George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life

by George Augustus Selwyn

(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. 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.