FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85  
86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   >>   >|  
d 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 t
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85  
86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

pleasantry

 

Selwyn

 

George

 
subtlety
 
acuteness
 

parliament

 
Walpole
 

family

 

twenty

 

returning


career
 

occasion

 

proceeded

 

understanding

 

evidently

 
remarkable
 

combination

 

possessed

 

produced

 
definition

excite

 
advantages
 

polish

 

addition

 

recommence

 

connexion

 

influencer

 
sinecurist
 

possessor

 

induced


leaves

 

uneasy

 

Europe

 

strewed

 

hearer

 

infinitely

 

jealous

 

history

 

epigram

 

fastened


picture

 

gallery

 

criterion

 

things

 

throws

 

humoured

 
absurd
 

detects

 

fortune

 

vulgar