the literary men of the day. So many years after the event
we cannot help wondering why the story was not earlier put in book form;
for in its delineation of the character of an adventurer it is as great
as VANITY FAIR, while for the local colour of history, if I may put it
so, it is no undistinguished precursor of ESMOND.

In the number of FRASER'S MAGAZINE for January 1844 appeared the first
instalment of 'THE LUCK OF BARRY LYNDON, ESQ., A ROMANCE OF THE LAST
CENTURY, by FitzBoodle,' and the story continued to appear month by
month--with the exception of October--up to the end of the year, when
the concluding portion was signed 'G. S. FitzBoodle.' FITZBOODLE'S
CONFESSIONS, it should be added, had appeared occasionally in the
magazine during the years immediately precedent, so that the pseudonym
was familiar to FRASER'S readers. The story was written, according to
its author's own words, 'with a great deal of dulness, unwillingness and
labour,' and was evidently done as the instalments were required, for in
August he wrote 'read for "B. L." all the morning at the club,' and four
days later of '"B. L." lying like a nightmare on my mind.' The journey
to the East--which was to give us in literary results NOTES OF A
JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO GRAND CAIRO--was begun with BARRY LYNDON yet
unfinished, for at Malta the author noted on the first three days of
November--'Wrote Barry but slowly and with great difficulty.' 'Wrote
Barry with no more success than yesterday.' 'Finished Barry after great
throes late at night.' In the number of Fraser's for the following
month, as I have said, the conclusion appeared. A dozen years later, in
1856, the story formed the first part of the third volume of Thackeray's
MISCELLANIES, when it was called MEMOIRS OF BARRY LYNDON, ESQ., WRITTEN
BY HIMSELF. Since then, it has nearly always been issued with other
matter, as though it were not strong enough to stand alone, or as though
the importance of a work was mainly to be gauged by the number of
pages to be crowded into one cover. The scheme of the present edition
fortunately allows fitting honour to be done to the memoirs of the great
adventurer.

To come from the story as a whole to the personality of the eponymous
hero. Three widely-differing historical individuals are suggested as
having contributed to the composite portrait. Best known of these was
that very prince among adventurers, G. J. Casanova de Seingalt, a man
who in the latter half