at
abilities best know how to assume, it endangers our judgment sometimes,
and sometimes our morals. If her Grace the Duchess of Newcastle, instead
of penning her lord's elaborate eulogium, had undertaken to write the
life of Savage, we should not have been in any danger of mistaking an
idle, ungrateful libertine for a man of genius and virtue. The talents
of a biographer are often fatal to his reader. For these reasons the
public often judiciously countenance those who, without sagacity
to discriminate character, without elegance of style to relieve the
tediousness of narrative, without enlargement of mind to draw any
conclusions from the facts they relate, simply pour forth anecdotes,
and retail conversations, with all the minute prolixity of a gossip in a
country town.

The author of the following Memoirs has upon these grounds fair claims
to the public favour and attention; he was an illiterate old steward,
whose partiality to THE FAMILY, in which he was bred and born, must be
obvious to the reader. He tells the history of the Rackrent family in
his vernacular idiom, and in the full confidence that Sir Patrick,
Sir Murtagh, Sir Kit, and Sir Condy Rackrent's affairs will be as
interesting to all the world as they were to himself. Those who were
acquainted with the manners of a certain class of the gentry of Ireland
some years ago, will want no evidence of the truth of honest Thady's
narrative; to those who are totally unacquainted with Ireland, the
following Memoirs will perhaps be scarcely intelligible, or probably
they may appear perfectly incredible. For the information of the
IGNORANT English reader, a few notes have been subjoined by the editor,
and he had it once in contemplation to translate the language of Thady
into plain English; but Thady's idiom is incapable of translation, and,
besides, the authenticity of his story would have been more exposed
to doubt if it were not told in his own characteristic manner. Several
years ago he related to the editor the history of the Rackrent family,
and it was with some difficulty that he was persuaded to have it
committed to writing; however, his feelings for 'THE HONOUR OF THE
FAMILY,' as he expressed himself, prevailed over his habitual laziness,
and he at length completed the narrative which is now laid before the
public.

The editor hopes his readers will observe that these are 'tales of other
times;' that the manners depicted in the following pages are not those