George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life | Page 7

had wished
to avert. Eventually, early in May, we read the congratulations of his
friends on the restoration of what had become dearest to him in the
world.
During the month Selwyn spent in Paris, however, waiting for Mie Mie,
who was passing the specified time in the convent, fresh difficulties
were raised, and he began to doubt if he should ever bring the little girl
to England. His health was seriously affected by the strain, and his
friends begged him to give up a pursuit which was injuring it and
taking him from them; but Mie Mie was at last received from the
convent under a vague condition that at some future time she should
return to it; a half promise which neither side expected would be
fulfilled.
The Rev. Dr. Warner gives us a slight description of Mie Mie. A year

had passed; she is nine years old; he is writing to Selwyn:--
"That freshness of complexion I should have great pleasure in
beholding. It must add to her charms, and cannot diminish the character,
sense, and shrewdness which distinguish her physiognomy, and which
she possesses in a great degree, with a happy engrafting of a high-bred
foreign air upon an English stock . . .
"But how very pleasant to me was your honest and naive confession of
the joy your heart felt at hearing her admired! It is, indeed, most
extraordinary that a certain person who has great taste--would he had as
much nature!--should not see her with very different eyes from what he
does. I can never forget that naive expression of Mme. de Sevigne, 'Je
ne sais comment Von fait de ne pas aimer sa fille?'"
* The Duke of Queens berry.
But Selwyn was never quite free from the fear that she should be taken
from him. In January, 1781, he writes to Lord Carlisle:--
"From Milan things are well; at least, no menaces from thence of any
sort, and I am assured, by one who is the most intimate friend of the
Emperor's minister there, that he was much more likely to approve than
to disapprove of Mie Mie's being with me, knowing as he does the turn
and character of the mother."
The relationship from this time was more settled, and as Mie Mie grew
into womanhood she became to Selwyn a delightful and affectionate
companion.
Selwyn was a universal friend; he was equally at home with politicians,
dilettanti, and children; he was a man of such consistent good nature, so
unaffectedly kind-hearted, that every one, statesman, gambler, or
schoolboy, liked to be in his company. Yet among Selwyn's many
friends and acquaintances two groups are remarkable. The first was
formed of men of his own age--Walpole, Edgecumbe, Gilly Williams,
and Lord March comprise what may be called the Strawberry Hill
group. It was at Walpole's famous villa that they liked best to meet, and

it is by Reynolds that Walpole's "out-of-town party" has been handed
down to us.** They were an odd coterie--cultivated, artificial,
gossiping. None of them ever married; to do so seemed to have been
unfashionable, if not unpopular; and when we see the results of many
marriages among their friends, they were best, perhaps, as bachelors.
They considered themselves free to act as they pleased; and this
freedom became notorious by the life-long dissipation of March, and
by the free living of Edgecumbe, who died at forty-five after a life
misspent at the gaming-table. That he possessed a bright mind and
ingenious wit is proved by his verses and by the estimate of his friends.
The amusing coat of arms which the friends designed for White's Club
was painted by him, while he was one of the first to recognise the
genius of Reynolds.
** The group of Selwyn, Edgecumbe, and Williams which was painted
for Horace Walpole in 1781, and subsequently became the property of
the late Lord Taunton, now belongs to his daughter, the Hon. Mrs.
Edward Stanley, and is at Quantock Lodge, Bridgwater. It is a
charming and interesting picture. A replica by Sir J. Reynolds, the
property of Lord Cadogan, is at Chelsea House.
The other group was of a younger generation, more brilliant and more
modern. They might not inappropriately be called the Fox group, since
his personality was so conspicuous among them. They talked politics
and gambled at Brooks's, they appreciated each other's brightness, and
lost their money with the indifference of true friends. There was the
gallant and charming soldier Fitzpatrick, the schoolfellow and friend of
Fox, the sagacious and versatile but place-seeking Storer. Hare, who,
less well-born, had risen by his wit and talents to a place among the
cleverest men of the time, "the Hare with many friends," as he was
called by the Duchess of Gordon. Frederick, Earl of