'the neighbours would not buy it.' Such practical jokes as Barry Lyndon
played upon his son's tutor were played by Bowes on his chaplain. The
story of Stoney and his marriage will be found briefly given in the
notice of the Countess's life in the DICTIONARY OF NATIONAL BIOGRAPHY.

Whence that part of the romantic interlude dealing with the stay in
the Duchy of X----, dealt with in chapter x., etc., was inspired,
Thackeray's own note\books (as quoted by Mrs Ritchie) conclusively show:
'January 4,1844. Read in a silly book called L'EMPIRE, a good story
about the first K. of Wurtemberg's wife; killed by her husband for
adultery. Frederic William, born in 1734 (?), m. in 1780 the Princess
Caroline of Brunswick Wolfenbuttel, who died the 27th September 1788.
For the rest of the story see L'EMPIRE, OU DIX ANS SOUS NAPOLEON, PAR UN
CHAMBELLAN: Paris, Allardin, 1836; vol. i. 220.' The 'Captain Freny' to
whom Barry owed his adventures on his journey to Dublin (chapter iii.)
was a notorious highwayman, on whose doings Thackeray had enlarged in
the fifteenth chapter of his IRISH SKETCH BOOK.

Despite the slowness with which it was written, and the seeming neglect
with which it was permitted to remain unreprinted, BARRY LYNDON was
to be hailed by competent critics as one of Thackeray's finest
performances, though the author himself seems to have had no strong
regard for the story. His daughter has recorded, 'My father once said
to me when I was a girl: "You needn't read BARRY LYNDON, you won't like
it." Indeed, it is scarcely a book to LIKE, but one to admire and to
wonder at for its consummate power and mastery.' Another novelist,
Anthony Trollope, has said of it: 'In imagination, language,
construction, and general literary capacity, Thackeray never did
anything more remarkable than BARRY LYNDON.' Mr Leslie Stephen says:
'All later critics have recognised in this book one of his most powerful
performances. In directness and vigour he never surpassed it.'

W.J.

THE MEMOIRES OF BARRY LYNDON, ESQ.

CHAPTER I. MY PEDIGREE AND FAMILY--UNDERGO THE INFLUENCE OF THE TENDER
PASSION

Since the days of Adam, there has been hardly a mischief done in this
world but a woman has been at the bottom of it. Ever since ours was
a family (and that must be very NEAR Adam's time,--so old, noble, and
illustrious are the Barrys, as everybody knows) women have played a
mighty part with the destinies of our race.

I presume that the