Holland had taken his family
abroad, and Charles James Fox, whose brilliant public career
Carlisle had foretold in verse at Eton, was a congenial companion
during a part of his continental travels.

Carlisle at this epoch of his life is an interesting study. Here is
a boy of nineteen voluntarily leaving home because of a fascinating
woman; he is anxiously awaiting the delayed green ribbon, and his
investiture by the King of Sardinia. He is in close association with
the foremost men of that and a later day. For three days he is
crossing the Alps, a journey filled with as many hopes or fears of
adventure as could have befallen one a century earlier.

At the time when the correspondence begins, Selwyn's friend, the
third Duke of Grafton, was virtually Prime Minister, or as it was
then termed, "principal Minister," for the personal ministerial
responsibility of the head of the Government was, in the days of
Chatham, Grafton, and North, less distinct and less recognised than
in the nineteenth century. Chatham still held the office of Lord
Privy Seal, which he had accepted on the formation of his Ministry
in 1766. But by this time ill-health had rendered him unable to take
any part in public affairs. In October, 1768, Chatham resigned
office, and Grafton became the recognised head of a Ministry the
policy of which he was incapable either of formulating or directing;
and when in January, 1770, Grafton resigned office and handed over
the Ministry to Lord North, it released him from a trying and
irksome position.

Kindly and shrewd in worldly affairs, and well intentioned as a
politician, but wholly lacking in strength of purpose, the third
Duke of Grafton was a man who obtained the goodwill and lost the
respect of his contemporaries. Between Selwyn and him there existed
a cordial friendship, of which there are many evidences in these
letters.

It is time, however, to let the correspondence speak for itself; as
has been already said, Carlisle was now at Nice.

[1767,] Dec. 29, Tuesday, de mon Chateau de Tonderdentronk.(1)--I
received your letter of the 8th and 10th, that is, one part wrote at
Antibes, the other at Nice, here yesterday, which gave me every
degree of pleasure and satisfaction that a letter can give; it could
never have come more seasonably, than when I cannot possibly, from
the snow without doors, and the Aldermen(2) within, have any other
pleasure.

As I am well furnished with maps, I had recourse to th