rch of Castle Rackrent, setting forth
in large letters his age, birth, parentage, and many other virtues,
concluding with the compliment so justly due, that 'Sir Patrick Rackrent
lived and died a monument of old Irish hospitality.'

CONTINUATION OF THE MEMOIRS OF THE RACKRENT FAMILY

HISTORY OF SIR CONOLLY RACKRENT

Sir Condy Rackrent, by the grace of God heir-at-law to the Castle
Rackrent estate, was a remote branch of the family. Born to little or
no fortune of his own, he was bred to the bar, at which, having many
friends to push him and no mean natural abilities of his own, he
doubtless would in process of time, if he could have borne the drudgery
of that study, have been rapidly made King's Counsel at the least; but
things were disposed of otherwise, and he never went the circuit but
twice, and then made no figure for want of a fee, and being unable to
speak in public. He received his education chiefly in the college of
Dublin, but before he came to years of discretion lived in the country,
in a small but slated house within view of the end of the avenue. I
remember him, bare footed and headed, running through the street of
O'Shaughlin's Town, and playing at pitch-and-toss, ball, marbles, and
what not, with the boys of the town, amongst whom my son Jason was a
great favourite with him. As for me, he was ever my white-headed boy:
often's the time, when I would call in at his father's, where I was
always made welcome, he would slip down to me in the kitchen, and, love
to sit on my knee whilst I told him stories of the family and the blood
from which he was sprung, and how he might look forward, if the then
present man should die without childer, to being at the head of the
Castle Rackrent estate. This was then spoke quite and clear at random
to please the child, but it pleased Heaven to accomplish my prophecy
afterwards, which gave him a great opinion of my judgment in business.
He went to a little grammar-school with many others, and my son amongst
the rest, who was in his class, and not a little useful to him in his
book-learning, which he acknowledged with gratitude ever after. These
rudiments of his education thus completed, he got a-horseback, to which
exercise he was ever addicted, and used to gallop over the country while
yet but a slip of a boy, under the care of Sir Kit's huntsman, who
was very fond of him, and often lent him his gun, and took him out
a-shooting under his own eye. By these mean