your _teeth_,
they would be d----d fools to quarrel with you about gums.' Fox was
often the object of his good-natured satire. As every one knows, his
boast was to be called 'The Man of the People,' though perhaps he cared
as little for the great unwashed as for the wealth and happiness of the
waiters at his clubs.' Every one knows, too, what a dissolute life he
led for many years. Selwyn's sleepiness was well known. He slept in the
House; he slept, after losing L8oo 'and with as many more before him,'
upon the gaming-table, with the dice-box 'stamped close to his ears;' he
slept, or half-slept, even in conversation, which he seems to have
caught by fits and starts. Thus it was that words he heard suggested
different senses, partly from being only dimly associated with the
subject on the _tapis_. So, when, they were talking around of the war,
and whether it should be a sea war or a Continent war, Selwyn woke up
just enough to say, 'I am for a sea war and a _Continent_ admiral.'

When Fox had ruined himself, and a subscription for him was talked of,
some one asked how they thought 'he would take it.'--'Take it,' cried
Selwyn, suddenly lighting up, 'why, _quarterly_ to be sure.'

His parliamentary career was then quite uneventful; but at the
dissolution in 1780, he found that his security at Gloucester was
threatened. He was not Whig enough for that constituency, and had
throughout supported the war with America. He offered himself, of
course, but was rejected with scorn, and forced to fly for a seat to
Ludgershall. Walpole writes to Lady Ossory: 'They' (the Gloucester
people) 'hanged him in effigy, and dressed up a figure of Mie-Mie' (his
adopted daughter), 'and pinned on its breast these words, alluding to
the gallows:--"This is what I told you you would come to!"' From
Gloucester he went to Ludgershall, where he was received by ringing of
bells and bonfires. 'Being driven out of my capital,' said he, 'and
coming into that country of turnips, where I was adored, I seemed to be
arrived in my Hanoverian dominions'--no bad hit at George II. For
Ludgershall he sat for many years, with Sir Nathaniel Wraxall, whose
'Memoirs' are better known than trusted, as colleague. That writer says
of Selwyn, that he was 'thoroughly well versed in our history, and
master of many curious as well as secret anecdotes, relative to the
houses of Stuart and Brunswick.'

Another _bon-mot_, not in connection with politics, is reported by
Walp