wisely insisted on reappearing in Oxford, against the advice of all his
friends, whose characters were lost if the ostracised man were seen
among them.

From this time he entered upon his 'profession,' that of a wit, gambler,
club-lounger, and man about town; for these many characters are all
mixed in the one which is generally called 'a wit.' Let us remember that
he was good-hearted, and not ill-intentioned, though imbued with the
false ideas of his day. He was not a great man, but a great wit.

The localities in which the trade of wit was plied were, then, the
clubs, and the drawing-rooms of fashionable beauties. The former were in
Selwyn's youth still limited in the number of their members, thirty
constituting a large club; and as the subscribers were all known to one
another, presented an admirable field for display of mental powers in
conversation. In fact, the early clubs were nothing more than
dining-societies, precisely the same in theory as our breakfasting
arrangements at Oxford, which were every whit as exclusive, though not
balloted for. The ballot, however, and the principle of a single black
ball suffering to negative an election were not only, under such
circumstances, excusable, but even necessary for the actual preservation
of peace. Of course, in a succession of dinner-parties, if any two
members were at all opposed to one other, the awkwardness would be
intolerable. In the present day, two men may belong to the same club and
scarcely meet even on the stairs, oftener than once or twice in a
season.

Gradually, however, in the place of the 'feast of reason and flow of
soul' and wine, instead of the evenings spent in toasting, talking,
emptying bottles and filling heads, as in the case of the old Kit-kat,