ennight, and not one single word have
you received from your humble slave and beadsman. . . . Here is now
come a snip-snap letter of reproach from Lady Ossory for not having
answered her letter of compliments upon Lady Caroline's delivery. I
received yours on Sunday. That was no post day, so I resolved to
answer it in Berkley Square on Monday. But I did not set out till
three o'clock, lost all the fine part of the morning, and did not
get to town till five in the afternoon--dragged for two hours, two
whole hours, through mud, and cold, and mist, till I was perishing;
so that when I had eat some dinner I was fit for nothing but to go
to bed, and therefore did not go to Berkley Square till yesterday at
noon. . . . I saw Caroline and her bambino. . . . The christening is
to be, as I understand, to-morrow. I hope in God that I shall be
well enough to assist, and name the child, and eat cake, and go
through all the functions of a good gossip. If I am obliged to give
up that which seems to have been my vocation, c'est fait de moi; I
must declare myself good for nothing. I carried yesterday the
regalia. The cup has been new boiled, and looks quite royal.

Sir L. Pepys was with me in the morning, and thought my pulse very
quiet, which could only have been from the fatigue of the day
before--juste Dieu! fatigue, of going 8 or 9 miles, my legs on the
foreseat, and reposing my head on Jones's shoulder. The Duke would
make her go, and everybody. He thinks that I am now the most
helpless creature in the world, when, from infirmity, I want ten
times more aid than I ever did. Sir Lucas pronounced no immediate
end of myself, but that I should continue to bark, with hemlock.
I'll do anything for some time longer, but my patience will, I see,
after a certain time, be exhausted. As to poor Pierre, it is over
with him. Sir Lucas says the disorder is past all remedy. This is a
most distressful story to me, and how to supply his place I do not
know.

With this letter a correspondence, unique and delightful, extending
over many years, ends. At its close we may well recall Lord
Carlisle's words written fourteen years before, "I shall always be
grateful to fortune," he said, ". . . for having linked me in so
close a friendship with yourself, in spite of disparity of years and
pursuits." Selwyn returned to London shortly before Christmas, and
died on the 25th of January, 1791. On this very day Walpole, with a
touching simplicity and truth,