ards came to me
by merit, as you shall hear. But to proceed with my family, history.

My father was well known to the best circles in this kingdom, as in that
of Ireland, under the name of Roaring Harry Barry. He was bred like many
other young sons of genteel families to the profession of the law, being
articled to a celebrated attorney of Sackville Street in the city of
Dublin; and, from his great genius and aptitude for learning, there is
no doubt he would have made an eminent figure in his profession, had not
his social qualities, love of field-sports, and extraordinary graces
of manner, marked him out for a higher sphere. While he was attorney's
clerk he kept seven race-horses, and hunted regularly both with the
Kildare and Wicklow hunts; and rode on his grey horse Endymion that
famous match against Captain Punter, which is still remembered by lovers
of the sport, and of which I caused a splendid picture to be made and
hung over my dining-hall mantelpiece at Castle Lyndon. A year afterwards
he had the honour of riding that very horse Endymion before his late
Majesty King George II. at New-market, and won the plate there and the
attention of the august sovereign.

Although he was only the second son of our family, my dear father came
naturally into the estate (now miserably reduced to L400 a year); for my
grandfather's eldest son Cornelius Barry (called the Chevalier Borgne,
from a wound which he received in Germany) remained constant to the old
religion in which our family was educated, and not only served abroad
with credit, but against His Most Sacred Majesty George II. in the
unhappy Scotch disturbances in '45. We shall hear more of the Chevalier
hereafter.

For the conversion of my father I have to thank my dear mother, Miss
Bell Brady, daughter of Ulysses Brady of Castle Brady, county Kerry,
Esquire and J.P. She was the most beautiful woman of her day in Dublin,
and universally called the Dasher there. Seeing her at the assembly,
my father became passionately attached to her; but her soul was above
marrying a Papist or an attorney's clerk; and so, for the love of her,
the good old laws being then in force, my dear father slipped into my
uncle Cornelius's shoes and took the family estate. Besides the force of
my mother's bright eyes, several persons, and of the genteelest society
too, contributed to this happy change; and I have often heard my mother
laughingly tell the story of my father's recantation, which