The character of Selwyn,' says Mr Jesse, 'was in many respects a remarkable one. With brilliant wit, a quick perception of the ridiculous, and a thorough knowledge of the world and human nature, he united classical knowledge and a taste for the fine arts. To these qualities may be added others of a very contradictory nature. With a thorough enjoyment of the pleasures of society, an imperturbable good-humour, a kind heart, and a passionate fondness for children, he united a morbid interest in the details of human suffering, and, more especially, a taste for witnessing criminal executions. Not only was he a constant frequenter of such scenes of horror, but all the details of crime, the private history of the criminal, his demeanour at his trial, in the dungeon, and on the scaffold, and the state of his feelings in the hour of death and degradation, were to Selwyn matters of the deepest and most extraordinary interest. Even the most frightful particulars relating to suicide and murder, the investigation of the disfigured corpse, the sight of an acquaintance lying in his shroud, seem to have afforded him a painful and unaccountable pleasure. When the first Lord Holland was on his death-bed he was told that Selwyn, who had lived on terms of the closest intimacy with him, had called to inquire after his health. "The next time Mr Selwyn calls," he said, "show him up; if I am alive I shall be delighted to see him, and if I am dead he will be glad to see me." When some ladies bantered him on his want of feeling in attending to see the terrible Lord Lovat's head cut off--"Why," he said, "I made amends by going to the undertaker's to see it sewed on again." And yet this was the same individual who delighted in the first words and in the sunny looks of childhood; whose friendship seems to have partaken of all the softness of female affection; and whose heart was never hardened against the wretched and depressed. Such was the "original" George Selwyn.' This celebrated conversational wit was a devoted frequenter of the gaming table. Writing to Selwyn, in 1765, Lord Holland said:--'All that I can collect from what you say on the subject of money is, that fortune has been a little favourable lately; or may be, the last night only. Till you leave off play entirely you must be--in earnest, and without irony--_en verite le serviteur tres-humble des evenements_, "in truth, the very humble servant of events."' His friend the Lord Carlisle, although himself a great gambler, also gave him good advice. 'I hope you have left off Hazard,' he wrote to Selwyn; 'if you are still so foolish, and will play, the best thing I can wish you is, that you may win and never throw crabs.(117) You do not put it in the power of chance to make you them, as we all know; and till the ninth miss is born I shall not be convinced to the contrary.'