HIGH LIFE IN THE LAST CENTURY.5

HIGH LIFE IN THE LAST CENTURY.⁵

The volumes of which we are about to give fragments and anecdotes, contain a portion of the letters addressed to a man of witty memory, whose existence was passed almost exclusively among men and women of rank; his life, in the most expressive sense of the word, West End; and even in that West End, his chief haunt St James's Street. Parliament and the Clubs divided his day, and often his night. The brilliant roués, the steady gamesters, the borough venders, and the lordly ex-members of ex-cabinets, were the only population of whose living and breathing he suffered himself to have any cognizance. In reverse of Gray's learned mouse, eating its way through the folios of an ancient library—and to whom

to George Selwyn, the world and all that it inhabits, were concentrated in Charles Fox, William Pitt, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and the circle of men of pleasantry, loose lives, and vivacious temperaments, who, with whatever diminishing lustre, revolved round them.

Of the City of London, Selwyn probably had heard; for though fixed to one spot, he was a man fond of collecting curious knowledge; but nothing short of proof positive can ever convince us that he had passed Temple Bar. He, of course, knew that there were such things on the globe as merchants and traders, because their concerns were occasionally talked of in "the House," where, however, he heard as little as possible about them; for in the debates of the time he took no part but that of a listener, and even then he abridged the difficulty, by generally sleeping through the sitting. He was supposed to be the only rival of Lord North in the happy faculty of falling into a sound slumber at the moment when any of those dreary persons, who chiefly speak on such subjects, was on his legs. St James's, and the talk of St James's, were his business, his pleasures, the exciters of his wit, and the rewarders of his toil. He had applied the art of French cookery to the rude material of the world, and refined and reduced all things into a sauce piquante—all its realities were concentrated in essences; and, disdaining the grosser tastes of mankind, he lived upon the aroma of high life—an epicure even among epicures; yet not an indolent enjoyer of the luxuries of his condition, but a keen, restless, and eager student of pleasurable sensations—an Apicius, polished by the manners, and furnished with the arts of the most self-enjoying condition of mankind, that of an English gentleman of fortune in the 18th century.

We certainly are not the champions of this style of life. We think that man has other matters to consider than pâtés and consommés, the flavour of his Burgundy and pines, or even the bons-mots of his friends. We are afraid that we must, after all, regard the whole Selwyn class as little better than the brutes in their stables, or on their hearth-rugs; with the advantage to the brutes of following their natural appetites, having no twinges of either conscience or the gout, and not being from time to time stripped by their friends, or plundered by the Jews. The closing hours of the horse or the dog are also, perhaps, more complacent in general, and their deaths are less a matter of rejoicing to those who are to succeed to their mangers and cushions. Of higher and more startling contemplations, this is not the place to speak. If such men shall yet have the power of looking down from some remoter planet on their idle, empty, and self-indulgent course in our own, perhaps they would rejoice to have exchanged with the lot of him whose bread was earned by the sweat of his brow, yet who had fulfilled the duties of his station; and whose hand had been withheld by necessity from that banquet, where all the nobler purposes of life were forgotten, and where the senses absorbed the higher nature. Still, we admit that these are topics on which no man ought to judge the individual with severity. We have spoken only of the class. The individual may have had virtues of which the world can know nothing; he may have been liberal, affectionate, and zealous, when his feelings were once awakened; his purse may have dried many a tear, and soothed many a pulse of secret suffering. It is, at all events, more kindly to speak of poor human nature with fellow feeling for those exposed to the strong temptations of fortune, than to establish an arrogant comparison between the notorious errors of others, and the secret failures of our own.

But we have something to settle with Mr Jesse. He is alive, and therefore may be instructed; he is making books with great rapidity, and therefore may be advantageously warned of the perils of book-making. The title of his volumes has altogether deceived us. We shall not charge him with intending this; but it has unquestionably had the effect. "George Selwyn and his contemporaries." We opened the volumes, expecting to find our witty clubbist in every page; George in his full expansion, "in his armour as he lived;" George, every inch a wit, glittering before us in his full court suit, in his letters, his anecdotes, his whims, his odd views of mankind, his caustic sneerings at the glittering world round him; an epistolary HB., turning every thing into the pleasant food of his pen and pungency. But we cannot discover any letters from him, excepting a few very trifling ones of his youth. We have letters from all sorts of persons, great lords and little, statesmen and travellers, placemen and place-hunters; and amusing enough many of them are. Walpole furnishes some sketches, and nothing can be better. In fact the volumes exhibit, not George Selwyn, the only one whose letters we should have cared to see, but those who wrote to him. And the disappointment is not the less, that in those letters constant allusions are made to his "sparkling, delightful, sportive, characteristic, &c. &c., epistles." Great ladies constantly urge him to write to them. Maids, wives, and widows, pour out a stream of perpetual laudation. Men of rank, men of letters, men at home, and men abroad, unite in one common supplication for "London news" réchaufféed, spiced, and served up, by the perfect cuisinerie of George's art of story-telling; like the horse-leech's two daughters, the cry is, "Give, give." And this is what we wanted to see. Selwyn, the whole Selwyn, and nothing but Selwyn.

It is true that there is a preface which talks in this wise:—

It seems to have been one of the peculiarities of George Selwyn, to preserve not only every letter addressed to him by his correspondents during the course of his long life, but also the most trifling notes and memoranda. To this peculiarity, the reader is indebted for whatever amusement he may derive from the perusal of these volumes. The greater portion of their contents consists of letters addressed to Selwyn, by persons who, in their day, moved in the first circles of wit, genius, and fashion."

We have thus let Mr Jesse speak for himself. If the public are satisfied, so let it be. But people seldom read prefaces. The title is the thing, and that title is, "George Selwyn and his contemporaries." If it had been "Letters of the contemporaries of George Selwyn," we should have understood the matter.

Still we are not at all disposed to quarrel with the volumes. They contain a great deal of pleasant matter; and the letters are evidently, in general, the work of a higher order of persons than the world has often an opportunity of seeing in their deshabille. The Persian proverb, which accounted for the fragrance of a pebble by its having lain beside the rose, has been in some degree realized in these pages. They are evidently of the Selwyn school; and if he is not here witty himself, he is, like the "fat knight," the cause of wit in others. We are enjoying a part of the feast which his science had cooked, and then distributed to his friends to figure as the chefs-d'oeuvre of their own tables. At all events, though often on trifling subjects, and often not worth preserving, they vindicate on the whole the claim of English letter-writing to European superiority. Taking Walpole as the head, and nothing can be happier than his mixture of keen remark, intelligent knowledge of his time, high-bred ease of language, and exquisite point and polish of anecdote; his followers, even in these few volumes, show that there were many men, even in the midst of all the practical business and nervous agitation of public life, not unworthy of their master. We have no doubt that there have been hundreds of persons, and thousands of letters, which might equally contribute to this most interesting, and sometimes most brilliant, portion of our literature. The French lay claim to superiority in this as in every thing else; but we must acknowledge that it is with some toil we have ever read the boasted letters of De Sévigné—often pointed, and always elegant, they are too often frivolous, and almost always local. We are sick of the adorable Grignan, and her "belle chevelure." The letters of Du Deffand, Espinasse, Roland, and even of De Staël, though always exhibiting ability, are too hard or too hot, too fierce or too fond, for our tastes; they are also so evidently intended for any human being except the one to whom they were addressed, or rather for all human beings—they were so palpably "private effusions" for the public ear—sentiments stereotyped, and sympathies for the circulating library—that they possessed as little the interest as the character of correspondence.

Voltaire's letters are always spirited. That extraordinary man could do nothing on which his talent was not marked; but his letters are epigrammes—all is sacrificed to point, and all is written for the salons of Paris. What Talleyrand's might be, we can imagine from the singular subtlety and universal knowledge of that most dexterous player of the most difficult game which was ever on the diplomatic cards. But as his definition of the excellence of a letter was—"to say any thing, but mean nothing," we must give up the hope of his contribution. Grimm's volumes are, after all, the only collection which belongs to the style of letters to which we allude. They are amusing and anecdotical, and, in our conception, by much the most intelligent French correspondence that has fallen into our hands. But they are too evidently the work of a man writing as a task, gathering the Parisian news as a part of his profession, and in fact sending a daily newspaper to his German patron.

Of the German epistolary literature we have seen nothing which approaches to the excellence of the English school. The conception is generally vague, vapourish, and metaphysical. And this predominates absurdly through all its classes. The poet prides himself on being as much a dreamer in his prose as in his poetry; the scholar is proud of being perplexed and pedantic; the statesman is naturally immersed in that problematic style, which belongs to the secrecy of despotic governments, and to the stiffness of circles where all is etiquette. But Walpole and his tribe have fashion wholly to themselves, and possess force without heaviness, and elegance without effeminacy.

We are strongly tempted to ask, whether there may not be letters of the gay, the refined, and the sparkling George Canning. He was constantly writing; knew every thing and every body; was engaged in all the high transactions of his time; saw human nature in all possible shades; and was a man whose talent, though capable of very noble efforts "on compulsion," yet naturally loved a more level rank of times and things. It is perfectly true to human experience, that there are minds, which, like caged nightingales and canary-birds, though their wings were formed with the faculty of cleaving the clouds, yet pass a perfectly contented existence within their wires, and sing as cheerfully in return for their water and seeds, as if they had the range of the horizon. Canning's whole song for thirty years was in one cage or another, and he sang with equal cheerfulness in them all. The moral of all this is, that we wish Mr Jesse, or any one else, to apply himself, without delay, to the depositaries of George Canning's familiar correspondence, and give his pleasant, piquant, and graceful letters (for we are sure that they are all these) to the world.

Lord Dudley's letters have disappointed every body: but it is to be observed, that we have only a small portion of them; that they were written to a college tutor, a not very exciting species of correspondent at any time, and who in this instance having nothing to give back, and plodding his way through the well-meant monotony of college news, allowed poor Lord Dudley not much more chance of brilliancy, than a smart drummer might have of producing a reveillé on an unbraced drum. We must live in hope.

Lord Holland, we think, might, as the sailors say, "loom out large." The life of that ancient Whig having been chiefly employed in telling other men's stories over his own table—and much better employed, too, than in talking his original follies in public—a tolerable selection from his journals might furnish some variety; for when Whigs are cased up no longer in the stiff braces and battered armour of their clique, they may occasionally be amusing men. But Walpole still reigns: his whims, his flirtings, his frivolities will disappear with his old china and trifling antiquities; but his best letters will always be the best of their kind among men.

George Selwyn was a man of fashionable life for the greater part of the last century, or perhaps we may more justly say, he was a man of fashionable life for the seventy-two years of his existence; for, from his cradle, he lived among that higher order of mankind who were entitled to do nothing, to enjoy themselves, and alternately laugh at, and look down upon the rest of the world. His family were opulent, and naturally associated with rank; for his father had been aide-de-camp to the Duke of Marlborough—a great distinction even in that brilliant age; and his mother was the daughter of a general officer, and woman of the bedchamber to Queen Caroline. She is recorded as a woman of talents, and peculiarly of wit; qualities which seem frequently connected with long life, perhaps as bearing some relation to that good-humour which undoubtedly tends to lengthen the days of both man and woman. If the theory be true, that the intellect of the offspring depends upon the mother, the remarkable wit of George Selwyn may be adduced in evidence of the position.

George, born in 1719, was sent, like the sons of all the court gentlemen of his age and of our own, to Eton. After having there acquired classics, aristocracy, and cricket, all consummated at Oxford, he proceeded to go through the last performance of fashionable education, and give himself the final polish for St James's; he proceeded to make the tour of Europe. What induced him to recommence his boyhood, by returning to Oxford at the ripe age of twenty-five, is among the secrets of his career, as also is the occasion of his being expelled from the university; if that occasion is not to be found in some of the burlesques of religion which he had learned amongst the fashionable infidels of the Continent, similar to those enacted by Wilkes in his infamous monkery. But every thing in his career equally exhibits the times. At an age when he was fit for nothing else, he was considered fit to receive the salary of a sinecure; and, at twenty-one, he was appointed to a brace of offices at the mint. His share of the duty consisted of his enjoying the weekly dinners of the establishment, and signing the receipts for his quarter's pay.

Within a few years more, he came into parliament; and in his thirty-second year, by the death of his father and elder brother, he succeeded to the family estates, consisting of three handsome possessions, one of which had the additional value of returning a member of parliament. Nor was this all; for his influence in Gloucestershire enabled him to secure, during many years, his own seat for Gloucester, thus rendering his borough disposable; and thus, master of a hereditary fortune, an easy sinecurist, the possessor of two votes, and the influencer of the third—a man of family, a man of connexion, and a man of the court—George Selwyn began a path strewed with down and rose leaves.

In addition to these advantages, George Selwyn evidently possessed a very remarkable subtlety and pleasantry of understanding; that combination which alone produced true wit, or which, perhaps, would be the best definition of wit itself; for subtlety alone may excite uneasy sensations in the hearer, and pleasantry alone may often be vulgar. But the acuteness which detects the absurd of things, and the pleasantry which throws a good-humoured coloring over the acuteness, form all that delights us in wit.

If we are to judge by the opinion of his contemporaries, and this is the true criterion after all, Selwyn's wit must have been of the very first order in a witty age. Walpole is full of him. Walpole himself, a wit, and infinitely jealous of every rival in every thing on which he fastened his fame, from a picture gallery down to a snuff-box, or from a history down to an epigram, bows down to him with almost Persian idolatry. His letters are alive with George Selwyn. The bons-mots which Selwyn carelessly dropped in his morning wall through St James's Street, are carefully picked up by Walpole, and planted in his correspondence, like exotics in a greenhouse. The careless brilliancies of conversation, which the one threw loose about the club-rooms of the Court End, are collected by the other and reset by this dexterous jeweller, for the sparklings and ornaments of his stock in trade with posterity.

Yet it may reconcile those less gifted by nature and fortune to their mediocrity; to know that those singular advantages by no means constitute happiness, usefulness, moral dignity, or even public respect. Selwyn, as the French Abbé said, "had nothing to do, and he did it." His possession of fortune enabled him to be a lounger through life, and he lounged accordingly. The conversations of the clubs supplied him with the daily toys of his mind, and he never sought more substantial employment. Though nearly fifty years in parliament, he was known only as a silent voter; and, after a life of seventy-two years, he died, leaving three and twenty thousand pounds of his savings to a girl who was not his daughter; and the chief part of his estates to the Duke of Queensberry, an old man already plethoric with wealth, of which he had never known the use, and already dying.

His passion for attending executions was notorious and unaccountable, except on the ground of that love of excitement which leads others to drinking or the gaming-table. Those sights, from which human nature shrinks, appear to have been sought for by Selwyn with an eagerness resembling enjoyment. This strange propensity was frequently laughed at by his friends. Alluding to the practice of criminals dropping a handkerchief as a signal for the executioner, says Walpole, "George never thinks, but à la tête tranchée. He came to town the other day to have a tooth drawn, and told the man that he would drop his handkerchief for the signal."

Another characteristic anecdote is told on this subject. When the first Lord Holland, a man of habitual pleasantry, was confined to his bed, he heard that Selwyn, who had been an old friend, had called to enquire for his health. "The next time Mr Selwyn calls," said he, "show him up; if I am alive, I shall be delighted to see him; and, if I am dead, he will be delighted to see me."

Walpole says, after telling a story of one Arthur Moore, "I told this the other day to George Selwyn, whose passion is to see corpses and executions. He replied, 'that Arthur Moore had his coffin chained to that of his mistress.'

"Said I, 'How do you know?'

"'Why, I—I saw them the other day in a vault in St Giles's.'

"George was walking this week in Westminster Abbey, with Lord Abergavenny, and met the man who shows the tombs. 'Oh, your servant, Mr Selwyn; I expected to have seen you here the other day, when the old Duke of Richmond's body was taken up.'" Walpole then mentions Selwyn's going to see Cornberry, with Lord Abergavenny and a pretty Mrs Frere, who were in some degree attached to each other.

"Do you know what you missed in the other room?" said Selwyn to the lady. "Lord Holland's picture."

"Well, what is Lord Holland to me?"

"Why, do you know," said he, "my Lord Holland's body lies in the same vault, in Kensington church, with my Lord Abergavenny's mother."

Walpole, speaking of the share which he had in capturing a house-breaker, says, "I dispatched a courier to White's in search of George Selwyn. It happened that the drawer who received my message had very lately been robbed himself, and had the wound fresh in his memory. He stalked up into the club-room, and with a hollow trembling voice, said, 'Mr Selwyn, Mr Walpole's compliments to you, and he has got a house-breaker for you.'"

But some of his practical pleasantries were very amusing. Lady Townshend, a woman of wit, but, in some points of character, a good deal scandalized, was supposed to have taken refuge from her recollections in Popery. "On Sunday last," says Walpole, "as George was strolling home to dinner, he saw my Lady Townshend's coach stop at Caraccioli's chapel. He watched; saw her go in; her footman laughed; he followed. She went up to the altar; a woman brought her a cushion; she knelt, crossed her self, and prayed. He stole up, and knelt by her. Conceive her face, if you can, when she turned and found him close to her. In his demure voice, he said, 'Pray, ma'am, how long has your ladyship left the pale of our church?' She looked furies, and made no answer. Next day he went to see her, and she turned it off upon curiosity. But is any thing more natural? No; she certainly means to go armed with every viaticum: the Church of England in on hand, Methodism in the other, and the Host in her mouth."

Every one knows that bons-mots are apt to lose a great deal by transmission. It has been said that the time is one-half of the merit, and the manner the other; thus leaving nothing for the wit. But the fact is, that the wit so often depends upon both, as to leave the best bon-mot comparatively flat in the recital. With this palliative we may proceed. Walpole, remarking to Selwyn one day, at a time of considerable popular discontent, that the measures of government were as feeble and confused as in the reign of the first Georges, and saying, "There is nothing new under the sun." "No," replied Selwyn, "nor under the grandson."

Selwyn one day observing Wilkes, who was constantly verging on libel, listening attentively to the king's speech, said to him, "May Heaven preserve the ears you lend!" an allusion to the lines of the Dunciad—

The next is better. A man named Charles Fox having been executed, the celebrated Charles asked Selwyn whether he had been present at the execution as usual. "No," was the keen reply, "I make a point of never attending rehearsals."

Fox and General Fitzpatrick at one time lodged in the house of Mackay, an oilman in Piccadilly, a singular residence for two men of the first fashion. Somebody, probably in allusion to their debts, observed that such lodgers would be the ruin of Mackay. "No," said Selwyn, "it will make his fortune. He may boast of having the first pickles in London."

Nonchalant manners were the tone of the time; and to cut one's country acquaintance (a habit learned among the French noblesse) was high breeding. An old haunter of the pump-room in Bath, who had frequently conversed with Selwyn in his visits there, meeting him one day in St James's Street, attempted to approach him with his usual familiarity. Selwyn passed him as if he had never seen him before. His old acquaintance followed him, and said, "Sir, you knew me very well in Bath." "Well, sir," replied Selwyn, "in Bath I may possibly know you again," and walked on.

When High Life Below Stairs was announced, Selwyn expressed a wish to be present at its first night. "I shall go," said he, "because I am tired of low life above stairs."

One of the waiters at Arthur's had committed a felony, and was sent to jail. "I am shocked at the committal," said Selwyn; "what a horrid idea the fellow will give of us to the people in Newgate."

Bruce's Abyssinian stories were for a long time the laugh of London. Somebody at a dinner once asked him, whether he had seen any relics of musical instruments among the Abyssinians, or any thing in the style of the ancient sculptures of the Thebaid. "I think I saw one lyre there," was the answer. "Ay," says Selwyn to his neighbour, "and that one left the country along with him."

Selwyn did not always spare his friends. When Fox's pecuniary affairs were in a state of ruin, and a subscription was proposed; one of the subscribers said that their chief difficulty was to know "how Fox would take it." Selwyn, who knew that necessity has nothing to do with delicacies of this order, replied, "Take it, why, quarterly to be sure!"

Mr. Jesse's anecdotes are generally well told, but their version is sometimes different from ours. Selwyn was one day walking up St James's Street with Lord Pembroke, when a couple of sweeps brushed against them. "Impudent rascals!" exclaimed Lord Pembroke. "The sovereignty of the people," said Selwyn. "But such dirty dogs," said Pembroke. "Full dress for the court of St Giles's," said Selwyn, with a bow to their sable majesties.

But Selwyn, with all his affability and pleasantry, had his dislikes, and among them was the celebrated Sheridan. The extraordinary talent and early fame of that most memorable and unfortunate man, had fixed all eyes upon him from the moment of his entering into public life; and Selwyn, who had long sat supreme in wit, probably felt some fears for his throne. At all events, he determined to keep one place clear from collision with this dangerous wit; and, on every attempt to put up Sheridan's name for admission into Brookes's, two black balls were found in the balloting-box, one of which was traced to Selwyn, while the other was supposed to be that of Lord Besborough. One ball being sufficient to exclude, the opposition was fatal; but Fox and his friends were equally determined, on their side, to introduce Sheridan; and for this purpose a curious, though not very creditable, artifice was adopted. On the evening of the next ballot, and while George and Lord Besborough were waiting, with their usual determination, to blackball the candidate, a chairman in great haste brought in a note, apparently from Lady Duncannon, to her father-in-law Lord Besborough, to tell him that his house in Cavendish Square was on fire, and entreating him to return without a moment's delay. His lordship instantly quitted the room, and hurried homewards. Immediately after, a message was sent to George Selwyn that Miss Fagniani, the child whom he had adopted, and whom he supposed to be his own, was suddenly seized with a fit, and that his presence was instantly required. He also obeyed the summons. Both had no sooner left the room than the ballot was proceeded with, the two ominous balls were not to be found, and Sheridan was unanimously chosen. In the midst of the triumph, Selwyn and Lord Besborough returned, indignant at the trick, but of course unable to find out its perpetrators. How Sheridan and his friends looked may be imagined. The whole scene was perfectly dramatic.

Burke's speeches, which were destined to become the honour of his age, and the delight of posterity, were sometimes negligently received by the house. His splendid prolixity, which was fitter for an assembly of philosophers than an English Parliament, sometimes wearied mere men of business, as much as his fine metaphysics sometimes perplexed them; and the man who might have sat between Plato and Aristotle, and been listened to with congenial delight by both, was often left without an audience. One night, when Selwyn was hurrying into the lobby with a crowd of members, a nobleman coming up asked him, "Is the house up?" "No," was the reply, "but Burke is."

A model of fashionable life, Selwyn unhappily indulged in that vice which was presumed to be essential to the man of fashion. The early gaming propensities of Charles Fox are well known; he was ruined, estate, personal fortune, sinecures and reversions, and all, before he was five years in public life—ruined in every possible shape of ruin. There were times when he could not command a guinea in the world. Yet there were times when he won immensely. At one sitting he carried off £8000, but in a few more he lost £11,000. He was a capital whist player; and in the cool calculation of the clubs on such subjects, it was supposed that he might have made £4000 a-year, if he had adhered to this profitable direction of his genius. But, like many other great men, he mistook his forte, and disdained all but the desperation of hazard. There he lost perpetually and prodigiously, until he was stripped of every thing, and pauperised for life.

It gives a strong conception of the universality of this vice, to find so timid and girlish a nature as the late William Wilberforce's initiated into the same career.

"When I left the University," says Wilberforce, in his later reminiscences, "so little did I know of general society, that I came up to London stored with arguments to prove the authenticity of 'Rowley's Poems,' (the academic and pedantic topic of the day,) and now I was at once immersed in politics and fashion. The very first time I went to Boodle's, I won twenty-five guineas of the Duke of Norfolk. I belonged at this time to five clubs, Miles' and Evans', Brookes', Boodle's, White's, and Goosetree's. The first time I was at Brookes', scarcely knowing any one, I joined, from mere shyness, in play at the faro-table, where George Selwyn kept bank. A friend who knew my inexperience, and regarded me as a victim dressed out for sacrifice, called to me—'What, Wilberforce, is that you?' Selwyn quite resented the interference, and turning to him, said in his most expressive tone—'Oh, sir, don't interrupt Mr Wilberforce, he could not be better employed.' Nothing could be more harmonious than the style of those clubs—Fox, Sheridan, Fitzpatrick, and all your leading men frequented them, and associated upon the easiest terms. You either chatted, played at cards, or gambled, as you pleased."

We have no idea of entering into any of the scandals of the time. The lives of all the men of fashion of that day were habitually profligate. The "Grand Tour" was of but little service to their morals, and Pope's sarcastic lines were but too true.

But this vice did not descend among the body of the people. It was limited to the idlers of high life, and even among them it was extinguished by the cessation of our foreign intercourse at the French revolution; or was at least so far withdrawn from the public eye, as to avoid offending the common decencies of a moral people.

Selwyn was probably more cautious in his habits than his contemporaries, for he survived almost every man who had begun life with him; and he lived to a much greater age than the chief of the showy characters who rose into celebrity during his career. He died at the age of seventy-two, January 25, 1791. He had long relinquished gaming, assigning the very sufficient reason, "It was too great a consumer of four things—time, health, fortune, and thinking." But what man of his day escaped the gout, and the natural termination of that torturing disease in dropsy? After seven years' suffering from both, with occasional intervals of relief, he sank at last. Walpole, almost the only survivor among his early friends, thus wrote on the day of his expected death:—"I have lost, or am on the point of losing, my oldest acquaintance and friend, George Selwyn, who was yesterday at the extremity. Those misfortunes, though they can be so but for a short time, are very sensible to the old: but him I loved, not only for his infinite wit, but for a thousand good qualities." He writes a few days after, "Poor Selwyn is gone; to my sorrow; and no wonder. Ucalegon feels it."

Selwyn, with all his pleasantry, had evidently a quick eye for his own interest. He contrived to remain in parliament for half a century, and he gathered the emoluments of some half dozen snug sinecures. Among those were the Registrar of Chancery in Barbadoes, and surveyor-general of the lands. Thus he lived luxuriously, and died rich.

Orator Henley is niched in an early part of this correspondence. The orator was known in the last century as a remarkably dirty fellow in his apparel, and still more so in his mind. He was the son of a gentleman, and had received a gentleman's education at St John's, Cambridge. There, or subsequently, he acquired Hebrew, and even Persian; wrote a tragedy on the subject of Esther, in which he exhibited considerable poetic powers; and finished his scholastic fame by a grammar of ten languages! On leaving college, he took orders, and became a country curate. But the decency of this life did not suit his habits, and he resolved to try his chance in London for fortune and fame. Opening a chapel near Newport market, Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, he harangued twice a-week, on theological subjects on Sundays, and on the sciences and literature on Wednesdays. The audience were admitted by a shilling ticket, and the butchers in the neighbourhood were for a while his great patrons. At length, finding his audience tired of common sense, he tried, like other charlatans since his day, the effect of nonsense. His manner was theatrical, his style eccentric, and his topics varied between extravagance and buffoonery. The history of such performances is invariably the same—novelty is essential, and novelty must be attained at all risks. He now professed to reform all literature, and all religion. But even this ultimately failed him. At length the butchers deserted him, and, falling from one disgrace to another, he sank into dirt and debauchery, and died in 1750 at the age of sixty-four, remembered in the world only by being pilloried in the Dunciad.

The orator's contribution consists but of two notes; the first to Selwyn—

"I dine at twelve all the year, but shall be glad to take a glass with you at the King's Arms any day from four to six. If I have disobliged Mr Parsons, (who I hear was with you,) or any of you gentlemen, I never intended it, and ask your pardons. I shall be proud to oblige my Lord Carteret, or you, or the rest, at any time. Pray let them see this."

"J. HENLEY."

There appears to have been some kind of riot at one of Henley's lectures, probably a rough burlesque of his manner, in which Selwyn, then a student of Oxford, made himself conspicuous. At least the letter is addressed to him.

"I am accountable for the peace of my congregation; and among the rules and articles of my consent and conditions as owner and minister, one rule is, to go out directly, forfeiting what has been given, if any person cannot or will not preserve those conditions; for the smallest circumstance of disorder has been inflamed to the highest outrage. The bishop's nephew began something of the kind two months ago, and made me retribution; so have others, and I must send an attorney to warn them not to come whom I suspect hereafter. You have been at his sport before."

We now come to a man of more importance, Richard Rigby, the "blushing Rigby" of Junius. He was the son of a linen-draper, who, as factor to the South Sea Company, acquired considerable property. This, however, his son, who had adopted public life as his pursuit, rapidly squandered in electioneering, in pleasure, and the irresistible vice of the time, play. Frederic, Prince of Wales, was the first object of all needy politicians, and Rigby for a while attached himself to this feeble personage with all the zeal of a prospective placeman. But the prince remained too long in opposition for the fidelity of courtiership, and Rigby glided over to the Duke of Bedford; who unquestionably exhibited himself a steady and zealous friend to his new adherent. The duke lent him money to pay his debts; gave him the secretaryship for Ireland on his appointment to the viceroyalty; gave him a seat in Parliament for Tavistock; was the means of his being made a privy counsellor; obtained for him a sinecure of L.4000 a-year; and at that period when most men are sincere, on his deathbed, appointed Rigby his executor, and cancelled his bond for the sum which he had originally lent to him.

We know few instances of such steady liberality in public life, and the man who gave, and the man who received those munificent tokens of confidence, must have had more in them than the world was generally inclined to believe. The duke has been shot through and through by the pungent shafts of Junius: and Rigby was covered with mire throughout life by all the retainers of party. Yet both were evidently capable of strong friendship, and thus possessed the redeeming quality most unusual in the selfishness and struggles of political existence.

Amongst official men, Rigby is recorded as one of the most popular personages of his time. One art of official popularity, and that too a most unfailing one, he adopted in a remarkable degree—he kept an incomparable table. Sir Robert Walpole, one of the shrewdest of men, had long preserved his popularity by the same means. Rigby's paymastership of the forces enabled him to support a splendid establishment, and it was his custom, after the debates in the House of Commons, to invite the ministers and the pleasantest men of the time, to supper at his apartments in Whitehall. His wines were exquisite, his cookery was of the most recherché order; and by the help of a good temper, a broad laugh, natural joviality, and a keen and perfect knowledge of all that was going on round him in the world of fashion, he made his parties a delightful resource to the wearied minds of the Cabinet.

Wraxall, a very pleasant describer of men and manners, thus sketches him:—"In Parliament he was invariably habited in a full-dress suit of clothes, commonly of a dark colour, without lace or embroidery, close buttoned, with his sword thrust through the pocket. His countenance was very expressive, but not of genius; still less did it indicate timidity or modesty. All the comforts of the pay-office seemed to be eloquently depicted in it; his manner, rough yet frank, admirably set off whatever sentiments he uttered in Parliament. Like Jenkinson, he borrowed neither from ancient nor modern authors; his eloquence was altogether his own, addressed not to the fancy, but to the plain comprehension of his hearers. There was a happy audacity about him, which must have been the gift of nature—art could not obtain it by any efforts. He seemed not to fear, nor even to respect, the House, whose composition he well knew; and to the members of which assembly he never appeared to give credit for any portion of virtue, patriotism, or public spirit. Far from concealing those sentiments, he insinuated, or even pronounced them, without disguise; and from his lips they neither excited surprise, nor even commonly awaked reprehension."

But this flow of prosperity was to have its ebb. The jovial placeman was to feel the uncertainties of office; and on Lord North's resignation in 1782, and the celebrated Edmund Burke's appointment to the paymastership, Rigby found himself suddenly called on for a considerable arrear. It had been the custom to allow the paymaster to make use of the balances in his hands until they were called for, and this formed an acknowledged and very important part of his income. But his expenses left him no resource to meet the demand. Whether fortunately or unfortunately, Sir Thomas Rumbold, the recalled governor of Madras, had just then returned to England, under investigation by the House of Commons for malpractices in his office. It was the rumour of the day that Rigby, on the advance of a large sum by Rumbold, had undertaken to soften the prosecution against him. Whether this were the fact or not, it is certain that the charges soon ceased to be pursued, and that Rigby's nephew and heir was soon after married to Rumbold's daughter. Rigby, who had never been married, died in 1788, in his sixty-seventh year.

His letter to Selwyn, in 1745, is characteristic of the man and the time. "I am just got home from a cock match, where I have won forty pounds in ready money, and not having dined, am waiting till I hear the rattle of the coaches from the House of Commons, in order to dine at White's.

"I held my resolution of not going to the Ridotto till past three o'clock, when, finding that nobody was willing to sit any longer but Boone, who was not able, I took, as I thought, the least of two evils, and so went there rather than to bed; but found it so infinitely dull, that I retired in half an hour. The next morning I heard that there had been extreme deep play, and that Harry Furnese went drunk from White's at six o'clock, and won the dear memorable sum of one thousand guineas.

"I saw Garrick in Othello that same night, in which, I think, he was very unmeaningly dressed, and succeeded in no degree of comparison with Quin, except in the second scene, where Iago gives the first suspicions of Desdemona."

As the letter does not describe Garrick's dress, we can only suppose it to have been remarkably absurd, when it could have attracted the censure of any one accustomed to the stage in the middle of the last century. Nothing could be more ignorant, unsuitable, or unbecoming, that the whole system of theatrical costume. Garrick, for example, usually played Macbeth in the uniform of an officer of the Guards—scarlet coat, cocked hat, and regulation sword, were the exhibition of the Highland chieftain's wardrobe, and the period, too, when the Highland dress was perfectly known to the public eye. It must be acknowledged that we owe the reformation of the stage, in this important point, to the French. It was commenced by the celebrated Clairon, and perfected by the not less celebrated Talma.

"I supped that night, tête-à-tête, with Metham, who was d——d angry with Hubby Bubby (Doddington) for having asked all the Musquetaires to supper but him. He went to sleep at twelve, and I to White's, where I staid till six. Yesterday I spent a good part of the day with my Lord Coke at a cock match; and went, towards the latter end of Quin's benefit, to Mariamne.

"The coaches rattle by fast, and George brings me word the House is up, and I assure you I am extremely hungry."

We now come to the name of a man who attained a considerable celebrity in his own time, but has almost dropped into oblivion in ours, Sir Charles Hanbury Williams. He was the third son of John Hanbury, Esq., a Monmouthshire gentleman, and took the name of Williams on succeeding to the property of his grandfather. His mother was aunt to George Selwyn. Entering Parliament early in life, he adopted the ministerial side, and was a steady adherent to Sir Robert Walpole. He had his reward in ministerial honours, being created a Knight of the Bath; and though Sir Robert died in 1745, Williams had so far established his court influence, that he was successively appointed envoy to Saxony, minister at Berlin, and ambassador at St Petersburg. He was a man of great pleasantry, some wit, and perpetual verse-making—the name of poetry is not to be stooped to such compositions as his; but their liveliness and locality, their application to existing times and persons, and their occasional hits at politics and principles, made both them and their author popular. But the fashionable language of the day had tendencies which would not now be tolerated; and Sir Charles, a fashionable voluptuary, is charged with having written what none should wish to revive. After a residence of ten years on the Continent, he fell into a state of illness which deranged his understanding. From this he recovered, but subsequently relapsed into the same unhappy state, and died, it was surmised, by his own hand in 1759. His letter details, in his own flighty style, one of the frolics of fashion.

"The town-talk for some time past has been your child, (a note says 'apparently the Honourable John Hobart, afterwards Earl of Buckinghamshire;') the moment you turned your back he flew out, went to Lady Tankerville's drum-major, (a rout,) having unfortunately dined that day with Rigby, who plied his head with too many bumpers, and also made him a present of some Chinese crackers. Armed in this manner, he entered the assembly, and resolving to do something that should make a noise, he gave a string of four and twenty crackers to Lady Lucy Clinton, and bid her put it in the candle, which she very innocently did, to her and the whole room's astonishment. But when the first went off she threw the rest upon the tea-table, where, one after the other, they all went off, with much noise and not a little stench, to the real joy of most of the women present, who don't dislike an opportunity of finding fault. Lady Lucy, indeed, was plentifully abused, and Mr Hobart had his share; and common fame says he has never had a card since. Few women will curtsy to him; and I question if he ever will lead any one to their chair again as long as he lives. I leave you to judge how deeply he feels this wound. Every body says it would never have happened if you had not retired to your studies; and you are a little blamed for letting him out alone. He has sunk his chairman's wages 5s. a-week upon this accident, and intends to turn them off in Passion week, because he then can go nowhere at all. All private houses are already shut against him, and at that holy time no public place is open."

We have then some letters written in a time of great public anxiety, 1745.

"All our forces are come from Flanders. The Pretender's second son (Henry Stuart, afterwards Cardinal of York) is come to Dunkirk, where it is said there are forty transports. The rebels, it is said, are very advantageously encamped between two rivers, and are fortifying their camp."

Another hurried letter says.

"An express arrives to-day, (Dec. 8th,) while his Majesty was at chapel, which brought an account of the rebels being close to Derby, and that the Duke of Cumberland was at Meredan, four miles beyond Coventry observing their motions."

Another of the same date, six o'clock at night, says, "The Tower guns have not fired to-day. A letter has been received, stating that the rebels had retreated towards Ashbourne."

Walpole, in a letter to Sir Horace Mann, on the 9th repeats the news, and says, "The Highlanders got nine thousand pounds at Derby, and had the books brought to them, and obliged everybody to give them what they had subscribed against them. They then retreated a few miles, but returned again to Derby, got £10,000 more, and plundered the town; they are gone again, and got back to Leake in Staffordshire, but miserably harassed; they have left all their cannon behind them, and twenty waggons of sick."

Nothing can give a stronger example of the changes which may take place in a country, than the different state of preparation for an invader, exhibited by England in 1745, and in little more than half a century after. On the threat of Napoleon's invasion, England exhibited an armed force of little less than a million, which would have been quadrupled in case of an actual descent. In 1745, the alarm was extravagant, and almost burlesque. The Pretender, with but a few thousand men—brave undoubtedly, but almost wholly unprovided for a campaign—marched into the heart of England, and reached within a hundred and thirty miles of the capital. But the enterprise was then felt to be wholly beyond his means. A powerful force under the Duke of Cumberland was already thrown between him and London. What was more ominous still, no man of English rank had joined him, London was firm, the Protestant feeling of the nation, though slowly excited, was beginning to be roused, by its recollection of the bigotry of James, and in England, this feeling will always be ultimately victorious. Even if Charles Edward had arrived in London, and seized the throne, he would have only had to commence a civil war against the nation. His retreat to the north saved England from this great calamity, and probably saved himself, and his adherents in both countries, from a more summary fate than that which drove his miserable and bigoted father from the throne.

One of the chief contributors to this correspondence is George James Williams, familiarly styled Gilly Williams; a man of high life, uncle by marriage to the minister Lord North, and lucky in the possession of an opulent office—that of receiver-general of the excise. He, with George Selwyn and Dick Edgecumbe, who met at Strawberry Hill at certain seasons, formed what Walpole termed his out-of-town party. Life seems to have glided smoothly with him, for he lived till 1785, dying at the ripe age of eighty-six.

He thus begins:—

"Dear George—I congratulate you on the near approach of Parliament, and figure you before a glass at your rehearsals. I must intimate to you not to forget to begin closing your periods with a significant stroke of the breast, and recommend Mr Barry as a pattern, (the actor.)

"You must observe, in letters from the country, every sentence begins with being either sorry or glad. Apropos, I am glad to hear B. Bertie (son of the Duke of Ancaster) is returned from Scarborough, having laid in such a stock of health and spirits by the waters, as to dedicate the rest of his days altogether to wine."

In another letter he says—"I had almost forgot to tell you, that I rode near ten miles on my way home with the ordinary of Gloucester, and have several anecdotes of the late burnings and hangings, which I reserve for your own private ear. I do not know whether he was sensible you had a partiality for his profession; but he expressed the greatest regard for you, and I am sure you may command his services."

Gilly writes from Crome, Lord Coventry's seat in Worcestershire—

"Our life here for a while would not displease you, for we eat and drink well, and the Earl (Coventry) holds a faro-bank every night to us, which we have as yet plundered considerably.

"I want to know where to find you, and how long you stay at your mansion-house; for it would not be pleasant to ride so far only to see squinting Jenny and the gardener at the end of my journey. I suppose we shall see you here, where you will find the Countess of Coventry in high spirits and in great beauty."

We now come to a brief mention of two women, the most remarkable of their day for popular admiration, if not for finish and fashion—the Gunnings, afterwards Lady Coventry and the Duchess of Hamilton. They were the daughters of an Irish country gentleman, John Gunning, of Castle Coote in Ireland. On their first appearance at court in England, the elder was in her nineteenth, and the second in her eighteenth year. They appear to have excited a most unprecedented sensation in London. Walpole thus writes to Sir Horace Mann—

"You, who knew England in other times, will find it difficult to conceive what indifference reigns with regard to ministers and their squabbles. The two Miss Gunnings are twenty times more the subject of conversation than the two brothers (the Pelhams) and Lord Granville. They are two Irish girls of no fortune, who are declared the handsomest women alive. I think there being two so handsome, and both such perfect figures, is their chief excellence, for, singly, I have seen much handsomer women than either. However, they can't walk in the Park, or go to Vauxhall, but such crowds follow them, that they are generally driven away." And this effect lasted; for, two months after, Walpole writes—"I shall tell you a new story of the Gunnings, who make more noise than any of their predecessors since the days of Helen. They went the other day to see Hampton Court. As they were going into the Beauty room, another company arrived, and the housekeeper said—'This way, ladies, here are the beauties,' the Gunnings flew into a passion, and asked her what she meant; they came to see the palace, not to be shown as sights themselves."

To the astonishment, and perhaps to the envy, of the fashionable world, those two unportioned young women made the most splendid matches of the season. The Duke of Hamilton fell in love with the younger at a masquerade, and made proposals to her. The marriage was to take place within some months; but his passion was so vehement, that in two nights after he insisted on marrying her at the moment. Walpole tells us that he sent for a clergyman, who however refused to marry them without license or ring. At this period marriages were frequently performed in a very unceremonious and unbecoming manner. From the laxity of the law, they were performed at all hours, frequently in private houses, and sometimes even in jails, by pretended clergymen. The law, however, was subsequently and properly reformed. The duke and duchess are said to have been married with a curtain-ring, at half-past twelve-at night, at May Fair Chapel. This precipitated the marriage of Lord Coventry, a personage of a grave stamp, but who had long paid attention to the elder sister Maria. He married her about three weeks after. Except that we are accustomed to hear of the frenzy which seizes people in the name of fashion, we should scarcely believe the effect which those two women, handsome as they were, continued to produce. On the Duchess of Hamilton's presentation at Court on her marriage, the crowd was immense; and so great was the curiosity, that the courtly multitude got on the chairs and tables to look at her. Mobs gathered round their doors to see them get into their chairs; people crowded early to the theatres when they heard they were to be there. Lady Coventry's shoemaker is said to have made a fortune by selling patterns of her shoe; and on the duchess's going to Scotland, several hundred people walked about all night round the inn where she slept, on the Yorkshire road, that they might have a view of her as she went off next morning.

Yet they appear to have been strangely neglected in their education; good-humoured and good-natured undoubtedly, but little better than hoydens after all. Lord Down met Lord and Lady Coventry at Calais, and offered to send her ladyship a tent-bed, for fear of bugs at the inn. "Oh dear!" said she, "I had rather be bit to death than lie one night from my dear Cov."

She is, however, memorable for one étourderie, which amused the world greatly. Old George II., conversing with her on the dulness of the season, expressed a regret that there had been no masquerades during the year, the handsome rustic answered him, that she had seen sights enough, and the only one she wanted to see now was—"a coronation." The king, however, had the good sense to laugh, and repeated it good-humouredly to his circle at supper.

Lady Coventry died a few years after of consumption, at the age of twenty-seven. It was said that her death was hastened by the habit of using white lead as a paint, the fashionable custom of the time. The Duke of Hamilton had died two years before, in 1758, and the duchess became subsequently the wife of Colonel John Campbell, afterwards Duke of Argyle. The narrative observes the remarkable circumstance, that the untitled daughter of an Irish commoner should have been the wife of two dukes and the mother of four. By her first husband she was the mother of James, seventh duke, and of Douglas, eighth duke, of Hamilton; and by her second husband, of William, sixth duke, and of Henry, seventh duke, of Argyle. The duchess, though at the time of Lady Coventry's illness supposed to be in a consumption, survived for thirty years, dying in 1790.

Mason the poet commemorated Lady Coventry's death in a long elegy, which had some repute in those days, when even Hayley was called a poet. They are dawdling and dulcified to a deplorable degree.

We have then a sketch of a man of considerable celebrity in his day, Lord Sandwich. Educated at Eton and Cambridge; on leaving college, he made the then unusual exertion of a voyage round the Mediterranean, of which a volume was published by his chaplain on his return. Shortly after, taking his seat in the House of Lords, he came into ministerial employment as a Lord of the Admiralty. In 1746, he was appointed minister to the States General. And from that period, for nearly thirty years, he was employed in high public offices; was twice an ambassador, three times first Lord of the Admiralty, and twice Secretary of State. Lord Sandwich's personal character was at least accused of so much profligacy, that, if the charges be true, we cannot comprehend how he was suffered to retain employments of such importance for so many years. Wilkes, who had known him intimately, describes him, in his letters to the electors of Aylesbury, as "the most abandoned man of the age." He is even said not to have been a man of business; yet the Admiralty was a place which can scarcely be managed by an idler, and the Secretaryship of State, in this country, can never be a sinecure. He had certainly one quality which is remarkable for conciliation, and without which no minister, let his talents be what they may, has ever been personally popular; he was a man of great affability, and of shrewd wit. The latter was exhibited, in peculiarly cutting style, to Mr Eden, afterwards Lord Auckland. Eden, sagacious in his generation, had suddenly ratted to Pitt, adding, however, the monstrous absurdity of sending a circular to his colleagues by way of justification. Obviously, nothing could be more silly than an attempt of this order, which could only add their contempt for his understanding to their contempt for his conduct. Lord Sandwich's answer was in the most cutting spirit of scorn:—

"Sir,—Your letter is now before me, and in a few minutes will be behind me."

An unhappy circumstance brought Lord Sandwich with painful prominence before the world. A Miss Ray, a person of some attraction, had unfortunately lived under his protection for several years. It happened, however, that a young officer on the recruiting service, who had dined once or twice at Lord Sandwich's house in the country, thought proper to pay her some marked attentions, which, after allowing them, as it appears, to proceed to some extent, she suddenly declined. On this the officer, whose name was Hackman, and who was evidently of a fantastic and violent temperament, rushed from England in a state of desperation, flew over to Ireland, threw up his commission, and took orders in the church. But instead of adopting the quietude which would have been suitable for his new profession, the clerical robes seem to have made him more intractable than the military uniform. After some months of rambling and romance in Ireland, he rushed over to England again, resolving to conquer or die at her feet; but the lady still rejected him, and, being alarmed at his violence, threatened to appeal to Lord Sandwich. There are many circumstances in the conduct of this unfortunate man, amounting to that perversion of common sense which, in our times, is fashionably and foolishly almost sanctioned as monomania. But nothing can be clearer than the fact, that the most unjustifiable, dangerous, and criminal passion, may be pampered, until it obtains possession of the whole mind, and leads to the perpetration of the most atrocious offences against society. The modern absurdity is, to look, in the violence of the passion for the excuse of the crime; instead of punishing the crime for the violence of the passion. We might as well say, that the violences of a drunkard were more innocent the more furiously he was intoxicated; the whole being a direct encouragement to excessive guilt. The popular feeling of justice in the last century, however, was different; robbers and murderers were put to death as they deserved, and society was relieved without burlesquing the common understandings of man. Mr Hackman was a murderer, however he might be a monomaniac, and he was eventually hanged as he deserved. The trial, which took place in April 1779, excited the most extraordinary public curiosity. By the statement of the witnesses, it appeared that a Mr Macnamara, being in the lobby of Covent Garden Theatre when the audience were coming away, and seeing Miss Ray making her way with some difficulty through the crowd to her carriage, he went forward with Irish gallantry to offer her his arm, which she accepted; and as they reached the door of the carriage, a pistol was fired close to them, when Miss Ray clapped her hand to her forehead and fell, when instantly another pistol-report followed. He thought that she had fainted away through fright; but when he raised her up, he found that she was wounded, and assisted the people in carrying her into the Shakspeare Tavern; and on Hackman's being seized, and being asked what could possess him to be guilty of such a deed, his only answer was to give his name, and say, "It is not a proper place to ask such questions." It appeared in evidence, that Hackman had been waiting some time for Miss Ray's coming out of the theatre; that he followed her to the carriage door, and pulling out two pistols, fired one at the unfortunate woman, the ball of which went through her brain, and the other at himself, crying out as he fell, "Kill me—kill me!"

Of course, after evidence like this, there could be no defence, and none as attempted. Hackman evidently wished to have died by his own hand; but having failed there, his purpose was to perish by the law, and plead guilty. However, on being brought to trial, he said that he now pleaded not guilty, that he might avoid the appearance of contemning death—an appearance not suitable to his present condition; that, on second thoughts, he had considered the plea of guilty as rendering him accessory to a second peril of his life; and that he thought that he could pay his debt more effectually to the justice of the country by suffering his offences to be proved by evidence, and submitting to the forms of a regular trial. This, though it was penitence too late, was at least decorous language. His whole conduct on the trial showed that, intemperate as his passions were, he possessed abilities and feelings worthy of a wiser career, and a less unhappy termination. Part of his speech was even affecting.

"I stand here this day," he said, "the most wretched of human beings, and confess myself criminal in a high degree; yet while I acknowledge, with shame and repentance, that my determination against my own life was formal and complete, I protest, with that regard which becomes my situation, that the will to destroy her who was ever dearer to me than life, was never mine till a momentary frenzy overpowered me, and induced me to commit the deed I deplore. Before this dreadful act, I trust, nothing will be found in the tenor of my life which the common charity of mankind will not excuse. I have no wish to avoid the punishment which the laws of my country appoint for my crime; but being already too unhappy to feel a punishment in death, or a satisfaction in life, I submit myself with penitence and patience to the disposal and judgment of Almighty God, and to the consequences of this enquiry into my conduct and intentions."

After a few minutes' consultation, the jury returned a verdict of guilty, and he was executed two days after. It is surprising how strong an interest was felt on this subject by persons of every condition; by the populace, who loved excitement from whatever quarter it may come; by the middle order, to whom the romance of the early part of the transaction and the melancholy catastrophe were subjects of natural impression; and by the nobility, to whom the character of Miss Ray and the habits of Lord Sandwich were equally known.

The Earl of Carlisle thus writes to Selwyn, beginning with a sort of customary allusion to Selwyn's extraordinary fondness for those displays:—

"Hackman, Miss Ray's murderer, is hanged. I attended his execution in order to give you an account of his behaviour, and from no curiosity of my own. I am this moment returned from it. Every one enquired after you. You have friends every where. The poor man behaved with great fortitude; no appearances of fear were to be perceived, but very evident signs of contrition and repentance."

A novel, of some pathos and considerable popularity, was founded on this unhappy transaction, and "The Letters of Mr Hackman and Miss Ray" long flourished in the circulating libraries. But the groundwork was vulgar, mean, and vicious, after all; and, divested of that colouring which imagination may throw on any event, was degrading and criminal in all its circumstances. The shame of the wretched woman herself, living in a state of open criminality from year to year; the grossness of Hackman in his proposal to make this abandoned woman his wife; the strong probability that his object might have been the not uncommon, though infinitely vile one, of obtaining Lord Sandwich's patronage, by relieving him of a connexion of which that notorious profligate, after nine years, might be weary—all characterise the earlier portion of their intercourse as destitute of all pretence to honourable feelings. The catastrophe is merely the work of an assassin. If there may be some slight allowance for overwhelming passion, for suddenly excited jealousy, or for remediless despair, yet those impulses act only to the extent of inflicting injury on ourselves. No love ever seeks the death of its object. It is then mere ruffianism, brute cruelty, savage fury; and even this becomes more the act of a ruffian, when the determination to destroy is formed in cold blood. Hackman carried two loaded pistols with him to the theatre. What other man carried loaded pistols there? and what could be his purpose but the one which he effected, to fire them both, one at the wretched woman, and the other at himself? The clear case is, that he was neither more nor less than a furious villain, resolved to have the life of a profligate milliner's apprentice, who preferred Lord Sandwich's house and carriage, to Mr Hackman's hovel and going on foot. We shall find that all similar acts originate in similar motives—lucre, licentiousness, and rage—the three stimulants of the highwayman, the debauchee, and the ruffian; with only the distinction, that, in the case of those who murder when they cannot possess, the three criminalities are combined.

Even with the execution of the criminal, the excitement did not cease. The papers of the day tell us, that when the body was conveyed to the surgeon's hall, so great a crowd was assembled, and the efforts to obtain entrance were so violent, that caps, gowns, wigs, were torn and cast away in all directions. Old and young, men, women, and children, were trampled in the multitude. In the afternoon, the crowd diminished, and several persons of the better order made their way in, but with not a less vexatious result; for, on reaching the staircase leading to the theatre, they found themselves saluted with a shower from some engine worked under the staircase. This was rather a rough mode of tranquillizing public excitement, but seems to have been effectual. It was probably a trick of some of the young surgeons, and excited great indignation at the time. Hackman was but four-and-twenty, and rather a striking figure.

The letters to which we have alluded, entitled "Love and Madness," attracted attention in higher quarters, and even perplexed the fastidiousness of Walpole himself. In one of his letters of March 1780, he thus writes:—"Yesterday was published an octavo, pretending to contain the correspondence of Hackman and Miss Ray. I doubt whether the letters are genuine, and yet, if fictitious, they are executed well, and enter into his character. This appears less natural, and yet the editors were certainly more likely to be in possession of hers than his. It is not probable that Lord Sandwich should have sent what he found in her apartments to the press; no account is pretended to be given of how they came to light."

After having thus puzzled the dilettanti, it transpired that it was written by Sir Herbert Croft, Bart.

Another singular character, who, in connexion with one still more singular, remarkably occupied the ear and tongue of the beau monde of his day, is introduced in these volumes. This was Augustus John, Earl of Bristol, third son of John, Lord Hervey, by the beautiful Mary Lepel. He entered the sea service at an early age, and prospered as the sons of men of rank prospered in those days, being made a post-captain in 1747, when he was but three and twenty years old. Promotion was heaped upon him, and he was rapidly advanced to the rank of vice-admiral and colonel of marines. He was, however, said to be a brave and skilful officer. More good fortune was in store for him; he was placed in the king's household, was a member of Parliament, was appointed one of the Lords of the Admiralty, and finally rounded the circle of his honours by succeeding to the earldom of Bristol. The history of his wife is a continued adventure. Miss Chudleigh, maid of honour to the Princess of Wales, had, immediately on her appearance at court, become the observed of all observers. She was regarded as one of the most beautiful women of her time, was remarkably quick and witty in her conversation, of a most capricious temper and a most fantastic imagination—all qualities which naturally rendered her a topic in every circle of the country. The circumstances of her marriage rendered her if possible, still more a topic. On a visit at the house of a relation, she met Lord Bristol, then but a lieutenant in the navy, and plain Mr Hervey, and disregarding all the formalities of high life, they were privately married at Lainston, in Northamptonshire. They were, however, separated the very next day, the lady declaring her determination never to see her husband's face again. This, of course, produced an ample fund of conversation of every kind; but the lady returned to court, and the gentleman returned to his ship, and went to sea. However, they met again, and the result was, she became a mother. From her determination to keep her marriage secret, she retired for her accouchement to a secluded spot in Chelsea, where her child was born, and where it soon after died.

It may easily be supposed, that the sudden disappearance of so conspicuous a person from the most conspicuous society, must have given rise to rumours and ridicule of every kind. She returned to court nevertheless, and constantly denying her marriage, fought it out with the effrontery which is so easily forgiven, in fashionable life, to youth, wit, and beauty.

Yet she could not quite escape the flying shafts of wit herself. One day after her return, meeting the memorable Lord Chesterfield—"Think, my lord," said she, with an air of indignation, "to what lengths the scandalous chronicle will go, when it absolutely says that I have had twins." "My dear," said Lord Chesterfield, "I make it a rule never to believe above half what the world says."

She now received the attentions of many suitors, extraordinary as the circumstance may be, when the mystery of her own conduct and the surmises of the public are considered; and, to make assurance doubly sure, she determined to extinguish all proof of her hasty marriage. Ascertaining that the clergyman who had married her was dead, she went to Lainston church, and contrived to carry away the entry of her marriage from the register. Some time after this, Miss Chudleigh (for she never would take her husband's name) married the Duke of Kingston. It was strongly asserted, though the circumstance is so dishonourable that it can scarcely be believed, that the silence of the real husband was purchased by the advance of a large sum of money from the pretended one. The marriage remained undisturbed until the death of the duke. She then came into possession of his very large disposable property, and traveled in great pomp to Rome; but the duke's nephew and heir, having his suspicious of the fact excited, commenced proceedings against the duchess for bigamy. She was tried before her peers in Westminster hall, and found guilty of the offence, in April 1776; but by claiming the privilege of peerage, she was discharged on payment of the usual fees.

It is scarcely possible to believe that a man of the rank and profession of Lord Bristol, could have been base enough to connive at his wife's marriage with the Duke of Kingston. But there can be no question, that in the prevalent opinion of the time, he had even taken a large sum of money for the purpose. In one of Walpole's letters, subsequently to the trial, he says, "if the Pope expects his duchess back, he must create her one, for her peers have reduced her to a countess. Her folly and her obstinacy here appear in the full vigour, at least her faith in the ecclesiastical court, trusting to the infallibility of which she provoked this trial in the face of every sort of detection. The living witness of the first marriage, a register of it fabricated long after by herself, the widow of the clergyman who married her, many confidants to whom she had entrusted the secret, and even Hawkins, the surgeon, privy to the birth of the child, appeared against her. The Lords were tender, and would not probe the earl's collusion; but the ecclesiastical court, who so readily accepted their juggle, and sanctified the second match, were brought to shame—they care not if no reformation follows. The duchess, who could produce nothing else in her favour, tried the powers of oratory, and made a long oration, in which she cited the protection of her late mistress, the Princess of Wales. Her counsel would have curtailed this harangue; but she told them they might be good lawyers, but did not understand speaking to the passions. She concluded her rhetoric with a fit, and retired with rage when convicted of the bigamy."

The charge to which Walpole alludes, was, that the earl had given her a bond for L.30,000 not to molest her; but as there was no proof, this gross charge certainly has no right to be implicitly received. Still it is unaccountable why he should have suffered her to have married the Duke of Kingston without any known remonstrance, and why he should have allowed her to retain the title of the duke's widow until the rightful heir instituted the proceedings. The earl died in 1779, within three years from the trial.

Among the characters which pass through this magic-lantern, is Topham Beauclerk, so frequently mentioned, and mentioned with praise, in Boswell's Johnson. He seems to have been a man of great elegance of manner, and peculiarity of that happy talent of conversation whose wit seems to be spontaneous, and whose anecdotes, however recherché, seem to flow from the subject. "Every thing," remarked Johnson, "comes from Beauclerk so easily, that it appears to me that I labour when I say a good thing."

Beauclerk was the only son of Lord Sydney Beauclerk, a son of Charles, first Duke of St Albans. He was educated at Trinity College, Oxford, and, from the moment of his entering fashionable life, was remarked for the elegance of manner, and the liveliness of conversation, which continued to be his distinctions to the close of his career. Unfortunately, the fashion of the time not only allowed, but seems to have almost required, an irregularity of life which would tarnish the character of any man in our more decorous day. His unfortunate intercourse with Viscountess Bolingbroke, better known by her subsequent name of Lady Diana Beauclerk, produced a divorce, and in two days after a marriage. She was the eldest daughter of Charles, the second Duke of Marlborough, and was in early life as distinguished for her beauty, as in later years she was for her wit.

Johnson in his old age became acquainted with Topham Beauclerk, through their common friend, Langton, and even the sage and moralist acknowledged the captivation of his manners. "What a coalition!" said Garrick, when he heard of their acquaintance, "I shall have my old friend to bail out of the roundhouse." But whatever might be the elegance of his companion's laxity, Johnson did not hesitate to rebuke him. Beauclerk, like wits in general, had a propensity to satire, on which Johnson once took him to task in this rough style—"You never open your mouth but with the intention to give pain; and you have now given me pain, not from the power of what you have said, but from my seeing the intention." At another tine, applying to him that line of Pope's, slightly altered, he said—

everything you do shows the one, and every thing you say the other."

Another rather less intelligible rebuke occurred in his saying, "Thy body is all vice and thy mind all virtue." As the actions of the body proceed from the mind, it is difficult to conceive how the one can be impure without the other. At least Beauclerk did not appear to relish the distinction, and he was angry at the phrase. However, Johnson's attempt to appease him was a curious specimen of his magniloquence. "Nay, sir, Alexander the Great, marching in triumph into Babylon, could not have desired to have had more said to him."

Topham Beauclerk had two daughters by Lady Diana, one of whom became Lady Pembroke. He died at his house in Great Russell Street, then a place of fashion, in 1780, in his 41st year.

Selwyn's seat, Matson, in Gloucestershire, received some pretty historical reminiscences. One of Walpole's letters to Bentley, thus speaks of a visit to his friend's villa in the autumn of 1753.

"I staid two days at George Selwyn's house, which lies on Robin Hood's hill. It is lofty enough for an Alp, yet is a mountain of turf to the very top, has woods scattered all over it, springs that long to be cascades in twenty places; and from the summits it beats even Sir George Littleton's views, by having the city of Gloucester at its foot, and the Severn widening to the horizon. The house is small but neat; King Charles (the First,) lay here at the siege, and the Duke of York, with typical fury, hacked and hewed the windows of his chamber, as a memorandum of his being there. The fact however being, that both the princes, Charles and James, who were then mere boys, remained at Matson—a circumstance frequently mentioned to Selwyn's grandfather by James II., observing:—'My brother and I were generally shut up in a chamber on the second floor during the day, where you will find that we have left the marks of our confinement inscribed with our knives on the ledges of all the windows."'

The house must have been quite a treasure to Walpole, for he found in it a good picture of the famous Earl of Leicester, which he had given to Sir Francis Walsingham; and what makes it very curious, Walpole observes his age is marked on it fifty-four, in 1752. "I had never been able to discover before in what year he was born, and here is the very flower-pot and counterfeit association for which Bishop Sprat was taken up, and the Duke of Marlborough sent to the Tower."

It is, however, by no means clear, that this was a "counterfeit association," though Walpole abandons his usual scepticism on all disputable points with such facility. The "association" was a plot to bring back that miserable blockhead and bigot, James II., said to be signed by Marlborough, the Bishop of Rochester, Lords Salisbury, Cornberry, and Sir Basil Firebrace. On the information of one Young, the draft of the plot was found in a flower-pot in the Bishop's house at Bromley. But fortunately the days of royal terror had passed by. The crown was strong enough to treat conspiracy with contempt, and the affair was suffered to fall into oblivion. Yet it is now so notorious that many of the highest persons in the state were tampering with the exiled family, that the plot is rendered sufficiently probable. There seems to have been some political infatuation connected with the name of the Stuarts. Though, excepting the bravery of Charles I. and the pleasantry of Charles II., they all were evidently the dullest, most mulish, and most repulsive of mankind; yet many brave men periled their lives to restore them, and many men of great distinction hazarded their safety to correspond with them. The "Stuart Correspondence" was less a breach of loyalty than a libel on the national understanding.

On the whole, these volumes are interesting, in many parts—very much so. The editor has evidently done his best to illustrate and explain. But can he not discover any remnant of the letters of Selwyn himself? he might then remove the objection to his title, and please all readers together.