and White's Selwyn appeared with a twofold fame, that of a
pronouncer of _bon-mots_ and that of a lover of horrors. His wit was of
the quaintest order. He was no inveterate talker, like Sydney Smith; no
clever dissimulator, like Mr. Hook. Calmly, almost sanctimoniously, he
uttered those neat and telling sayings which the next day passed over
England as 'Selwyn's last.' Walpole describes his manner admirably---his
eyes turned up, his mouth set primly, a look almost of melancholy in his
whole face. Reynolds, in his Conversation-piece, celebrated when in the
Strawberry Collection, and representing Selwyn leaning on a chair, Gilly
Williams, crayon in hand, and Dick Edgecumbe by his side, has caught the
pseudo-solemn expression of his face admirably. The ease of the figure,
one hand _empochee_, the other holding a paper of epigrams, or what not,
the huge waistcoat with a dozen buttons and huge flaps, the ruffled
sleeve, the bob-wig, all belong to the outer man; but the calm, quiet,
almost enquiring face, the look half of melancholy, half of reproach,
and, as the Milesian would say, the other half of sleek wisdom; the long
nose, the prim mouth and joined lips, the elevated brow, and beneath it
the quiet contemplative eye, contemplative not of heaven or hell, but of
this world as it had seen it, in its most worldly point of view, yet
twinkling with a flashing thought of incongruity made congruous, are the
indices of the inner man. Most of our wits, it must have been seen, have
had some other interest and occupation in life than that of 'making
wit:' some have been authors, some statesmen, some soldiers, some
wild-rakes, and some players of tricks: Selwyn had no profession but
that of _diseur de bons mots_; for though he sat in the House, ne took
no prominent part in politics; though he gambled extensively, he did not
game for the sake of money only. Thus his life was that merely of a
London bachelor, with few incidents to mark it, and therefore his memoir
must resolve itself more or less into a series of anecdotes of his
eccentricities and list of his witticisms.

His friend Walpole gives us an immense number of both, not all of a
first-rate nature, nor many interesting in the present day. Selwyn, calm
as he was, brought out his sayings on the spur of the moment, and their
appropriateness to the occasion was one of their greatest
recommendations. A good saying, like a good sermon, depends much on its
delivery, and loses much in