s. Monsieur de
Calonne engrosses all the time which he can spare from Newmarket.
Frederick St. John's match is, as I am told, at an end. But then the
Duchess of R(utland's) widowhood is just begun. I have lost myself
the opportunity of being his rival. Her Grace was in this house last
summer with me, and alone, but how could I foresee the event which
has since happened? and a survivance at my age could not be thought
an object. I do not hear who are to compose the next Court at the
Castle. You see whom the papers name, and perhaps can say who are
the most likely to go there. . . .

(235) Charlotte Margaret, daughter of Sir Robert Gunning, K.C.B.,
Minister at the Courts of Copenhagen, Berlin, and St. Petersburg.
Miss Gunning, who was Maid of Honour to the Queen, must not be
confused with the two celebrated sisters of an earlier period, or
with Miss Elizabeth Gunning, a well-known and much-talked-of beauty
at this time,

The correspondence from 1788 to the end of Selwyn's life is entirely
with Lady Carlisle. Carlisle himself appears to have been much in
London during that period, and thus in companionship with his old
friend. But letter-writing had become at once a habit and a
necessity. It was--and can always be where there is what he has
called an epanchement de Coeur--an unceasing pleasure and solace.
There is only required pen, paper, and ink, and the last bit of
news, the thought of the moment can be written down and exchanged
with the friend at a distance. It matters not that the letter does
not reach its destination for some time to come. In the transcribing
of the thought, there is the sharing of it with another, and
imagination anticipates its reception.

(1788, November) 20, Thursday, Cleveland Court.(236)--George, you
know, set out on Tuesday, and to-morrow I hope that you will see
him, and as well as when I took leave of him. I will own fairly to
you, that it was some degree 'of anxiety to me, that he had no
servant to go with him so long a journey. . . . When I left him in
Grosvenor Place I came here to write to you a letter, . . . but
condemned it to the flames. This Lord C., with whom I have
breakfasted, has reproved me for: he was sorry that I did not send
it; you should not be left out of the secret, you should know as
much as your neighbours, &c. You shall do so, if I can furnish you
with any intelligence, and although you never tell me anything which
I have not seen before, a fortnight past, in t