politics a means of increasing his income.  It would be absurd to censure him because he was a sinecurist; he was acting according to the customs of the time.  The man who in the reign of George iii. had the opportunity of obtaining posts which carried with them salaries and no duties would have been regarded as Quixotic if he had thrown such opportunities away.  In this Selwyn is thoroughly representative of his time, and his frequent anxiety lest he should be deprived of his offices is indicative of an apprehension which was felt by many others.

Yet, sinecurist as he was, Selwyn often regarded his position as a hard necessity, especially when he was driven into the country to look after his constituents.  He would then heartily wish himself out of Parliament:  the sorrows of a sinecurist might well be the title of some of the letters written from Matson.

Selwyn’s was a life devoid of stirring incidents, and from the date at which his correspondence with Lord Carlisle begins the course of his days is indicated in his letters.  It is sufficient, therefore, to state that he died at his house in Cleveland Row, St. James’s, on the 25th of January, 1791, still a Member of Parliament, in the place where his life had been passed and among his innumerable friends.

In one sense his life had been solitary, for he was never married; but an unusual love for the young which was a charming and remarkable characteristic, singularly opposed to many of his habits, had been centred on the child whom he called Mie Mie,* the daughter of an Italian lady, the Marchesa Fagniani, who was for some time in England with her husband.  The origin of Selwyn’s interest in the child is obscure, but the story of his affection is striking and unusual.

From a letter written by the Marchesa Fagniani to Selwyn in 1772 it is evident that Mie Mie, then about a year old, had been with him for some months, and in 1774 Lord Carlisle congratulates him upon the certainty of the child’s remaining with him.  The first mention of her in these letters occurs under date of July 23, 1774, where we have a picture of Selwyn, drawn by himself.  He is sitting on his steps, the pretty, foreign-looking child in his arms, pleased at the attention she attracts.  When she was four she was taken to pay visits with him; but it is difficult at this time to know if he or the Earl of March had charge of her.

* Maria Fagniani (1771-1856).  She was married in 1792, the year after Selwyn’s death, to the Earl of Yarmouth, afterwards third Marquis of Hertford.  She led a life of pleasure (1802-7), travelling on the continent with the Marshal Androche.  She had three children, and died at Rue Tailbout, Paris.