STRAINED RELATIONS WITH SELWYN 163 



I should be wanting in my endeavours to place 

 before the reader the characteristics of ' Old Q ' if I 

 failed to record what his intimates thought of him. 

 Dr. John Warner, for some years rector of Barnes, 

 Surrey, was a divine almost as broad in sentiment 

 and language as the 'fox-hunting parsons' of that 

 period. Nevertheless Warner, if a little worldly, was 

 not what every Simon Pure of the Church is — a 

 learned and eloquent preacher. Possibly his reputa- 

 tion as a wit led him into the society of men of the 

 Selwyn-Queensberry type, though it must not be 

 supposed that their company led him to forget the 

 respect due to his cloth. That he knew both the 

 Duke of Queensberry and his 'dear George' inti- 

 mately his letters prove; indeed, I have already 

 mentioned that his grace asked his services in re- 

 questing Selwyn to desist from importuning the 

 Fagnianis concerning Mie-Mie. 



Therefore Warner, in his character of 'plain' if 

 not witty correspondent, writes to Selwyn the 12th 

 October of this year, 1779, that he had been with 

 his grace (Queensberry) that morning for nearly 

 two hours, who is exceedingly well, and heartier 

 than, he thought, he had ever seen hmi. ' Indeed, 

 I made him confess as much,' says the examining 

 divine ; who continues : ' We ran over the whole 



