Chapter 17

by William Makepeace Thackeray

　　I APPEAR AS AN ORNAMENT OF ENGLISH SOCIETY.All the journey down to Hackton Castle, the largest and most ancientof our ancestral seats in Devonshire, was performed with the slowand sober state becoming people of the first quality in the realm.An outrider in my livery went on before us, and bespoke our lodgingfrom town to town; and thus we lay in state at Andover, Ilminster,and Exeter; and the fourth evening arrived in time for supper beforethe antique baronial mansion, of which the gate was in an odiousGothic taste that would have set Mr. Walpole wild with pleasure.The first days of a marriage are commonly very trying; and I haveknown couples, who lived together like turtle-doves for the rest oftheir lives, peck each other's eyes out almost during the honeymoon.I did not escape the common lot; in our journey westward my LadyLyndon chose to quarrel with me because I pulled out a pipe oftobacco (the habit of smoking which I had acquired in Germany when asoldier in Billow's, and could never give it over), and smoked it inthe carriage; and also her Ladyship chose to take umbrage both atIlminster and Andover, because in the evenings when we lay there Ichose to invite the landlords of the 'Bell' and the 'Lion' to cracka bottle with me. Lady Lyndon was a haughty woman, and I hate pride;and I promise you that in both instances I overcame this vice inher. On the third day of our journey I had her to light my pipematchwith her own hands, and made her deliver it to me with tears in hereyes; and at the 'Swan Inn' at Exeter I had so completely subduedher, that she asked me humbly whether I would not wish the landladyas well as the host to step up to dinner with us. To this I shouldhave had no objection, for, indeed, Mrs. Bonnyface was a very good-looking woman; but we expected a visit from my Lord Bishop, akinsman of Lady Lyndon, and the biensances did not permit theindulgence of my wife's request. I appeared with her at eveningservice, to compliment our right reverend cousin, and put her namedown for twenty-five guineas, and my own for one hundred, to thefamous new organ which was then being built for the cathedral. Thisconduct, at the very outset of my career in the county, made me nota little popular; and the residentiary canon, who did me the favourto sup with me at the inn, went away after the sixth bottle,hiccuping the most solemn vows for the welfare of such a p-p-piousgentleman.Before we reached Hackton Castle, we had to drive through ten milesof the Lyndon estates, where the people were out to visit us, thechurch bells set a-ringing, the parson and the farmers assembled intheir best by the roadside, and the school children and thelabouring people were loud in their hurrahs for her Ladyship. Iflung money among these worthy characters, stopped to bow and chatwith his reverence and the farmers, and if I found that theDevonshire girls were among the handsomest in the kingdom is it myfault? These remarks my Lady Lyndon especially would take in greatdudgeon; and I do believe she was made more angry by my admirationof the red cheeks of Miss Betsy Quarringdon of Clumpton, than by anyprevious speech or act of mine in the journey. 'Ah, ah, my finemadam, you are jealous, are you?' thought I, and reflected, notwithout deep sorrow, how lightly she herself had acted in herhusband's lifetime, and that those are most jealous who themselvesgive most cause for jealousy.Round Hackton village the scene of welcome was particularly gay: aband of music had been brought from Plymouth, and arches and flagshad been raised, especially before the attorney's and the doctor'shouses, who were both in the employ of the family. There were manyhundreds of stout people at the great lodge, which, with the park-wall, bounds one side of Hackton Green, and from which, for threemiles, goes (or rather went) an avenue of noble elms up to thetowers of the old castle. I wished they had been oak when I cut thetrees down in '79, for they would have fetched three times themoney: I know nothing more culpable than the carelessness ofancestors in planting their grounds with timber of small value, whenthey might just as easily raise oak. Thus I have always said thatthe Roundhead Lyndon of Hackton, who planted these elms in CharlesII.'s time, cheated me of ten thousand pounds.For the first few days after our arrival, my time was agreeablyspent in receiving the visits of the nobility and gentry who came topay their respects to the noble new-married couple, and, likeBluebeard's wife in the fairy tale, in inspecting the treasures, thefurniture, and the numerous chambers of the castle. It is a huge oldplace, built as far back as Henry V.'s time, besieged and batteredby the Cromwellians in the Revolution, and altered and patched up,in an odious old-fashioned taste, by the Roundhead Lyndon, whosucceeded to the property at the death of a brother whose principleswere excellent and of the true Cavalier sort, but who ruined himselfchiefly by drinking, dicing, and a dissolute life, and a little bysupporting the King. The castle stands in a fine chase, which wasprettily speckled over with deer; and I can't but own that mypleasure was considerable at first, as I sat in the oak parlour ofsummer evenings, with the windows open, the gold and silver plateshining in a hundred dazzling colours on the side-boards, a dozenjolly companions round the table, and could look out over the widegreen park and the waving woods, and see the sun setting on thelake, and hear the deer calling to one another.The exterior was, when I first arrived, a quaint composition of allsorts of architecture; of feudal towers, and gable-ends in QueenBess's style, and rough-patched walls built up to repair the ravagesof the Roundhead cannon: but I need not speak of this at large,having had the place new-faced at a vast expense, under afashionable architect, and the facade laid out in the latest French-Greek and most classical style. There had been moats, anddrawbridges, and outer walls; these I had shaved away into elegantterraces, and handsomely laid out in parterres according to theplans of Monsieur Cornichon, the great Parisian architect, whovisited England for the purpose.After ascending the outer steps, you entered an antique hall of vastdimensions, wainscoted with black carved oak, and ornamented withportraits of our ancestors: from the square beard of Brook Lyndon,the great lawyer in Queen Bess's time, to the loose stomacher andringlets of Lady Saccharissa Lyndon, whom Vandyck painted when shewas a maid of honour to Queen Henrietta Maria, and down to SirCharles Lyndon, with his riband as a knight of the Bath; and myLady, painted by Hudson, in a white satin sack and the familydiamonds, as she was presented to the old King George II. Thesediamonds were very fine: I first had them reset by Boehmer when weappeared before their French Majesties at Versailles; and finallyraised L18,000 upon them, after that infernal run of ill luck at'Goosetree's,' when Jemmy Twitcher (as we called my Lord Sandwich),Carlisle, Charley Fox, and I played hombre for four-and-forty hourssans dsemparer. Bows and pikes, huge stag-heads and huntingimplements, and rusty old suits of armour, that may have been wornin the days of Gog and Magog for what I know, formed the other oldornaments of this huge apartment; and were ranged round a fireplacewhere you might have turned a coach-and-six. This I kept pretty muchin its antique condition, but had the old armour eventually turnedout and consigned to the lumber-rooms upstairs; replacing it withchina monsters, gilded settees from France, and elegant marbles, ofwhich the broken noses and limbs, and ugliness, undeniably provedtheir antiquity: and which an agent purchased for me at Rome. Butsuch was the taste of the times (and, perhaps, the rascality of myagent), that thirty thousand pounds' worth of these gems of art onlywent for three hundred guineas at a subsequent period, when I foundit necessary to raise money on my collections.From this main hall branched off on either side the long series ofstate-rooms, poorly furnished with high-backed chairs and long queerVenice glasses, when first I came to the property; but afterwardsrendered so splendid by me, with the gold damasks of Lyons and themagnificent Gobelin tapestries I won from Richelieu at play. Therewere thirty-six bedrooms de maitre, of which I only kept three intheir antique condition,--the haunted room as it was called, wherethe murder was done in James II.'s time, the bed where William sleptafter landing at Torbay, and Queen Elizabeth's state-room. All therest were redecorated by Cornichon in the most elegant taste; not alittle to the scandal of some of the steady old country dowagers;for I had pictures of Boucher and Vanloo to decorate the principalapartments, in which the Cupids and Venuses were painted in a mannerso natural, that I recollect the old wizened Countess of Frumpingtonpinning over the curtains of her bed, and sending her daughter, LadyBlanche Whalebone, to sleep with her waiting-woman, rather thanallow her to lie in a chamber hung all over with looking-glasses,after the exact fashion of the Queen's closet at Versailles.For many of these ornaments I was not so much answerable asCornichon, whom Lauraguais lent me, and who was the intendant of mybuildings during my absence abroad. I had given the man carteblanche, and when he fell down and broke his leg, as he wasdecorating a theatre in the room which had been the old chapel ofthe castle, the people of the country thought it was a judgment ofHeaven upon him. In his rage for improvement the fellow daredanything. Without my orders he cut down an old rookery which wassacred in the country, and had a prophecy regarding it, stating,'When the rook-wood shall fall, down goes Hackton Hall.' The rookswent over and colonised Tiptoff Woods, which lay near us (and behanged to them!), and Cornichon built a temple to Venus and twolovely fountains on their site. Venuses and Cupids were the rascal'sadoration: he wanted to take down the Gothic screen and place Cupidsin our pew there; but old Doctor Huff the rector came out with alarge oak stick, and addressed the unlucky architect in Latin, ofwhich he did not comprehend a word, yet made him understand that hewould break his bones if he laid a single finger upon the sacrededifice. Cornichon made complaints about the 'Abbe Huff,' as hecalled him. ('Et quel abbe, grand Dieu!' added he, quite bewildered,'un abbe avec douze enfans'); but I encouraged the Church in thisrespect, and bade Cornichon exert his talents only in the castle.There was a magnificent collection of ancient plate, to which Iadded much of the most splendid modern kind; a cellar which, howeverwell furnished, required continual replenishing, and a kitchen whichI reformed altogether. My friend, Jack Wilkes, sent me down a cookfrom the Mansion House, for the English cookery,--the turtle andvenison department: I had a chef (who called out the Englishman, bythe way, and complained sadly of the gros cochon who wanted to meethim with coups de poing) and a couple of Aides from Paris, and anItalian confectioner, as my officiers de bouche. All which naturalappendages to a man of fashion, the odious, stingy old Tiptoff, mykinsman and neighbour, affected to view with horror; and he spreadthrough the country a report that I had my victuals cooked byPapists, lived upon frogs, and, he verily believed, fricasseedlittle children.But the squires ate my dinners very readily for all that, and oldDoctor Huff himself was compelled to allow that my venison andturtle were most orthodox. The former gentry I knew how toconciliate, too, in other ways. There had been only a subscriptionpack of fox-hounds in the county and a few beggarly couples of mangybeagles, with which old Tiptoff pattered about his grounds; I builta kennel and stables, which cost L30,000, and stocked them in amanner which was worthy of my ancestors, the Irish kings. I had twopacks of hounds, and took the field in the season four times a week,with three gentlemen in my hunt-uniform to follow me, and open houseat Hackton for all who belonged to the hunt.These changes and this train de vivre required, as may be supposed,no small outlay; and I confess that I have little of that basespirit of economy in my composition which some people practise andadmire. For instance, old Tiptoff was hoarding up his money torepair his father's extravagance and disencumber his estates; a gooddeal of the money with which he paid off his mortgages my agentprocured upon mine. And, besides, it must be remembered I had only alife-interest upon the Lyndon property, was always of an easy temperin dealing with the money-brokers, and had to pay heavily forinsuring her Ladyship's life.At the end of a year Lady Lyndon presented me with a son--BryanLyndon I called him, in compliment to my royal ancestry: but whatmore had I to leave him than a noble name? Was not the estate of hismother entailed upon the odious little Turk, Lord Bullingdon? andwhom, by the way, I have not mentioned as yet, though he was livingat Hackton, consigned to a new governor. The insubordination of thatboy was dreadful. He used to quote passages of Hamlet to hismother, which made her very angry. Once when I took a horsewhip tochastise him, he drew a knife, and would have stabbed me: and,'faith, I recollected my own youth, which was pretty similar; and,holding out my hand, burst out laughing, and proposed to him to befriends. We were reconciled for that time, and the next, and thenext; but there was no love lost between us, and his hatred for meseemed to grow as he grew, which was apace.I determined to endow my darling boy Bryan with a property, and tothis end cut down twelve thousand pounds' worth of timber on LadyLyndon's Yorkshire and Irish estates: at which proceedingBullingdon's guardian, Tiptoff, cried out, as usual, and swore I hadno right to touch a stick of the trees; but down they went; and Icommissioned my mother to repurchase the ancient lands of Ballybarryand Barryogue, which had once formed part of the immense possessionsof my house. These she bought back with excellent prudence andextreme joy; for her heart was gladdened at the idea that a son wasborn to my name, and with the notion of my magnificent fortunes.To say truth, I was rather afraid, now that I lived in a verydifferent sphere from that in which she was accustomed to move, lestshe should come to pay me a visit, and astonish my English friendsby her bragging and her brogue, her rouge and her old hoops andfurbelows of the time of George II.: in which she had figuredadvantageously in her youth, and which she still fondly thought tobe at the height of the fashion. So I wrote to her, putting off hervisit; begging her to visit us when the left wing of the castle wasfinished, or the stables built, and so forth. There was no need ofsuch precaution. 'A hint's enough for me, Redmond,' the old ladywould reply. 'I am not coming to disturb you among your greatEnglish friends with my old-fashioned Irish ways. It's a blessing tome to think that my darling boy has attained the position which Ialways knew was his due, and for which I pinched myself to educatehim. You must bring me the little Bryan, that his grandmother maykiss him, one day. Present my respectful blessing to her Ladyshiphis mamma. Tell her she has got a treasure in her husband, which shecouldn't have had had she taken a duke to marry her; and that theBarrys and the Bradys, though without titles, have the best of bloodin their veins. I shall never rest until I see you Earl ofBallybarry, and my grandson Lord Viscount Barryogue.'How singular it was that the very same ideas should be passing in mymother's mind and my own! The very title she had pitched upon hadalso been selected (naturally enough) by me; and I don't mindconfessing that I had filled a dozen sheets of paper with mysignature, under the names of Ballybarry and Barryogue, and haddetermined with my usual impetuosity to carry my point. My motherwent and established herself at Ballybarry, living with the priestthere until a tenement could be erected, and dating from 'BallybarryCastle;' which, you may be sure, I gave out to be a place of nosmall importance. I had a plan of the estate in my study, both atHackton and in Berkeley Square, and the plans of the elevation ofBallybarry Castle, the ancestral residence of Barry Lyndon, Esq.,with the projected improvements, in which the castle was representedas about the size of Windsor, with more ornaments to thearchitecture; and eight hundred acres of bog falling in handy, Ipurchased them at three pounds an acre, so that my estate upon themap looked to be no insignificant one.[Footnote: On the strength ofthis estate, and pledging his honour that it was not mortgaged, Mr.Barry Lyndon borrowed L17,000 in the year 1786, from young CaptainPigeon, the city merchant's son, who had just come in for hisproperty. At for the Polwellan estate and mines, 'the cause ofendless litigation,' it must be owned that our hero purchased them;but he never paid more than the first L5000 of the purchase-money.Hence the litigation of which he complains, and the famous Chancerysuit of 'Trecothick v. Lyndon,' in which Mr. John Scott greatlydistinguished himself.]I also in this year made arrangements for purchasing the Polwellanestate and mines in Cornwall from Sir John Trecothick, for L70,000--an imprudent bargain, which was afterwards the cause to me of muchdispute and litigation. The troubles of property, the rascality ofagents, the quibbles of lawyers, are endless. Humble people envy usgreat men, and fancy that our lives are all pleasure. Many a time inthe course of my prosperity I have sighed for the days of my meanestfortune, and envied the boon companions at my table, with no clothesto their backs but such as my credit supplied them, without a guineabut what came from my pocket; but without one of the harassing caresand responsibilities which are the dismal adjuncts of great rank andproperty.I did little more than make my appearance, and assume the command ofmy estates, in the kingdom of Ireland; rewarding generously thosepersons who had been kind to me in my former adversities, and takingmy fitting place among the aristocracy of the land. But, in truth, Ihad small inducements to remain in it after having tasted of thegenteeler and more complete pleasures of English and Continentallife; and we passed our summers at Buxton, Bath, and Harrogate,while Hackton Castle was being beautified in the elegant manneralready described by me, and the season at our mansion in BerkeleySquare.It is wonderful how the possession of wealth brings out the virtuesof a man; or, at any rate, acts as a varnish or lustre to them, andbrings out their brilliancy and colour in a manner never known whenthe individual stood in the cold grey atmosphere of poverty. Iassure you it was a very short time before I was a pretty fellow ofthe first class; made no small sensation at the coffee-houses inPall Mall and afterwards at the most famous clubs. My style,equipages, and elegant entertainments were in everybody's mouth, andwere described in all the morning prints. The needier part of LadyLyndon's relatives, and such as had been offended by the intolerablepomposity of old Tiptoff, began to appear at our routs andassemblies; and as for relations of my own, I found in London andIreland more than I had ever dreamed of, of cousins who claimedaffinity with me. There were, of course, natives of my own country(of which I was not particularly proud), and I received visits fromthree or four swaggering shabby Temple bucks, with tarnished laceand Tipperary brogue, who were eating their way to the bar inLondon; from several gambling adventurers at the watering-places,whom I soon speedily let to know their place; and from others ofmore reputable condition. Among them I may mention my cousin theLord Kilbarry, who, on the score of his relationship, borrowedthirty pieces from me to pay his landlady in Swallow Street; andwhom, for my own reasons, I allowed to maintain and credit aconnection for which the Heralds' College gave no authoritywhatsoever. Kilbarry had a cover at my table; punted at play, andpaid when he liked, which was seldom; had an intimacy with, and wasunder considerable obligations to, my tailor; and always boasted ofhis cousin the great Barry Lyndon of the West country.Her Ladyship and I lived, after a while, pretty separate when inLondon. She preferred quiet: or to say the truth, I preferred it;being a great friend to a modest tranquil behaviour in woman, and ataste for the domestic pleasures. Hence I encouraged her to dine athome with her ladies, her chaplain, and a few of her friends;admitted three or four proper and discreet persons to accompany herto her box at the opera or play on proper occasions; and indeeddeclined for her the too frequent visits of her friends and family,preferring to receive them only twice or thrice in a season on ourgrand reception days. Besides, she was a mother, and had greatcomfort in the dressing, educating, and dandling our little Bryan,for whose sake it was fit that she should give up the pleasures andfrivolities of the world; so she left that part of the duty of everyfamily of distinction to be performed by me. To say the truth, LadyLyndon's figure and appearance were not at this time such as to makefor their owner any very brilliant appearance in the fashionableworld. She had grown very fat, was short-sighted, pale incomplexion, careless about her dress, dull in demeanour; herconversations with me characterised by a stupid despair, or a sillyblundering attempt at forced cheerfulness still more disagreeable:hence our intercourse was but trifling, and my temptations to carryher into the world, or to remain in her society, of necessityexceedingly small. She would try my temper at home, too, in athousand ways. When requested by me (often, I own, rather roughly)to entertain the company with conversation, wit, and learning, ofwhich she was a mistress: or music, of which she was an accomplishedperformer, she would as often as not begin to cry, and leave theroom. My company from this, of course, fancied I was a tyrant overher; whereas I was only a severe and careful guardian over a silly,bad-tempered, and weak-minded lady.She was luckily very fond of her youngest son, and through him I hada wholesome and effectual hold of her; for if in any of her tantrumsor fits of haughtiness--(this woman was intolerably proud; andrepeatedly, at first, in our quarrels, dared to twit me with my ownoriginal poverty and low birth),--if, I say, in our disputes shepretended to have the upper hand, to assert her authority againstmine, to refuse to sign such papers as I might think necessary forthe distribution of our large and complicated property, I would haveMaster Bryan carried off to Chiswick for a couple of days; and Iwarrant me his lady-mother could hold out no longer, and would agreeto anything I chose to propose. The servants about her I took careshould be in my pay, not hers: especially the child's head nurse wasunder MY orders, not those of my lady; and a very handsome, red-cheeked, impudent jade she was; and a great fool she made me make ofmyself. This woman was more mistress of the house than the poor-spirited lady who owned it. She gave the law to the servants; and ifI showed any particular attention to any of the ladies who visitedus, the slut would not scruple to show her jealousy, and to findmeans to send them packing. The fact is, a generous man is alwaysmade a fool of by some woman or other, and this one had such aninfluence over me that she could turn me round her finger.[Footnote: From these curious confessions, it would appear that Mr.Lyndon maltreated his lady in every possible way; that he denied hersociety, bullied her into signing away her property, spent it ingambling and taverns, was openly unfaithful to her; and, when shecomplained, threatened to remove her children from her. Nor, indeed,is he the only husband who has done the like, and has passed for'nobody's enemy but his own:' a jovial good-natured fellow. Theworld contains scores of such amiable people; and, indeed, it isbecause justice has not been done them that we have edited thisautobiography. Had it been that of a mere hero of romance--one ofthose heroic youths who figure in the novels of Scott and James--there would have been no call to introduce the reader to a personagealready so often and so charmingly depicted. Mr. Barry Lyndon isnot, we repeat, a hero of the common pattern; but let the readerlook round, and ask himself, Do not as many rogues succeed in lifeas honest men? more fools than men of talent? And is it not justthat the lives of this class should be described by the student ofhuman nature as well as the actions of those fairy-tale princes,those perfect impossible heroes, whom our writers love to describe?There is something naive and simple in that time-honoured style ofnovel-writing by which Prince Prettyman, at the end of hisadventures, is put in possession of every worldly prosperity, as hehas been endowed with every mental and bodily excellence previously.The novelist thinks that he can do no more for his darling hero thanmake him a lord. Is it not a poor standard that, of the summumbonum? The greatest good in life is not to be a lord; perhaps noteven to be happy. Poverty, illness, a humpback, may be rewards andconditions of good, as well as that bodily prosperity which all ofus unconsciously set up for worship. But this is a subject for anessay, not a note; and it is best to allow Mr. Lyndon to resume thecandid and ingenious narrative of his virtues and defects.]Her infernal temper (Mrs. Stammer was the jade's name) and my wife'smoody despondency, made my house and home not over-pleasant: hence Iwas driven a good deal abroad, where, as play was the fashion atevery club, tavern, and assembly, I, of course, was obliged toresume my old habit, and to commence as an amateur those games atwhich I was once unrivalled in Europe. But whether a man's temperchanges with prosperity, or his skill leaves him when, deprived of aconfederate, and pursuing the game no longer professionally, hejoins in it, like the rest of the world, for pastime, I know not;but certain it is, that in the seasons of 1774-75 I lost much moneyat 'White's' and the 'Cocoa-Tree,' and was compelled to meet mylosses by borrowing largely upon my wife's annuities, insuring herLadyship's life, and so forth. The terms at which I raised thesenecessary sums and the outlays requisite for my improvements were,of course, very onerous, and clipped the property considerably; andit was some of these papers which my Lady Lyndon (who was of anarrow, timid, and stingy turn) occasionally refused to sign: untilI persuaded her, as I have before shown.My dealings on the turf ought to be mentioned, as forming part of myhistory at this time; but, in truth, I have no particular pleasurein recalling my Newmarket doings. I was infernally bit and bubbledin almost every one of my transactions there; and though I couldride a horse as well as any man in England, was no match with theEnglish noblemen at backing him. Fifteen years after my horse, BayBulow, by Sophy Hardcastle, out of Eclipse, lost the Newmarketstakes, for which he was the first favourite, I found that a nobleearl, who shall be nameless, had got into his stable the morningbefore he ran; and the consequence was that an outside horse won,and your humble servant was out to the amount of fifteen thousandpounds. Strangers had no chance in those days on the heath: and,though dazzled by the splendour and fashion assembled there, andsurrounded by the greatest persons of the land,--the royal dukes,with their wives and splendid equipages; old Grafton, with his queerbevy of company, and such men as Ancaster, Sandwich, Lorn,--a manmight have considered himself certain of fair play and have been nota little proud of the society he kept; yet, I promise you, that,exalted as it was, there was no set of men in Europe who knew how torob more genteelly, to bubble a stranger, to bribe a jockey, todoctor a horse, or to arrange a betting-book. Even I couldn'tstand against these accomplished gamesters of the highest familiesin Europe. Was it my own want of style, or my want of fortune? Iknow not. But now I was arrived at the height of my ambition, bothmy skill and my luck seemed to be deserting me. Everything I touchedcrumbled in my hand; every speculation I had failed, every agent Itrusted deceived me. I am, indeed, one of those born to make, andnot to keep fortunes; for the qualities and energy which lead a manto effect the first are often the very causes of his ruin in thelatter case: indeed, I know of no other reason for the misfortuneswhich finally befell me. [Footnote: The Memoirs seem to have beenwritten about the year 1814, in that calm retreat which Fortune hadselected for the author at the close of his life.]I had always a taste for men of letters, and perhaps, if the truthmust be told, have no objection to playing the fine gentleman andpatron among the wits. Such people are usually needy, and of lowbirth, and have an instinctive awe and love of a gentleman and alaced coat; as all must have remarked who have frequented theirsociety. Mr. Reynolds, who was afterwards knighted, and certainlythe most elegant painter of his day, was a pretty dexterous courtierof the wit tribe; and it was through this gentleman, who painted apiece of me, Lady Lyndon, and our little Bryan, which was greatlyadmired at the Exhibition (I was represented as quitting my wife, inthe costume of the Tippleton Yeomanry, of which I was major; thechild starting back from my helmet like what-d'ye-call'im--Hector'sson, as described by Mr. Pope in his 'Iliad'); it was through Mr.Reynolds that I was introduced to a score of these gentlemen, andtheir great chief, Mr. Johnson. I always thought their great chief agreat bear. He drank tea twice or thrice at my house, misbehavinghimself most grossly; treating my opinions with no more respect thanthose of a schoolboy, and telling me to mind my horses and tailors,and not trouble myself about letters. His Scotch bear-leader, Mr.Boswell, was a butt of the first quality. I never saw such a figureas the fellow cut in what he called a Corsican habit, at one of Mrs.Cornely's balls, at Carlisle House, Soho. But that the storiesconnected with that same establishment are not the most profitabletales in the world, I could tell tales of scores of queer doingsthere. All the high and low demireps of the town gathered there,from his Grace of Ancaster down to my countryman, poor Mr. OliverGoldsmith the poet, and from the Duchess of Kingston down to theBird of Paradise, or Kitty Fisher. Here I have met very queercharacters, who came to queer ends too: poor Hackman, thatafterwards was hanged for killing Miss Reay, and (on the sly) hisReverence Doctor Simony, whom my friend Sam Foote, of the 'LittleTheatre,' bade to live even after forgery and the rope cut short theunlucky parson's career.It was a merry place, London, in those days, and that's the truth.I'm writing now in my gouty old age, and people have grown vastlymore moral and matter-of-fact than they were at the close of thelast century, when the world was young with me. There was adifference between a gentleman and a common fellow in those times.We wore silk and embroidery then. Now every man has the samecoachmanlike look in his belcher and caped coat, and there is nooutward difference between my Lord and his groom. Then it took a manof fashion a couple of hours to make his toilette, and he could showsome taste and genius in the selecting it. What a blaze of splendourwas a drawing-room, or an opera, of a gala night! What sums of moneywere lost and won at the delicious faro-table! My gilt curricle andout-riders, blazing in green and gold, were very different objectsfrom the equipages you see nowadays in the ring, with the stuntedgrooms behind them. A man could drink four times as much as themilksops nowadays can swallow; but 'tis useless expatiating on thistheme. Gentlemen are dead and gone. The fashion has now turned uponyour soldiers and sailors, and I grow quite moody and sad when Ithink of thirty years ago.This is a chapter devoted to reminiscences of what was a very happyand splendid time with me, but presenting little of mark in the wayof adventure; as is generally the case when times are happy andeasy. It would seem idle to fill pages with accounts of the every-day occupations of a man of fashion,--the fair ladies who smiledupon him, the dresses he wore, the matches he played, and won orlost. At this period of time, when youngsters are employed cuttingthe Frenchmen's throats in Spain and France, lying out in bivouacs,and feeding off commissariat beef and biscuit, they would notunderstand what a life their ancestors led; and so I shall leavefurther discourse upon the pleasures of the times when even thePrince was a lad in leading-strings, when Charles Fox had notsubsided into a mere statesman, and Buonaparte was a beggarly bratin his native island.Whilst these improvements were going on in my estates,--my house,from an antique Norman castle, being changed to an elegant Greektemple, or palace--my gardens and woods losing their rusticappearance to be adapted to the most genteel French style--my childgrowing up at his mother's knees, and my influence in the countryincreasing,--it must not be imagined that I stayed in Devonshire allthis while, and that I neglected to make visits to London, and myvarious estates in England and Ireland.I went to reside at the Trecothick estate and the Polwellan Wheal,where I found, instead of profit, every kind of pettifoggingchicanery; I passed over in state to our territories in Ireland,where I entertained the gentry in a style the Lord Lieutenanthimself could not equal; gave the fashion to Dublin (to be sure itwas a beggarly savage city in those days; and, since the time therehas been a pother about the Union, and the misfortunes attending it,I have been at a loss to account for the mad praises of the oldorder of things, which the fond Irish patriots have invented); I sayI set the fashion to Dublin; and small praise to me, for a poorplace it was in those times, whatever the Irish party may say.In a former chapter I have given you a description of it. It was theWarsaw of our part of the world: there was a splendid, ruined, half-civilised nobility, ruling over a half-savage population. I sayhalf-savage advisedly. The commonalty in the streets were wild,unshorn, and in rags. The most public places were not safe afternightfall. The College, the public buildings, and the great gentry'shouses were splendid (the latter unfinished for the most part); butthe people were in a state more wretched than any vulgar I have everknown: the exercise of their religion was only half allowed to them;their clergy were forced to be educated out of the country; theiraristocracy was quite distinct from them; there was a Protestantnobility, and in the towns, poor insolent Protestant corporations,with a bankrupt retinue of mayors, aldermen, and municipal officers--all of whom figured in addresses and had the public voice in thecountry; but there was no sympathy and connection between the upperand the lower people of the Irish. To one who had been bred so muchabroad as myself, this difference between Catholic and Protestantwas doubly striking; and though as firm as a rock in my own faith,yet I could not help remembering my grandfather held a differentone, and wondering that there should be such a political differencebetween the two. I passed among my neighbours for a dangerousleveller, for entertaining and expressing such opinions, andespecially for asking the priest of the parish to my table at CastleLyndon. He was a gentleman, educated at Salamanca, and, to my mind,a far better bred and more agreeable companion than his comrade therector, who had but a dozen Protestants for his congregation; whowas a lord's son, to be sure, but he could hardly spell, and thegreat field of his labours was in the kennel and cockpit.I did not extend and beautify the house of Castle Lyndon as I haddone our other estates, but contented myself with paying anoccasional visit there; exercising an almost royal hospitality, andkeeping open house during my stay. When absent, I gave to my aunt,the widow Brady, and her six unmarried daughters (although theyalways detested me), permission to inhabit the place; my motherpreferring my new mansion of Barryogue.And as my Lord Bullingdon was by this time grown excessively talland troublesome, I determined to leave him under the care of aproper governor in Ireland, with Mrs. Brady and her six daughters totake care of him; and he was welcome to fall in love with all theold ladies if he were so minded, and thereby imitate hisstepfather's example. When tired of Castle Lyndon, his Lordship wasat liberty to go and reside at my house with my mamma; but there wasno love lost between him and her, and, on account of my son Bryan, Ithink she hated him as cordially as ever I myself could possibly do.The county of Devon is not so lucky as the neighbouring county ofCornwall, and has not the share of representatives which the latterpossesses; where I have known a moderate country gentleman, with afew score of hundreds per annum from his estate, treble his incomeby returning three or four Members to Parliament, and by theinfluence with Ministers which these seats gave him. Theparliamentary interest of the house of Lyndon had been grosslyneglected during my wife's minority, and the incapacity of the Earlher father; or, to speak more correctly, it had been smuggled awayfrom the Lyndon family altogether by the adroit old hypocrite ofTiptoff Castle, who acted as most kinsmen and guardians do by theirwards and relatives, and robbed them. The Marquess of Tiptoffreturned four Members to Parliament: two for the borough ofTippleton, which, as all the world knows, lies at the foot of ourestate of Hackton, bounded on the other side by Tiptoff Park. Fortime out of mind we had sent Members for that borough, untilTiptoff, taking advantage of the late lord's imbecility, put in hisown nominees. When his eldest son became of age, of course my Lordwas to take his seat for Tippleton; when Rigby (Nabob Rigby, whomade his fortune under Clive in India) died, the Marquess thoughtfit to bring down his second son, my Lord George Poynings, to whom Ihave introduced the reader in a former chapter, and determined, inhis high mightiness, that he too should go in and swell the ranks ofthe Opposition--the big old Whigs, with whom the Marquess acted.Rigby had been for some time in an ailing condition previous to hisdemise, and you may be sure that the circumstance of his failinghealth had not been passed over by the gentry of the county, whowere staunch Government men for the most part, and hated my LordTiptoff's principles as dangerous and ruinous, 'We have been lookingout for a man to fight against him,' said the squires to me; 'we canonly match Tiptoff out of Hackton Castle. You, Mr. Lyndon, are ourman, and at the next county election we will swear to bring you in.'I hated the Tiptoffs so, that I would have fought them at anyelection. They not only would not visit at Hackton, but declined toreceive those who visited us; they kept the women of the county fromreceiving my wife: they invented half the wild stories of myprofligacy and extravagance with which the neighbourhood wasentertained; they said I had frightened my wife into marriage, andthat she was a lost woman; they hinted that Bullingdon's life wasnot secure under my roof, that his treatment was odious, and that Iwanted to put him out of the way to make place for Bryan my son. Icould scarce have a friend to Hackton, but they counted the bottlesdrunk at my table. They ferreted out my dealings with my lawyers andagents. If a creditor was unpaid, every item of his bill was knownat Tiptoff Hall; if I looked at a farmer's daughter, it was said Ihad ruined her. My faults are many, I confess, and as a domesticcharacter, I can't boast of any particular regularity or temper; butLady Lyndon and I did not quarrel more than fashionable people do,and, at first, we always used to make it up pretty well. I am a manfull of errors, certainly, but not the devil that these odiousbackbiters at Tiptoff represented me to be. For the first threeyears I never struck my wife but when I was in liquor. When I flungthe carving-knife at Bullingdon I was drunk, as everybody presentcan testify; but as for having any systematic scheme against thepoor lad, I can declare solemnly that, beyond merely hating him (andone's inclinations are not in one's power), I am guilty of no eviltowards him.I had sufficient motives, then, for enmity against the Tiptoffs, andam not a man to let a feeling of that kind lie inactive. Though aWhig, or, perhaps, because a Whig, the Marquess was one of thehaughtiest men breathing, and treated commoners as his idol thegreat Earl used to treat them--after he came to a coronet himself--as so many low vassals, who might be proud to lick his shoe-buckle.When the Tippleton mayor and corporation waited upon him, hereceived them covered, never offered Mr. Mayor a chair, but retiredwhen the refreshments were brought, or had them served to theworshipful aldermen in the steward's room. These honest Britonsnever rebelled against such treatment, until instructed to do so bymy patriotism. No, the dogs liked to be bullied; and, in the courseof a long experience, I have met with but very few Englishmen whoare not of their way of thinking.It was not until I opened their eyes that they knew theirdegradation. I invited the Mayor to Hackton, and Mrs. Mayoress (avery buxom pretty groceress she was, by the way) I made sit by mywife, and drove them both out to the races in my curricle. LadyLyndon fought very hard against this condescension; but I had a waywith her, as the saying is, and though she had a temper, yet I had abetter one. A temper, psha! A wild-cat has a temper, but a keepercan get the better of it; and I know very few women in the worldwhom I could not master.Well, I made much of the mayor and corporation; sent them bucks fortheir dinners, or asked them to mine; made a point of attendingtheir assemblies, dancing with their wives and daughters, goingthrough, in short, all the acts of politeness which are necessary onsuch occasions: and though old Tiptoff must have seen my goings on,yet his head was so much in the clouds, that he never oncecondescended to imagine his dynasty could be overthrown in his owntown of Tippleton, and issued his mandates as securely as if he hadbeen the Grand Turk, and the Tippletonians no better than so manyslaves of his will.Every post which brought us any account of Rigby's increasingillness, was the sure occasion of a dinner from me; so much so, thatmy friends of the hunt used to laugh and say, 'Rigby's worse;there's a corporation dinner at Hackton.'It was in 1776, when the American war broke out, that I came intoParliament. My Lord Chatham, whose wisdom his party in those daysused to call superhuman, raised his oracular voice in the House ofPeers against the American contest; and my countryman, Mr. Burke--agreat philosopher, but a plaguy long-winded orator--was the championof the rebels in the Commons--where, however, thanks to Britishpatriotism, he could get very few to back him. Old Tiptoff wouldhave sworn black was white if the great Earl had bidden him; and hemade his son give up his commission in the Guards, in imitation ofmy Lord Pitt, who resigned his ensigncy rather than fight againstwhat he called his American brethren.But this was a height of patriotism extremely little relished inEngland, where, ever since the breaking out of hostilities, ourpeople hated the Americans heartily; and where, when we heard of thefight of Lexington, and the glorious victory of Bunker's Hill (as weused to call it in those days), the nation flushed out in its usualhot-headed anger. The talk was all against the philosophers afterthat, and the people were most indomitably loyal. It was not untilthe land-tax was increased, that the gentry began to grumble alittle; but still my party in the West was very strong against theTiptoffs, and I determined to take the field and win as usual.The old Marquess neglected every one of the decent precautions whichare requisite in a parliamentary campaign. He signified to thecorporation and freeholders his intention of presenting his son,Lord George, and his desire that the latter should be elected theirburgess; but he scarcely gave so much as a glass of beer to whet thedevotedness of his adherents: and I, as I need not say, engagedevery tavern in Tippleton in my behalf.There is no need to go over the twenty-times-told tale of anelection. I rescued the borough of Tippleton from the hands of LordTiptoff and his son, Lord George. I had a savage sort ofsatisfaction, too, in forcing my wife (who had been at one timeexceedingly smitten by her kinsman, as I have already related) totake part against him, and to wear and distribute my colours whenthe day of election came. And when we spoke at one another, I toldthe crowd that I had beaten Lord George in love, that I had beatenhim in war, and that I would now beat him in Parliament; and so Idid, as the event proved: for, to the inexpressible anger of the oldMarquess, Barry Lyndon, Esquire, was returned member of Parliamentfor Tippleton, in place of John Rigby, Esquire, deceased; and Ithreatened him at the next election to turn him out of both hisseats, and went to attend my duties in Parliament.It was then I seriously determined on achieving for myself the Irishpeerage, to be enjoyed after me by my beloved son and heir.