on five hundred
thousand pounds at play; I was the favourite of the Empress Catherine of
Russia; the confidential agent of Frederick of Prussia; it was I won the
battle of Hochkirchen; I was the cousin of Madame Du Barry, the French
King's favourite, and a thousand things beside. Indeed, to tell the
truth, I hinted a number of these stories to my kind friends Ballyragget
and Gawler; and they were not slow to improve the hints I gave them.

After having witnessed the splendours of civilised life abroad, the
sight of Dublin in the year 1771, when I returned thither, struck me
with anything but respect. It was as savage as Warsaw almost, without
the regal grandeur of the latter city. The people looked more ragged
than any race I have ever seen, except the gipsy hordes along the banks
of the Danube. There was, as I have said, not an inn in the town fit for
a gentleman of condition to dwell in. Those luckless fellows who could
not keep a carriage, and walked the streets at night, ran imminent risks
of the knives of the women and ruffians who lay in wait there,--of a set
of ragged savage villains, who neither knew the use of shoe nor razor;
and as a gentleman entered his chair or his chariot, to be carried to
his evening rout, or the play, the flambeaux of the footmen would light
up such a set of wild gibbering Milesian faces as would frighten a
genteel person of average nerves. I was luckily endowed with strong
ones; besides, had seen my amiable countrymen before.

I know this description of them will excite anger among some Irish
patriots, who don't like to have the nakedness of our land abused, and
are angry if the whole truth be told concerning it. But bah! it was a
poor provincial place, Dublin, in the old days of which I speak; and
many a tenth-rate German residency is more genteel. There were, it is
true, near three hundred resident Peers at the period; and a House of
Commons; and my Lord Mayor and his corporation; and a roystering noisy
University, whereof the students made no small disturbances nightly,
patronised the roundhouse, ducked obnoxious printers and tradesmen, and
gave the law at the Crow Street Theatre. But I had seen too much of the
first society of Europe to be much tempted by the society of these noisy
gentry, and was a little too much of a gentleman to mingle with the
disputes and politics of my Lord Mayor and his Aldermen. In the House of
Commons there were some dozen of right pleasant fellows. I neve