But we have something to settle with Mr Jesse. He is alive, and therefore may be instructed; he is making books with great rapidity, and therefore may be advantageously warned of the perils of book-making. The _title_ of his volumes has altogether deceived us. We shall not charge him with intending this; but it has unquestionably had the effect. "_George Selwyn_ and his contemporaries." We opened the volumes, expecting to find our witty clubbist in every page; George in his full expansion, "in his armour as he lived;" George, every inch a wit, glittering before us in his full court suit, in his letters, his anecdotes, his whims, his odd views of mankind, his caustic sneerings at the glittering world round him; an epistolary HB., turning every thing into the pleasant food of his pen and pungency. But we cannot discover any letters from him, excepting a few very trifling ones of his youth. We have letters from all sorts of persons, great lords and little, statesmen and travellers, placemen and place-hunters; and amusing enough many of them are. Walpole furnishes some sketches, and nothing can be better. In fact the volumes exhibit, not George Selwyn, the only one whose letters we should have cared to see, but those who wrote to him. And the disappointment is not the less, that in those letters constant allusions are made to his "sparkling, delightful, sportive, characteristic, &c. &c., epistles." Great ladies constantly urge him to write to _them_. Maids, wives, and widows, pour out a stream of perpetual laudation. Men of rank, men of letters, men at home, and men abroad, unite in one common supplication for "London news" _rechauffeed_, spiced, and served up, by the perfect _cuisinerie_ of George's art of story-telling; like the horse-leech's two daughters, the cry is, "Give, give." And this is what we wanted to see. Selwyn, the whole Selwyn, and nothing but Selwyn. It is true that there is a preface which talks in this wise:-- It seems to have been one of the peculiarities of George Selwyn, to preserve not only every letter addressed to him by his correspondents during the course of his long life, but also the most trifling notes and memoranda. To this peculiarity, the reader is indebted for whatever amusement he may derive from the perusal of these volumes. The greater portion of their contents consists of letters addressed to Selwyn, by persons who, in their day, moved in the first circles of wit, genius, and fashion." We have thus let Mr Jesse speak for himself. If the public are satisfied, so let it be. But people seldom read prefaces. The title is the thing, and that title is, "_George Selwyn_ and his contemporaries." If it had been "Letters of the contemporaries of George Selwyn," we should have understood the matter.