r heard
in the English Parliament better speeches than from Flood, and Daly, of
Galway. Dick Sheridan, though not a well-bred person, was as amusing and
ingenious a table-companion as ever I met; and though during Mr. Edmund
Burke's interminable speeches in the English House I used always to go
to sleep, I yet have heard from well-informed parties that Mr. Burke was
a person of considerable abilities, and even reputed to be eloquent in
his more favourable moments.

I soon began to enjoy to the full extent the pleasures that the wretched
place affords, and which were within a gentleman's reach: Ranelagh and
the Ridotto; Mr. Mossop, at Crow Street; my Lord Lieutenant's parties,
where there was a great deal too much boozing, and too little play, to
suit a person of my elegant and refined habits. 'Daly's Coffee-house,'
and the houses of the nobility, were soon open to me; and I remarked
with astonishment in the higher circles, what I had experienced in the
lower on my first unhappy visit to Dublin, an extraordinary want of
money, and a preposterous deal of promissory notes flying about, for
which I was quite unwilling to stake my guineas. The ladies, too, were
mad for play; but exceeding unwilling to pay when they lost. Thus, when
the old Countess of Trumpington lost ten pieces to me at quadrille, she
gave me, instead of the money, her Ladyship's note of hand on her
agent in Galway; which I put, with a great deal of politeness, into the
candle. But when the Countess made me a second proposition to play, I
said that as soon as her Ladyship's remittances were arrived, I would
be the readiest person to meet her; but till then was her very humble
servant. And I maintained this resolution and singular character
throughout the Dublin society: giving out at 'Daly's' that I was ready
to play any man, for any sum, at any game; or to fence with him, or to
ride with him (regard being had to our weight), or to shoot flying, or
at a mark; and in this latter accomplishment, especially if the mark be
a live one, Irish gentlemen of that day had no ordinary skill.

Of course I despatched a courier in my liveries to Castle Lyndon with
a private letter for Runt, demanding from him full particulars of
the Countess of Lyndon's state of health and mind; and a touching and
eloquent letter to her Ladyship, in which I bade her remember ancient
days, which I tied up with a single hair from the lock which I had
purchased from her woman, and in which