nd are rarely the dupes of their own
impulsiveness. F. is an Irishman, and yet his successes have been
far more with English--ay, even with Scotchmen--than with his own
countrymen.

In part this may be accounted for by the fact that F. did not usually
present himself as one in utter want and completely destitute; his
appeal for money was generally made on the ground of some speculation
that was to repay the lender; it was because he knew "something to
your advantage" that he asked for that L10. He addressed himself, in
consequence, to the more mercantile spirit of a richer community--to
those, in fact, who, more conversant with trade, better understood the
meaning of an investment.

But there was another, and, as I take it, a stronger and less fallible
ground for success. This fellow has, what all Irishmen are more or less
gifted with, an immense amount of vitality, a quality which undeniably
makes a man companionable, however little there may be to our taste in
his manner, his education, or his bearing. This same vitality imparts
itself marvellously to the colder temperaments of others, and gives out
its own warmth to natures that never of themselves felt the glow of an
impulse, or the glorious furnace-heat of a rash action.

This was the magnetism he worked with. "Canny" Scotchmen and shrewd
Yankees--ay, even Swiss innkeepers--felt the touch of his quality.
There was, or there seemed to be, a geniality in the fellow that, in its
apparent contempt for all worldliness, threw men off their guard, and
it would have smacked of meanness to distrust a fellow so open and
unguarded.

Now Paddy has seen a good deal of this at home, and could no more be
humbugged by it than he could believe a potato to be a truffle.

F. was too perfect an artist ever to perform in an Irish part to an
Irish audience, and so he owes little or nothing to the land of his
birth.

Apart from his unquestionable success, which of course settles the
question, I would not have called him a great performer--indeed, my
astonishment has always been how he succeeded, or with whom.

"Don't tell me of Beresford's blunders," said the Great Duke after
Albuera. "Did he beat Soult? if so, he was a good officer."

This man's triumphs are some twenty odd years of expensive living, with
occasional excursions into good society. He wears broadcloth, and dines
on venison, when his legitimate costume had been the striped uniform of
the galleys, and his diet the