, he would sit at
table, and drink his glass of champagne with the best of us; and his
nurse would teach him little French catches, and the last Parisian songs
of Vade and Collard,--pretty songs they were too; and would make such
of his hearers as understood French burst with laughing, and, I promise
you, scandalise some of the old dowagers who were admitted into the
society of his mamma: not that there were many of them; for I did not
encourage the visits of what you call respectable people to Lady Lyndon.
They are sad spoilers of sport,--tale-bearers, envious narrow-minded
people; making mischief between man and wife. Whenever any of these
grave personages in hoops and high heels used to make their appearance
at Hackton, or in Berkeley Square, it was my chief pleasure to frighten
them off; and I would make my little Bryan dance, sing, and play the
diable a quatre, and aid him myself, so as to scare the old frumps.

I never shall forget the solemn remonstrances of our old square-toes of
a rector at Hackton, who made one or two vain attempts to teach little
Bryan Latin, and with whose innumerable children I sometimes allowed the
boy to associate. They learned some of Bryan's French songs from him,
which their mother, a poor soul who understood pickles and custards much
better than French, used fondly to encourage them in singing; but which
their father one day hearing, he sent Miss Sarah to her bedroom and
bread and water for a week, and solemnly horsed Master Jacob in the
presence of all his brothers and sisters, and of Bryan, to whom he hoped
that flogging would act as a warning. But my little rogue kicked and
plunged at the old parson's shins until he was obliged to get his sexton
to hold him down, and swore, corbleu, morbleu, ventrebleu, that his
young friend Jacob should not be maltreated. After this scene, his
reverence forbade Bryan the rectory-house; on which I swore that his
eldest son, who was bringing up for the ministry, should never have the
succession of the living of Hackton, which I had thoughts of bestowing
on him; and his father said, with a canting hypocritical air, which
I hate, that Heaven's will must be done; that he would not have his
children disobedient or corrupted for the sake of a bishopric, and wrote
me a pompous and solemn letter, charged with Latin quotations, taking
farewell of me and my house. 'I do so with regret,' added the old
gentleman, 'for I have received so many kindnesses from the