his first suggested to me the idea of the Chevalier Burke for a
narrator. It was at first intended that he should be Scottish, and I was
then filled with fears that he might prove only the degraded shadow of
my own Alan Breck. Presently, however, it began to occur to me it would
be like my Master to curry favour with the Prince's Irishmen; and that
an Irish refugee would have a particular reason to find himself in India
with his countryman, the unfortunate Lally. Irish, therefore, I decided
he should be, and then, all of a sudden, I was aware of a tall shadow
across my path, the shadow of Barry Lyndon. No man (in Lord Foppington's
phrase) of a nice morality could go very deep with my Master: in the
original idea of this story conceived in Scotland, this companion had
been besides intended to be worse than the bad elder son with whom (as
it was then meant) he was to visit Scotland; if I took an Irishman, and
a very bad Irishman, in the midst of the eighteenth century, how was I
to evade Barry Lyndon? The wretch besieged me, offering his services; he
gave me excellent references; he proved that he was highly fitted for
the work I had to do; he, or my own evil heart, suggested it was easy to
disguise his ancient livery with a little lace and a few frogs and
buttons, so that Thackeray himself should hardly recognise him. And then
of a sudden there came to me memories of a young Irishman, with whom I
was once intimate, and had spent long nights walking and talking with,
upon a very desolate coast in a bleak autumn: I recalled him as a youth
of an extraordinary moral simplicity--almost vacancy; plastic to any
influence, the creature of his admirations: and putting such a youth in
fancy into the career of a soldier of fortune, it occurred to me that he
would serve my turn as well as Mr. Lyndon, and, in place of entering
into competition with the Master, would afford a slight though a
distinct relief. I know not if I have done him well, though his moral
dissertations always highly entertained me: but I own I have been
surprised to find that he reminded some critics of Barry Lyndon after
all....

XIII

RANDOM MEMORIES: _ROSA QUO LOCORUM_

I

Through what little channels, by what hints and premonitions, the
consciousness of the man's art dawns first upon the child, it should be
not only interesting but instructive to inquire. A matter of curiosity
to-day, it will become the ground of science to-morrow. From the mind