George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life. George Augustus Selwyn
Horton(60) sets out for Nice with a toad-eater and an upper servant of the Duke's this next week. The night robbers prove to be soldiers in the Foot Guards, which I suspected; we have not recovered our terrors, and still go home, as they travel in the Eastern countries, waiting for convoys; it ruins me in flambeaux's.
Lord Clive will not I think live to go to Nice, but I hope he will get safe to Paris, and then Sir J. Lambert will take care of all the rest. The Badge is pretty, excepting that the shape of it is too long, and the whole seems too large for a young person. But that was the fault of the sardonyx.
The Duchess of Bucc[leugh](61) is very far gone with child; but I believe I told you so in my last. I will write the rest when Lady Sarah is gone from my house Tuesday after dinner.
Tuesday night.—My dear Lord, I have waited till my foreign letters came in before I would finish this, always in hopes of one from you. I have received one by this post from Charles of the 6th of this month; and he says you was answering one which you had just had from me. This gives me hope that I shall hear from you on Friday.
Lady Sarah dined with me, Miss Blake, Sir Charles, Lord March, Lady Bolingbroke, and Crawfurd. Lady S[arah], &c. went to the Play soon. She received a long letter from Lady Holland while we were at dinner, but only said that Lord H[ollan]d was well, which I was glad to hear. We were 16 yesterday at the Duke of Gr[afton's], a very mixed company. He enquired very kindly after you.
I think I shall have both trouble and expense at Gloucester, as I have had heretofore, but that is all I apprehend, and that I have been prepared for a great while, by expectation. I am in great hopes from Charles's letter that you are still at Nice. Not that I think but, being so near Turin, if there was anything to be feared from the distemper, you would certainly hear it, and not go. Perhaps there are letters from you in Cleveland Court; I shall send to Sir Wm.(62) to enquire.
The great event at Almack's is that Scott has left off play; he is, I suppose, the plena cruons hirundo. I am not quite satisfied that Sir J. Lambert is punctual in forwarding my letters; pray let me know it. Those who have been to see me think your picture very like, but not a good likeness is agreed on all hands; but such as it is, I am very much obliged to you for it.
I am extremely glad to find that you are applying to Italian, but to anything is useful. You will find the benefit of it your whole life. There are lacunes to be filled up in every stage, which nothing can supply so well as reading, I am persuaded.
I find the last of mine that you had received when Charles wrote his was a month ago; that makes me afraid Sir J. L[ambert] keeps them. There [they] are no more worth his keeping than your receiving, but they give me the pleasure of assuring you, which I can, with great truth, that I am ever most truly and most affectionately yours.
(60) The Duke of Grafton made no secret of his relations with Mrs. Horton.
(61) Elizabeth, Duchess of Buccleugh, daughter of George, Duke of Montagu. She was married in 1767.
(62) Sir William Musgrave.
Intermixed with the personal news which fills the next letter there are allusions to some social and political incidents very characteristic of the time. The Indian nabob, or millionaire as we should now call him, had begun to desire a seat in Parliament for his own purposes, just as the sinecurist did for his, and he was able to outbid the home purchaser. The jealousy with which the Court party regarded the encroachments of these returned Anglo-Indians in their preserves is amusing, especially when we recollect that so great was the venality of the age that a respectable corporation such as that of Oxford did not hesitate to offer the representation of their borough for sale for a fixed sum.
1768, January 26, Tuesday night, at Almack's.—I received last night yours of the 9th of this month, for which I thank you most heartily. It is really so much pleasure to me to have a letter from you, that it makes me wish away five days out of seven, and at my age that is too great an abatement. I intended to have called to-day upon Sir W[illiam] Musgrave in consequence of it, but neither he [n]or Lady Carlisle having received any letters (if they are come, he might not have received them), that (sic) he prevented me, and called upon me at three o'clock to know if I had had any account of you.
Mr. Ward did not set out the Sunday he intended, that is the 17th inst., but he gave the letter which he was to carry to Sir J. L[ambert] to Mr. Hobart,(63) who was to set out for Paris the day after, that is, the 18th.
Lord Clive did not sail, as Sir W[illiam] M[usgrave] tells me, till last Sunday, so the Ribband and Badge, &c., will not arrive at Paris till next Saturday, or Sunday probably; but Sir J. L[ambert] will be prepared to have sent these things, by a safe hand to you either at Turin, or Nice. I shall write to him to-night again with a full explanation of all, that no time may be lost.
I conclude you came to Turin last Saturday, according to the letter which I received yesterday, unless Lady Carlisle's letter about the epidemical disorder prevented you, which was wrote the 5th inst., upon seeing Monsieur Viri(64) at the Princess Dow[age]r's Drawing Room. According to the usual course of the post you must then have received that the 19th, the evening of your intended departure, and whether it prevented you or not, is still for me a scavoir. I hope it did, all things considered. But if you really went to Turin last Wednesday, then you will have been there perhaps near three weeks before your Investiture. I hope no part of this delay will be imputed to me. You will not have passed your time, I should think, ill at a Court, where you was so announced, and to receive that distinction. I am sure, if any time had been lost by my means, I should be very sorry, when you tell me that the going so soon to Turin will accelerate your return hither. For to tell you the truth, I begin to think the time long already, and it is too soon to begin counting the months.
I am extremely glad to find that you had the Marquis(65) with you. I did not like the idea of your travelling alone. Your application to Italian, or to anything, is what will certainly turn to account, because, if I am not much mistaken, yours is the very age of improvement; but your growing fat must be owing to more indolence than can be salutary to you, and I hope you will take care that that is not too habitual. The inconveniences of it you may not find immediately, but they are certain, and very great, of which I could enumerate very remarkable instances; but they do not interest me as that does which concerns yourself. I find by Sir W[illiam] that you have already heard all that your family knows of Lady Fr.; your great good nature makes me not surprised at your anxiety, but there is no occasion for it, if I am rightly informed. Your monk's disinterest[ed]ness is a mare's nest; you will find he expects some gratuity that will amount to more than a certain stipend; there is no such thing in nature as an Eccle[si]astic doing anything for nothing.
As to Morpeth, the best that can be done at present is done. I'm persuaded what can be done in future times will depend upon yourself, as I hope and suppose. I do not wonder that Lady Carl, prefers Reynolds' picture, but I am not sorry to have that which I have neither. It is a great likeness, though not a good one.
Your seal you will receive with the other things. You ask me about Lord Tho[mon]d(66) and Will: all [the] party is so broke up at present that they are au desespoir. The Bedfords are in extraordinary good humour; that elevation of spirit does them no more credit than their precedent abasement; the equus animus seems a stranger to them. G. Greenv.(67) is certainly [befouled] as a Minister, but he is so well manured in other respects that he cannot be an object of great compassion certainly.
I hear you was alarmed in the night by a violent squabble in your retinue. I hope Robert behaves well; as a native of Castle Howard I have the most partiality to him, although I really believe Louis to be a very good servant. I shall be glad to know if Rover is still in being; he shall have his picture at the dilitanti (sic'), if he returns.
I hope you will not travel Eastward but upon the map. L'appetit vient en mangeant, but pray let me not find that in respect to your travelling; I cannot be so selfish as not to be glad that you make the tour of Italy, but I can carry my disinterestedness no further I confess; more than 18 months' quarantine will be too much for me.
Lord March is much obliged to you for your kind and constant mention of him; he is extremely well, and' not plagued with Zamparini's(68) or anything that I know of. The Duchess of North[umberlan]d(69) according to her