or a more pleasant one never, I believe, existed.
The loss is not only a private one to his friends, but really a
public one to society in general."* Gaiety of temperament and sound
sense, a quick wit and a kind heart, sincerity and love of society,
culture without pedantry, a capacity to enjoy the world in each
stage of life: these are seldom found united in one individual as
they were in George Selwyn, and he is thus for us perhaps the
pleasantest personality of English society in the eighteenth
century.

* "Journal and Correspondence of Lord Auckland," vol. ii. p. 383.

CHAPTER 2. 1767-1769 THE CORRESPONDENCE COMMENCES.

Frederick, fifth Earl of Carlisle--Lady Sarah Bunbury--The Duke of
Grafton--Carlisle, Charles Fox, and the Hollands abroad--Current
events--Card-playing--A dinner at Crawford's--Lady Bolingbroke
--Almack's--The Duke of Bedford--Lord Clive--The Nabobs--Corporation
of Oxford sell the representation of the borough--Madame du Deffand
--Publication of Horace Walpole's "Historic Doubts on Richard the
Third"--Newmarket--London Society--Gambling at the Clubs--A post
promised to Selwyn--Elections--A purchase of wine--Vauxhall.

IN the chapter which contains the earliest of Selwyn's letters to
Frederick, Earl of Carlisle,* something must be said of the
correspondence itself. It was begun in 1767, and most of the letters
which Selwyn wrote to Lord and Lady Carlisle from that date to his
death have been preserved at Castle Howard. The collection is in
many respects unique. It records a great number of facts, many no
doubt small and in themselves unimportant, which, however, in the
aggregate form a lifelike picture of English society in the
eighteenth century. The letters are written in the bright and
unaffected manner which Madame de Sevigne, whose style Selwyn so
much admired, had introduced in France. Filled with human interest
and easily expressed, they differ materially from Walpole's letters
in that they are characterised by a greater simplicity, and a less
egotistical tone. They show a keener interest in his correspondent.
There is in them a delightful frankness, an unconventional
freshness. Walpole's correspondence, invaluable as it is, always
bears traces of the preparation which we know that it received. But
Selwyn, with a light touch, wrote the thoughts and impassions of the
moment, never for effect. Walpole was often thinking of posterity,
Selwyn always of his friends, who were numberless