s ruminating and
dreaming over the fature. How many a resolve did I then make for my
guidance--how many an intention did I form--how many a groundwork of
principle did I lay down, with all the confidence of youth! I fashioned
to myself a world after my own notions; in which I conjured up certain
imaginary difficulties, all of which were surmounted by my admirable
tact and consummate cleverness. I remembered how, at both Eton and
Sandhurst, the Irish boy was generally made the subject of some jest
or quiz, at one time for his accent, at another for his blunders. As
a Guardsman, short as had been my experience of the service, I could
plainly see that a certain indefinable tone of superiority was ever
asserted towards our friends across the sea. A wide-sweeping prejudice,
whose limits were neither founded in reason, justice, or common sense,
had thrown a certain air of undervaluing import over every one and
every thing from that country. Not only were its faults and its follies
heavily visited, but those accidental and trifling blemishes--those
slight and scarce perceptible deviations from the arbitrary standard
of fashion--were deemed the strong characteristics of the nation, and
condemned accordingly; while the slightest use of any exaggeration in
speech--the commonest employment of a figure or a metaphor--the casual
introduction of an anecdote or a repartee, were all heavily censured,
and pronounced "so very Irish!" Let some fortune-hunter carry off an
heiress--let a lady trip over her train at the drawing-room--let a
minister blunder in his mission--let a powder-magazine explode and blow
up one-half of the surrounding population, there was but one expression
to qualify all--"How Irish! how very Irish!" The adjective had become
one of depreciation; and an Irish lord, an Irish member, an Irish
estate, and an Irish diamond, were held pretty much in the same
estimation.

Reared in the very hot-bed, the forcing-house, of such exaggerated
prejudice, while imbibing a very sufficient contempt for everything in
that country, I obtained proportionably absurd notions of all that
was Irish. Our principles may come from our fathers; our prejudices
certainly descend from the female branch. Now, my mother,
notwithstanding the example of the Prince Regent himself, whose chosen
associates were Irish, was most thoroughly exclusive on this point. She
would admit that a native of that country could be invited to an evening
party under ex