duke of Grafton.
(54) William Petty, second Earl of Shelburne (1737–1805); created Marquis of Lansdowne, 1784; he became Secretary of State in Chatham's second Administration, 1766, and resigned office on October 20, 1768, almost simultaneously with Lord Chatham on the fall of Lord North. In 1782 he again became Secretary of State in Lord Rockingham's Ministry, and First Lord of the Treasury on the death of Rockingham. His Government came to an end on the coalition of Fox and North in 1783. He was the most liberal statesman of his time, "one of the earliest, ablest, and most earnest of English freetraders," but he was at the same time one of the most unpopular, a supposed insincerity being the cause of it.
(55) Lady Bute was the daughter of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.
(56) A society of exquisites drawn from the younger men at Brooks's, noted for their affectation in dress and manner; travel abroad was necessary for admission to their society.
(57) Sir Joshua Reynolds(1723–1782). Selwyn was his patron and friend. When it was reported that Reynolds would stand as a candidate for the Borough of Plympton, and all the town was laughing at him, Selwyn remarked that he might very well succeed, "for Sir Joshua is the ablest man I know on a canvass."
(58) Henry Edward Fox, youngest son of Lord Holland.
(59) Thomas Pelham-Holles, Duke of Newcastle (1693–1768). For half a century in the front of English political life. In 1724 he became Secretary of State in Walpole's Administration, and continued in office until 1756, having on the death of his brother, Henry Pelham, in 1754, become First Lord of the Treasury. In 1757 he returned as Prime Minister to office with the elder Pitt, resigning again in 1762. In Lord Rockingham's Ministry, 1765 to 1766, he was Lord Privy Seal. Newcastle is a remarkable instance of a man of apparently ordinary capacity holding high office in the State for many years.
Jan. 17, Sunday morning.—We received your Badge at last yesterday. Sir W. Musgrave and I deliberated a great while about the method of sending it, and at last went together to Lord Clive, who sets out for Paris to-morrow, and will take charge of it, as the surest conveyance. The courier was rejected as too expensive, and Mr. Ward as too uncertain. I have enclosed a schedule of what the packet delivered to Lord Clive contains. It is addressed to Sir J. Lambert and Mr. Ward. If he goes to Paris to-day, as he intended, [he] will carry a letter from me to Sir J. L[ambert] with directions for the safest and speediest conveyance of this to you; I shall write to him again upon the subject on Tuesday.
I wish somebody had received a letter from you by Friday's post, to satisfy us where you was. This idea of an epidemical disorder at Turin has alarmed Lady Carlisle, and I have caught some of the fright of her. March returned yesterday from Lord Spencer's, and the usual company supped at the Duke of Grafton's.
Mrs.