nd municipal officers--all of whom figured in
addresses and had the public voice in the country; but there was no
sympathy and connection between the upper and the lower people of
the Irish. To one who had been bred so much abroad as myself, this
difference between Catholic and Protestant was doubly striking;
and though as firm as a rock in my own faith, yet I could not help
remembering my grandfather held a different one, and wondering that
there should be such a political difference between the two. I passed
among my neighbours for a dangerous leveller, for entertaining and
expressing such opinions, and especially for asking the priest of the
parish to my table at Castle Lyndon. He was a gentleman, educated
at Salamanca, and, to my mind, a far better bred and more agreeable
companion than his comrade the rector, who had but a dozen Protestants
for his congregation; who was a lord's son, to be sure, but he could
hardly spell, and the great field of his labours was in the kennel and
cockpit.

I did not extend and beautify the house of Castle Lyndon as I had done
our other estates, but contented myself with paying an occasional visit
there; exercising an almost royal hospitality, and keeping open house
during my stay. When absent, I gave to my aunt, the widow Brady, and her
six unmarried daughters (although they always detested me), permission
to inhabit the place; my mother preferring my new mansion of Barryogue.

And as my Lord Bullingdon was by this time grown excessively tall
and troublesome, I determined to leave him under the care of a proper
governor in Ireland, with Mrs. Brady and her six daughters to take care
of him; and he was welcome to fall in love with all the old ladies if he
were so minded, and thereby imitate his stepfather's example. When tired
of Castle Lyndon, his Lordship was at liberty to go and reside at my
house with my mamma; but there was no love lost between him and her,
and, on account of my son Bryan, I think she hated him as cordially as
ever I myself could possibly do.

The county of Devon is not so lucky as the neighbouring county of
Cornwall, and has not the share of representatives which the latter
possesses; where I have known a moderate country gentleman, with a
few score of hundreds per annum from his estate, treble his income by
returning three or four Members to Parliament, and by the influence with
Ministers which these seats gave him. The parliamentary interest of the
house of