George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life

by George Augustus Selwyn

But one word more of Delme. I am told that if Lady Betty and Lady J(ulia) live together, they will not have less than two thousand a year to maintain their establishment, including what the Court of Chancery will allow for the guardianship of the children. That will be more comfortable at least than living in the constant dread of the consequences of a heedless dissipation.

It was conjectured that Lord C(arlisle) would bring Mr. Greenville in for Morpeth, which, if it be so, I shall be very glad to hear. Crowle says that the cook is one of the best servants of the kind that can be, and would go to Lord C. if he wanted one, for sixty pounds a year, par preference to any other place with larger wages. I was desired to mention this; it may be to no purpose.

The King, as I hear, is not expected to be at Windsor till Michaelmas. I received a letter to-day in such a hand as you never beheld, from Sir Sampson Gideon, now Sir S. Eardley, a name I never heard of before, to dine with him to-morrow at his house in Kent. I was to call at his house in Arlington Street, and there to be informed of the road, and to be three hours and a half in going it. It was to meet Mr. Pitt, and to eat a turtle: quelle chere! The turtle I should have liked, but how Mr. Pitt is to be dressed I cannot tell. The temptation is great, I grant it, but I have had so much self-denial as to send my excuses. You will not believe it, perhaps, but a Minister, of any description, although served up in his great shell of power, and all his green fat about him, is to me a dish by no means relishing, and I never knew but one in my life I could pass an hour with pleasantly, which was Lord Holland. I am certain that if Lord C(arlisle) had been what he seemed to have had once an ambition for, I should not have endured him, although I might perhaps have supported his measures.

You desired me to write to you often. You see, dear Lady Carlisle, toute l'inclination que j'y porte, et que, vraisem(bla)blement, si vous souhaitez d'avoir de mes lettres, une certaine provision de telles fadaises ne vous manquera pas. But I must hear myself from Caroline, or nothing will satisfy me; as yet I have not her direction, and so bad is my memory now, that this morning I could not even be sure if Stackpoole Court was near Milford Haven, Liverpool, or Milbourn Port. I do not comprehend how I could confound these three places, or be so depaise in regard to the geography of this island.

(260) Of Queensberry.

(261) Third daughter of the Earl of Carlisle, married W. Sloane Stanley, Esq.

(262) Marie Antoinette.

(263) Louis Philippe Joseph, Duc d'Orleans (1747-1793). As the Duc de Chartres he pretended to the philosophical opinions of the eighteenth century, but followed the dissolute customs of the Regency. Marie Antoinette never attempted to overcome or conceal her aversion to him, which helped to divide the Court. On the death of his father in 1785 he came into the title of the Duc d'Orleans. Interpolating the King at the famous royal sitting of the 19th of November, 1787, which he attended as a member of the Assembly of Notables, he was exiled to Villers Cotterets; in four months he returned and bought the good will of the journals by money and of the populace by buying up provisions and feeding them at public tables; he was nominated President of the National Assembly but refused the post; he attempted to corrupt the French guards, and so serious were the charges brought against him that La Fayette demanded of the King that he should be sent from the country. He went accordingly to England on a fictitious mission in October of 1789. He returned in eight months to be received with acclamation by the Jacobins, who were, however, themselves irritated at the coolness by which he voted for the death of his cousin, Louis XVI. in 1792; he was present at the execution, which he beheld unmoved, driving from the scene in a carriage drawn by six horses to spend the night in revelry at Raincy, but the title Egalite, which the Commune of Paris had authorised him to assume for himself and his descendants, did not save him from the same fate. The Convention ordered the arrest of all the members of the Bourbon family, and he was guillotined the 6th of November, 1793. The Duc de Chartres visited England in 1779 and was intimate with the Prince of Wales; on his return he introduced in France the English race meetings, jockeys, and dress. It was said that the Prince of Wales, on hearing of his conduct at the execution of the King, tore into pieces his portrait which he had left him.

(1789, Aug.) 27, Thursday noon, Richmond.—I have received yours this morning, and a very fine morning it is, and made still more agreeable to me by your letter, which I have seated myself under my great tree to thank you for. I have no doubt but every one who passes by will perceive, if they turn their eyes this way, that I am occupied with something which pleases me extremely. It is a great part of my delight, and of Mie Mie's too, that we shall see you so soon. … It would have been a great satisfaction to me to have been able to have accommodated Miss Gunning, and to have had her company with us at C(astle) H(oward). . . . I have had a letter from Lady Caroline.(264) I have directed my letters to her at Stackpole Court, Milford Haven. . . .

I received at the same time with hers a letter from Lord Carlisle, who, as he says, finds it necessary to Recommend Gregg, for the remainder of this Parliament, to the borough of Morpeth. I should have been glad that the return could have been of the same person, Whoever he may be, who is designed to represent it at the ensuing and general election. To be sure it seldom happens que l'on meurt in all respects fort a propos, and this death of poor Mr. Delme is, as much as it regards Lord Carlisle, an evident proof of it.