182 THE JOCKEY CLUB 1750- 



friend Lord March (' Old Q.,' with whom he was sup- 

 posed to share the responsibility for the birth, so 

 far as paternity was concerned, of Maria Fagniani, 

 Marchioness of Hertford), or that he delighted much 

 in Newmarket ; for we learn from Jesse's ' Selwyn ' 

 that he was ' chaffed ' by a correspondent about being 

 a blind guide for some Frenchmen who paid a visit to 

 Newmarket and had Selwyn for their cicerone. Still, 

 he was evidently an active member of the Club, as 

 his signature to the ' Resolutions ' shews ; and he 

 probably betted on horse-racing, for we find from his 

 correspondence that he was ' dunned ' both by Mr. 

 Jenison Shafto and by Lord Derby, great horse -racers, 

 for money due to them, though it may have been lost 

 at play and not on the Turf. Selwyn's wonderful 

 popularity and strange hankering after scenes of 

 death are both illustrated by the story told of Lord 

 Holland, who, being very near his end, and hearing 

 that Selwyn had called upon him and had not been 

 admitted, is reported to have said : ' Should Mr. 

 Selwyn come again, show him up. If I am alive, I 

 should like to see him ; and, if I am dead, he will like 

 to see me.' Selwyn was a welcome visitor at Good- 

 wood House, and there it was his rare luck (in 1733) 

 to look upon the (well preserved) face of the notorious 

 Madame de la Querouaille (Duchess of Portsmouth), 

 then between eighty and ninety years of age, and not 

 much more dilapidated or a whit more ashamed than 

 Ninon de l'Enclos at about the same age. In the 



