need not therefore be surprised that Selwyn did as others of his
time. Gilly Williams was a kind and good-natured man, yet we find
him writing to Selwyn:

"Harrington's porter was condemned yesterday. Cadogan and I have
already bespoken places at the Braziers, and I hope Parson Digby
will come time enough to be of the party. I presume we shall have
your honour's company, if your stomach is not too squeamish for a
single serving."

Another friend, Henry St. John, begins a letter to Selwyn by telling
how he and his brother went to see an execution. "We had a full
view of Mr. Waistcott as he went to the gallows with a white cockade
in his hat." Not to be wanting in the ordinary courtesies of the
time, Selwyn's correspondent presently remarks, as one nowadays
would do of a day's grouse-shooting: "I hope you have had good sport
at the Place de Greve, to make up for losing the sight of so
notorious a villain as Lady Harrington's porter. Mais laisons la ce
discours triste, and let us talk of the living and lively world."
Selwyn made his world brighter by his wit and pleasantries, and the
sight of an execution did not depress his spirits. "With his strange
and dismal turn," wrote Walpole, "he has infinite fun and humour in
him."* And the author of a social satire blunted his thrusts at
Selwyn by a long explanatory note which concludes with the remark
that "George is a humane man."*

* Letters, vol. ii. 315.

* "The Diaboliad," P. 18. See Chapter 3.