Lucrative
Gambling

The character of Selwyn,' says Mr Jesse, `was in many respects a remarkable one. With brilliant wit, a quick perception of the ridiculous, and a thorough knowledge of the world and human nature, he united classical knowledge and a taste for the fine arts. To these qualities may be added others of a very contradictory nature. With a thorough enjoyment of the pleasures of society, an imperturbable good-humour, a kind heart, and a passionate fondness for children, he united a morbid interest in the details of human suffering, and, more especially, a taste for witnessing criminal executions. Not only was he a constant frequenter of such scenes of horror, but all the details of crime, the private history of the criminal, his demeanour at his trial, in the dungeon, and on the scaffold, and the state of his feelings in the hour of death and degradation, were to Selwyn matters of the deepest and most extraordinary interest. Even the most frightful particulars relating to suicide and murder, the investigation of the disfigured corpse, the sight of an acquaintance lying in his shroud, seem to have afforded him a painful and unaccountable pleasure. When the first Lord Holland was on his death-bed he was told that Selwyn, who had lived on terms of the closest intimacy with him, had called to inquire after his health. "The next time Mr Selwyn calls," he said, "show him up; if I am alive I shall be delighted to see him, and if I am dead he will be glad to see me." When some ladies bantered him on his want of feeling in attending to see the terrible Lord Lovat's head cut off--"Why," he said, "I made amends by going to the undertaker's to see it sewed on again." And yet this was the same individual who delighted in the first words and in the sunny looks of childhood; whose friendship seems to have partaken of all the softness of female affection; and whose heart was never hardened against the wretched and depressed. Such was the "original" George Selwyn.'

This celebrated conversational wit was a devoted frequenter of the gambling table. Writing to Selwyn, in 1765, Lord Holland said:--`All that I can collect from what you say on the subject of money is, that fortune has been a little favourable lately; or may be, the last night only. Till you leave off play entirely you must be--in earnest, and without irony--_en verite le serviteur tres-humble des evenements_, "in truth, the very humble servant of events." '

His friend the Lord Carlisle, although himself a great gambler, also gave him good advice. `I hope you have left off Hazard,' he wrote to Selwyn; `if you are still so foolish, and will play, the best thing I can wish you is, that you may win and never throw crabs.[117] You do not put it in the power of chance to make you them, as we all know; and till the ninth miss is born I shall not be convinced to the contrary.'

[117] That is, aces, or ace and deuce, twelve, or seven. With false dice, as will appear in the sequel, it was impossible to throw any of these numbers, and as the caster always called the main, he was sure to win, as he could call an impossible number: those who were in the secret of course always took the odds.

Again:--`As you have played I am happy to hear you have won; but by this time there may be a triste revers de succes_.'

Selwyn had taken to gambling before his father's death--probably from his first introduction to the clubs. His stakes were high, though not extravagantly so, compared with the sums hazarded by his contemporaries. In 1765 he lost L1000 to Mr Shafto, who applied for it in the language of an `embarrassed tradesman.'

`July 1, 1765.

`DEAR SIR,--I have this moment received the favour of your letter. I intended to have gone out of town on Thursday, but as you shall not receive your money before the end of this week, I must postpone my journey till Sunday. A month would have made no difference to me, had I not had others to pay before I leave town, and must pay; therefore must beg that you will leave the whole before this week is out, at White's, as it is to be paid away to others to whom I have lost, and do not choose to leave town till that is done. Be sure you could not wish an indulgence I should not be happy to grant, if it my power.'

Nor was this the only dun of the kind that Selwyn had `to put up with' on account of the gambling table. He received the following from Edward, Earl of Derby.[118]

[118] Edward, twelfth Earl of Derby, was born September 12, 1752, and died October 21, 1834. He married first, Elizabeth, daughter of James, sixth Duke of Hamilton, who died in 1799, and secondly, the celebrated actress, Miss Farren, who died April 23, 1829.

_The Earl of Derby to George Selwyn_.

`Nothing could equal what I feel at troubling you with this disagreeable note; but having lost a very monstrous sum of money last night, I find myself under the necessity of entreating your goodness to excuse the liberty I am taking of applying to you for assistance. If it is not very inconvenient to you, I should be glad of the money you owe me. If it is, I must pay what I can, and desire Brookes to trust me for the remainder. I repeat again my apologies, to which I shall beg leave to add how very sincerely I have the honour to be, my dear sir,

`Your most obedient humble servant, `DEBBY.

This is the very model of a dun, and proves how handsomely such ugly things can be done when one has to deal with a noble instead of a plebeian creditor.

But Selwyn had not only to endure such indignities, but also to inflict them, as appears by the following letter to him from the Honourable General Fitzpatrick, in answer to a dun, which, we are assured, was `gentle and moderate.'

`I am very sorry to hear the night ended so ill; but to give you some idea of the utter impossibility of my being useful on the occasion, I will inform you of the state of my affairs. I won L400 last night, which was immediately appropriated by Mr _Martindale_, to whom I still owe L300, and I am in Brookes' book for thrice that sum. Add to all this, that at Christmas I expect an inundation of clamorous creditors, who, unless I somehow or other scrape together some money to satisfy them, will overwhelm me entirely. What can be done? If I could coin my heart, or drop my blood into drachms, I would do it, though by this time I should probably have neither heart nor blood left. I am afraid. you will find Stephen in the same state of insolvency. Adieu! I am obliged to you for the gentleness and moderation of your dun, considering how long I have been your debtor.

`Yours most sincerely, `R. F.'[119]

[119] Apud _Selwyn and his Contemporaries_ by Jesse.

Selwyn is said to have been a loser on the whole, and often pillaged. Latterly he appears to have got the better of his propensity for play, if we may judge from the following wise sentiment:--`It was too great a consumer,' he said, `of four things--time, health, fortune, and thinking.' But a writer in the _Edinburgh Review_ seems to doubt Selwyn's reformation; for his initiation of Wilberforce occurred in 1782, when he was 63; and previously, in 1776, he underwent the process of dunning from Lord Derby, before-mentioned, and in 1779 from Mr Crawford (`Fish Crawford,' as he was called), each of whom, like Mr Shafto, `had a sum to make up'--in the infernal style so horridly provoking, even when we are able and willing to pay. However, as Selwyn died comparatively rich, it may be presumed that his fortune suffered to no great extent by his indulgence in the vice of gambling.

The following are some of George Selwyn's jokes relating to gambling:--

One night, at White's, observing the Postmaster-General, Sir Everard Fawkener, losing a large sum of money at Piquet, Selwyn, pointing to the successful player, remarked--`See now, he is robbing the _MAIL!_'

On another occasion, in 1756, observing Mr Ponsonby, the Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, tossing about bank-bills at a Hazard table at Newmarket--`Look,' he said, `how easily the Speaker passes the money-bills!'

A few months afterwards (when the public journals were daily containing an account of some fresh town which had conferred the freedom of its corporation in a gold box on Mr Pitt, afterwards Earl of Chatham, and the Right Honourable Henry Bilson Legge, his fellow-patriot and colleague), Selwyn, who neither admired their politics nor respected their principles, proposed to the old and new club at Arthur's, that he should be deputed to present to them the freedom of each club in a _dice-box_.

On one of the waiters at Arthur's club having been committed to prison for a felony--`What a horrid idea,' said Selwyn, `he will give of us to the people in Newgate!'

When the affairs of Charles Fox were in a more than usually embarrassed state, chiefly through his gambling, his friends raised a subscription among themselves for his relief. One of them remarking that it would require some delicacy in breaking the matter to him, and adding that `he wondered how Fox would take it.' `Take it?' interrupted Selwyn, `why, _QUARTERLY_, to be sure.'[120]

[120] Jesse, _George Selwyn and his Contemporaries._

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