George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life | Page 5

for although I
do not stand in need of much society, I do not relish being quite alone
at this time of day."
All this time he was a Member of Parliament. There is a little village of
small red cottages with thatched roofs lying among the Wiltshire downs
between Savernake Forest and Andover. It is called Ludgershall, and
has a quiet out-of-the-world look. In the eighteenth century it was a
pocket borough, returning two Members to Parliament, and was the
property of the Selwyn family. The representation was as much in their
hands as the trees in the adjoining fields. In 1747 George Selwyn had
found it convenient to enter the House of Commons. In Ludgershall
there were no constituents to take him to task; to be able to go to
Westminster when he wished added to the variety of life. It kept him in
touch with the politicians and statesmen of St. James's Street, and it

made him a marketable quantity--his price was another sinecure, the
place of Paymaster of the Works. But this he did not receive until he
had inherited the family property, which gave him a hold on the city of
Gloucester. For this city he was a Member from 1754 to 1780, when,
losing his seat at the general election, he gladly returned to his former
constituency. The seat at Ludgershall was never in the nature of a true
political representation, and even when Member for Gloucester Selwyn
seems to have attended but little to the House of Commons. He was one
of a legion of sinecures--a true specimen of the place-man of the age.
Possessed of some political influence, he was able to find in politics a
means of increasing his income. It would be absurd to censure him
because he was a sinecurist; he was acting according to the customs of
the time. The man who in the reign of George III. had the opportunity
of obtaining posts which carried with them salaries and no duties would
have been regarded as Quixotic if he had thrown such opportunities
away. In this Selwyn is thoroughly representative of his time, and his
frequent anxiety lest he should be deprived of his offices is indicative
of an apprehension which was felt by many others.
Yet, sinecurist as he was, Selwyn often regarded his position as a hard
necessity, especially when he was driven into the country to look after
his constituents. He would then heartily wish himself out of Parliament:
the sorrows of a sinecurist might well be the title of some of the letters
written from Matson.
Selwyn's was a life devoid of stirring incidents, and from the date at
which his correspondence with Lord Carlisle begins the course of his
days is indicated in his letters. It is sufficient, therefore, to state that he
died at his house in Cleveland Row, St. James's, on the 25th of January,
1791, still a Member of Parliament, in the place where his life had been
passed and among his innumerable friends.
In one sense his life had been solitary, for he was never married; but an
unusual love for the young which was a charming and remarkable
characteristic, singularly opposed to many of his habits, had been
centred on the child whom he called Mie Mie,* the daughter of an
Italian lady, the Marchesa Fagniani, who was for some time in England

with her husband. The origin of Selwyn's interest in the child is obscure,
but the story of his affection is striking and unusual.
From a letter written by the Marchesa Fagniani to Selwyn in 1772 it is
evident that Mie Mie, then about a year old, had been with him for
some months, and in 1774 Lord Carlisle congratulates him upon the
certainty of the child's remaining with him. The first mention of her in
these letters occurs under date of July 23, 1774, where we have a
picture of Selwyn, drawn by himself. He is sitting on his steps, the
pretty, foreign-looking child in his arms, pleased at the attention she
attracts. When she was four she was taken to pay visits with him; but it
is difficult at this time to know if he or the Earl of March had charge of
her.
* Maria Fagniani (1771-1856). She was married in 1792, the year after
Selwyn's death, to the Earl of Yarmouth, afterwards third Marquis of
Hertford. She led a life of pleasure (1802-7), travelling on the continent
with the Marshal Androche. She had three children, and died at Rue
Tailbout, Paris.
Such interest in a young child naturally occasioned remark in London
society, and the question of her paternity has never been clearly settled;
in the gossip of the time both the Duke of Queensberry and Selwyn
were said to be her father.