unconsciously set up for worship. But this is a subject for
an essay, not a note; and it is best to allow Mr. Lyndon to resume the
candid and ingenious narrative of his virtues and defects.]

Her infernal temper (Mrs. Stammer was the jade's name) and my wife's
moody despondency, made my house and home not over-pleasant: hence I was
driven a good deal abroad, where, as play was the fashion at every club,
tavern, and assembly, I, of course, was obliged to resume my old habit,
and to commence as an amateur those games at which I was once unrivalled
in Europe. But whether a man's temper changes with prosperity, or his
skill leaves him when, deprived of a confederate, and pursuing the game
no longer professionally, he joins in it, like the rest of the world,
for pastime, I know not; but certain it is, that in the seasons of
1774-75 I lost much money at 'White's' and the 'Cocoa-Tree,' and
was compelled to meet my losses by borrowing largely upon my wife's
annuities, insuring her Ladyship's life, and so forth. The terms at
which I raised these necessary sums and the outlays requisite for my
improvements were, of course, very onerous, and clipped the property
considerably; and it was some of these papers which my Lady Lyndon (who
was of a narrow, timid, and stingy turn) occasionally refused to sign:
until I PERSUADED her, as I have before shown.

My dealings on the turf ought to be mentioned, as forming part of my
history at this time; but, in truth, I have no particular pleasure
in recalling my Newmarket doings. I was infernally bit and bubbled in
almost every one of my transactions there; and though I could ride
a horse as well as any man in England, was no match with the English
noblemen at backing him. Fifteen years after my horse, Bay Bulow, by
Sophy Hardcastle, out of Eclipse, lost the Newmarket stakes, for which
he was the first favourite, I found that a noble earl, who shall be
nameless, had got into his stable the morning before he ran; and the
consequence was that an outside horse won, and your humble servant was
out to the amount of fifteen thousand pounds. Strangers had no chance
in those days on the heath: and, though dazzled by the splendour and
fashion assembled there, and surrounded by the greatest persons of the
land,--the royal dukes, with their wives and splendid equipages; old
Grafton, with his queer bevy of company, and such men as Ancaster,
Sandwich, Lorn,--a man might have considered himself certain of f