(119) Apud _Selwyn and his Contemporaries_ by Jesse.

Selwyn is said to have been a loser on the whole, and often pillaged.
Latterly he appears to have got the better of his propensity for play,
if we may judge from the following wise sentiment:--'It was too great
a consumer,' he said, 'of four things--time, health, fortune, and
thinking.' But a writer in the _Edinburgh Review_ seems to doubt
Selwyn's reformation; for his initiation of Wilberforce occurred in
1782, when he was 63; and previously, in 1776, he underwent the process
of dunning from Lord Derby, before-mentioned, and in 1779 from Mr
Crawford ('Fish Crawford,' as he was called), each of whom, like Mr
Shafto, 'had a sum to make up'--in the infernal style so horridly
provoking, even when we are able and willing to pay. However, as Selwyn
died comparatively rich, it may be presumed that his fortune suffered to
no great extent by his indulgence in the vice of gaming.

The following are some of George Selwyn's jokes relating to gambling:--

One night, at White's, observing the Postmaster-General, Sir Everard
Fawkener, losing a large sum of money at Piquet, Selwyn, pointing to the
successful player, remarked--'See now, he is robbing the _MAIL!_'

On another occasion, in 1756, observing Mr Ponsonby, the Speaker of the
Irish House of Commons, tossing about bank-bills at a Hazard table
at Newmarket--'Look,' he said, 'how easily the Speaker passes the
money-bills!'

A few months afterwards (when the public journals were daily containing
an account of some fresh town which had conferred the freedom of its
corporation in a gold box on Mr Pitt, afterwards Earl of Chatham,
and the Right Honourable Henry Bilson Legge, his fellow-patriot and
colleague), Selwyn, who neither admired their politics nor respected
their principles, proposed to the old and new club at Arthur's, that
he should be deputed to present to them the freedom of each club in a
_dice-box_.

On one of the waiters at Arthur's club having been committed to prison
for a felony--'What a horrid idea,' said Selwyn, 'he will give of us to
the people in Newgate!'

When the affairs of Charles Fox were in a more than usually embarrassed
state, chiefly through his gambling, his friends raised a subscription
among themselves for his relief. One of them remarking that it would
require some delicacy in breaking the matter to him, and adding that 'he
wondered how Fox would take it.' 'Take it?' interrupted Selwy