Warburton does, with the hebdomadal trash of 'Punch,' though perhaps
they would stand the comparison pretty well. It is one thing to force
wit with plenty of time to invent and meditate it--another to have so
much wit within you that you can bring it out on any occasion; one thing
to compose a good fancy for _money_--another to utter it only when it
flashes through the brain.

But it matters little what we in the present day may think of Selwyn's
wit, for conversation is spoiled by bottling, and should be drawn fresh
when wanted. Selwyn's companions--all men of wit, more or less, affirmed
him to be the most amusing man of his day, and that was all the part he
had to play. No real wit ever hopes to _talk_ for posterity; and written
wit is of a very different character to the more sparkling, if less
solid, creations of a moment.

We have seen Selwyn in many points of view, not all very creditable to
him; first, expelled from Oxford for blasphemy; next, a professed
gambler and the associate of men who led fashion in those days, it is
true, but then it was very bad fashion; then as a lover of hangmen, a
wit and a lounger. There is reason to believe that Selwyn, though less
openly reprobate than many of his associates, was, in his quiet way,
just as bad as any of them, if we except the Duke of Queensberry, his
intimate friend, or the disgusting 'Franciscans' of Medmenham Abbey, of
whom, though not the founder, nor even a member, he was, in a manner,
the suggester in his blasphemy.

But Selwyn's real character is only seen in profile in all these
accounts. He had at the bottom of such vice, to which his position, and
the fashion of the day introduced him, a far better heart than any of
his contemporaries, and in some respects a kind of simplicity which was