George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life

by George Augustus Selwyn

(1781,) March 24, Saturday.—. . . Mr. Potts has just left me. I have been freer from pain these last 29 (or 24?) hours. I am now to bathe three times a week, take opiate going to bed for some nights, and begin a course of bark. I take nothing after my coffee, besides, except Orgeat. I have quite relinquished nasty Brooks's, as Lady C(arlisle) calls it. I am with the sexagenary of White's, et de cette maniere je passe le temps assez tranquillement.

12 o'clock.—Here comes a letter from George for Lady C[arlisle], brought to me by a gardener of Mr. Raikes, under his cover. Lord Deerhurst has sent a formal proposal of marriage by Lord Ligonier to Lady something Powis—Lord Powis's sister, who, to save appearance of repulse, has returned for answer that she will take three or four days to consider of it. This I have from Williams. He and his father have constant altercations upon this subject. Lord Cov(entry) does not object to the plan of marriage, but says it is not practicable, on account of circumstances. I shall hear nothing of the matter from the parties themselves. Ce n'est pas mon affaire, et je ne m'en melerai pas, aux signes de perdre les bonne graces de ce belle-mere. Lady M'Cartney has wrote to me to hire my house; but one thing I am resolved upon is, not to let it to an acquaintance. I shall keep it in its present state till these things at Avignon are determined upon.

I dine to-day at the Bishop of Salisbury's, and to-morrow at Lord Lisbourne's. I was to have gone for a day with Lady Fitzw[illiam] to Roehampton, if these damned spasmodic complaints ne m'etoient pas survenus. However, Potts assures me that I shall be well again, but that I must take more care of myself. Je le crois. I have a great mind, as you may imagine, to see you again, and Lady C(arlisle) and Caroline, and all of you, and I have d'autres raisons qui m'attachent au monde, et je n'en suis pas degoute parce qu'il est comme il a toujours ete et comme il sera a toute eternite. I am very angry with Emily, that he will not write to me; is he afraid that his style is not good, or of what? . . . The play at Brooks's is exorbitant, I hear; Grady and Sir Godfrey Whistler and the General and Admiral are at the head of it. Charles looks wretchedly, I am told, but I have scarce seen him. Richard is in high cash, and that is all I know of that infernal house. Adieu; my respects to Lady Carlisle, and my most hearty love to the children. My best compliments to Mr. and Mrs. Eden, and to Crowle, and pray rub Mr. Dean Emily's ears till he writes to me.

It is not desirable that those who present a correspondence for perusal should play too much the part of a showman. Letters speak for themselves. Yet that which Selwyn wrote on April 14th may well be pointed to as giving, in a few lines, a reflection in miniature of the events grave and gay which were then interesting London society. We see it vividly, how people were admiring Lady Crawford's new chair, remarking parenthetically of bad news from across the Atlantic. But society was less frivolous perhaps than it seemed; the distance from America, the length of time which elapsed between the happening of an event and the news of it in England, the meagreness of the intelligence when at length it arrived, prevented the public imagination from being aroused, and so public interest and opinion lay inert.

(1781,) April 24, Tuesday noon, 1 o'clock.—. . . . . . P.S. Tuesday afternoon, 3 o'clock.—. . . Vary has just dropped in upon me, and says that news is come from Arthburnot (sic), that there has been a skirmish with the Fr(ench) Adm[iral], and it was a kind of drawn battle; that General Phillips has joined Arnold with 2,000 men. He came to ask after George; il ne scait pas encore, a quel point le monde s'interesse pour lui. My best and most affectionate respects to Lady Carlisle, and my love to Caroline, and to her sisters, not forgetting Louisa, chi gia non sovra di me.

Two balls! very fine, Caroline. Mie Mie will have seen but one, and that is Mr. Wills's annual ball. But we are very well feathered for that, a la Uestris. I had not the ordering so much ornament, and when it is over, and we have had our diversion, I shall read a lecture upon heads, which I wish not to be filled with so many thoughts about dress. But she coaxed Mrs. Webb into all this a mon inscu, and then I cannot be Mr. Killjoy; so pour le moment I seem to approve of it.

We have been at one opera, and| instead of other spectacles, I propose to go for the first part of the evening to Ranelagh, quand la presse n'y sera pas. Lady Craufurd's new chair is, as Sir C. Williams said of Dicky's, the charming'st thing in town, et les deux laquais qui la precedent attirent les yeux de tous les envieux et envieuses.

Sir Alexander comes and dines here with March, and is as easy as ever was Sir Jos. Vanheck, and lives with his friends now upon the same foot as before this acquisition of honour. I am told that you have a receipt as Lord Lieutenant to make knights yourself. But I suppose if you intend me such an honour I must come and fetch it. I suppose you do everything that is Royal except touching for the Evil, which would be the most useful fleuron of the Crown if it was effectual.

Storer was out of spirits yesterday at dinner, and I found out afterwards that he had been losing, like a simple boy, his money at Charles's and Richard's damned Pharo bank, which swallows up everybody's cash that comes to Brooks's, as I am told. I suppose that the bank is supported, if such a thing wanted support, by Brooks himself and your friend Jack Manners. It is a creditable way of living, I must own; and it would be well if by robbing some you might pay others, only that ce qui est acquis et (est?) jette par la fenetre, et si l'on paye, ou ne s'acquitte pas.

(1781,) May 16, Wednesday night.—I was engaged to dine to-day at Lady Ossory's,(157) but I called in at Lady Lucan's, and they obliged me to send an excuse, and so I dined there, and dine at Lady Ossory's on Saturday. I found myself with a party of Irish, Dean Marly, and Lady Clermont, and with her Mrs. Jones, whom I was ravished to see, for she had given a ball where Caroline was, and commended her dancing, and I tormented the poor woman with such a number of questions about her, that I believe she thought me distracted. It is hard upon me to be so circumstanced that I cannot see what would give me so much pleasure, but on ne peut pas menager le choux et la chevre. If it pleases God that I should live, I shall have that, and for a time a great deal more, for I think that I must be quite wore out with infirmities, and blindness must be one, if seeing Caroline appear to advantage will not give me pleasure. . . .