though as firm as a rock in my own own faith, yet I could not help remembering my grandfather held a different one, and wondering that there should be such a political difference between the two. I passed among my neighbours for a dangerous leveller, for entertaining and expressing such opinions, and especially for asking the priest of the parish to my table at Castle Lyndon. He was a gentleman, educated at Salamanca, and, to my mind, a far better bred and more agreeable companion than his comrade the rector, who had but a dozen Protestants for his congregation, who was a lord's son, to be sure, but he could hardly spell, and the great field of his labours was in the kennel and cockpit.

I did not extend and beautify the house of Castle Lyndon as I had done our other seats, but contented myself with paying an occasional visit there, exercising an almost royal hospitality, and keeping open house during my stay. When absent, I gave to my aunt, the widow Brady, and her six unmarried daughters (although they always detested me), permission to inhabit the place, my mother prefering my new mansion of Barryogue.

And as my Lord Bullingdon was by this time grown excessively tall and troublesome, I determined to leave him under the care of a proper governor in Ireland, with Mrs. Brady and her six daughters to take care of him; and he was welcome to fall in love with all the old ladies if he were so minded, and thereby imitate his step-father's example. When tired of Castle Lyndon, his lordship was at liberty to go and reside at my house with my mamma; but there was no love lost between him and her, and, on account of my son Bryan, I think she hated him as cordially as ever I myself could possibly do.

The county of Devon is not so lucky as the neighbouring county of Cornwall, and has not the share of representatives which the latter possesses; where I have known a moderate country gentleman, with a few score of hundreds per annum from his estate, treble his income by returning three or four members to parliament, and by the influence with ministers which these seats gave him. The parliamentary interest of the

house of Lyndon had been grossly neglected during my wife's minority, and the incapacity of the earl her father; or, to speak more correctly, it had been smuggled away from the Lyndon family altogether by the adroit old hypocrite of Tiptoff Castle, who acted as most kinsmen and guardians do by their wards and relatives, and robbed them. The Marquess of Tiptoff returned four members to parliament; two for the borough of Tippleton, which, as all the world knows, lies at the foot of our estate of Hackton, bounded on the other side by Tiptoff Park. For time out of mind we had sent members for that borough, until Tiptoff, taking advantage of the late lord's imbecility, put in his own nominees. When his eldest son became of age, of course my lord was to take his seat for Tippleton; when Sigby (Nabob Sigby, who made his fortune under Clive in India) died, the Marquess thought fit to bring down his second son, my Lord George Poynings, to whom I have introduced the reader in a former chapter, and determined, in his high mightiness, that he, too, should go and swell the ranks of the opposition-the big old Whigs, with whom the marquess acted.

Sigby had been for some time in an ailing condition previous to his demise, and you may be sure that the circumstance of his failing health had not been passed over by the gentry of the county, who were stanch government men for the most part, and hated my Lord Tiptoff's principles as dangerous and ruinous. "We have been looking out for a man to fight against him," said the squires to me; we can only match Tiptoff out of Hackton Castle. You, Mr. Lyndon, are our man, and at the next county election we will swear to bring you in."

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I hated the Tiptoffs so, that I would have fought them at any election. They not only would not visit at Hackton, but declined to receive those who visited us; they kept the women of the county from receiving my wife; they invented half the wild stories of my profligacy and extravagance with which the neighbourhood was entertained; they said I had frightened my wife into marriage, and that she was a lost woman; they hinted that Bulling

don's life was not secure under my roof, that his treatment was odious, and that I wanted to put him out of the way to make place for Bryan my son. I could scarce have a friend to Hackton, but they counted the bottles drunk at my table. They ferreted out my dealings with my lawyers and agents. If a creditor was unpaid, every item of his bill was known at Tiptoff Hall; if I looked at a farmer's daughter, it was said I had ruined her. My faults are many, I confess, and, as a domestic character, I can't boast of any particular regularity, or temper; but Lady Lyndon and I did not quarrel more than fashionable people do, and, at first, we always used to make it up pretty well. I am a man full of errors, certainly, but not the devil that these odious back biters at Tiptoff represented me to be. For the first three years I never struck my wife but when I was in liquor. When I flung the carving-knife at Bullingdon I was drunk, as every body present can testify; but as for having any systematic scheme against the poor lad, I can declare solemnly that, beyond merely hating him (and one's inclinations are not in one's power), I am guilty of no evil towards him.

I had sufficient motives, then, for enmity against the Tiptoffs, and am not a man to let a feeling of that kind lie inactive. Though a Whig, or, perhaps, because a Whig, the marquess was one of the haughtiest men breathing, and treated commoners as his idol the great earl used to treat them, after he came to a coronet himself-as so many low vassals, who might be proud to lick his shoe-buckle. When the Tippleton mayor and corporation waited upon him, he received them covered, never offered Mr. Mayor a chair, but retired when the refreshments were brought, or had them served to the worshipful aldermen in the steward's

room. These honest Britons never rebelled against such treatment, until instructed to do so by my patriotism. No, the dogs liked to be bullied, and, in the course of a long experience, I have met with but very few Englishmen who are not of their way of thinking.

It was not until I opened their eyes that they knew their degradation. I invited the mayor to Hackton, and Mrs. Mayoress (a very buxom, pretty groceress she was, by the way) I made sit by my wife, and drove them both out to the races in my curricle. Lady Lyndon fought very hard against this condescension, but I had a way with her, as the saying is, and though she had a temper, yet I had a better one. temper, psha! A wild cat has a temper, but a keeper can get the better of it, and I know very few women in the world whom I could not master.

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Well, I made much of the mayor and corporation, sent them bucks for their dinners or asked them to mine, made a point of attending their assemblies, dancing with their wives and daughters, going through, in short, all the acts of politeness which are necessary in such occasions; and though old Tiptoff must have seen my goings on, yet his head was so much in the clouds that he never once condescended to imagine his dynasty could be overthrown in his own town of Tippleton, and issued his mandates as securely as if he had been the Grand Turk, and the Tippletonians no better than so many slaves of his will.

Every post which brought us any account of Sigby's increasing illness, was the sure occasion of a dinner from me; so much so, that my friends of the hunt used to laugh, and say, "Sigby's worse, there's a corporation dinner at Hackton."

It was in 1776, when the Ame

rican war broke out, that I came into parliament. My Lord Chatham, whose wisdom his party in those days used to call superhuman, raised his oracular voice in the House of Peers against the American contest; and my countryman, Mr. Burke, a great philosopher, but a plaguy longwinded orator, was the champion of the rebels in the Commons, where, however, thanks to British patriotism, he could get very few to back him. Old Tiptoff would have sworn black was white, if the great earl had bidden him, and he made his son give up his commission in the Guards, in imitation of my Lord Pitt, who resigned his ensigncy rather than fight against what he called his American brethren.

But this was a height of patriotism extremely little relished in England, where, ever since the breaking out of hostilities, our people hated the Americans heartily, and where, when we heard of the fight of Lexington, and the glorious victory of Bunker's Hill (as we used to call it in those days), the nation flushed out in its usual hot-headed anger. The talk was all against the philosophers after that, and the people most indomitably loyal. It was not until the landtax was increased that the gentry began to grumble a little, but still my party in the west was very strong against the Tiptoffs, and I determined to take the field and win as usual.

The old marquess neglected every one of the decent precautions which are requisite in a parliamentary cam

paign. He signified to the corporation and freeholders his intention of presenting his son, Lord George, and his desire that the latter should be elected their burgess; but he scarcely gave so much as a glass of beer to whet the devotedness of his adherents, and I, as I need not say, engaged every tavern in Tippleton in my behalf.

There is no need to go over the twenty-times-told tale of an election. I rescued the borough of Tippleton from the hands of Lord Tiptoff and his son Lord George. I had a savage sort of satisfaction, too, in forcing my wife, who had been at one time exceedingly smitten by her kinsman, as I have already related, to take part against him, and to wear and distribute my colours when the day of election came. And when we spoke at one another, I told the crowd that I had beaten Lord George in love, that I had beaten him in war, and that I would now beat him in parliament; and so I did, as the event proved: for, to the inexpressible anger of the old marquess, Barry Lyndon, Esquire, was returned member of parliament for Tippleton, in place of John Sigby, Esquire, deceased; and I threatened him at the next election to turn him out of both his seats, and went to attend my duties in parliament.

It was then I seriously determined on achieving for myself the Irish peerage, to be enjoyed after me by my boloved son and heir.

IN 449, Theodosius, the young emperor of the East, sent an embassy to Attila. In the suite of the Romans there figured a fool, who excited bursts of laughter from the attend. ants on the Goth. The terrible conqueror alone kept a serious countenance. We see, therefore, that the institution of this sort of functionary dates from a very early period; and, finding that our historians have given but few particulars on the subject, we propose to supply the deficiency, as far as our limits will permit, by anecdotes, which may not be without interest for the student of human nature.

Theophilus, emperor of Constantinople in 829, diverted himself with the merry jests of Danderi, whose indiscretion was nearly proving fatal to the Empress Theodora, he having discovered that she recited her prayers before an oratory decked with images, which she concealed with great care, for fear that Theophilus, who was a merciless iconoclast, should discover it.

The custom of entertaining at courts, and amongst the great, attendants who were required to be witty and merry for every body, passed to the middle age, and spread itself under the feudal government. And it must be confessed that the knights and nobles of those days stood truly in need of some merriment extraneous to themselves. Isolated in their castles, passing whole days on the highways and in the woods, the personages described to us by romances in such brilliant colours were generally as rude and wild as they were morose and objects of terror. Deformed beings were preferred for jesters; in them ugliness was considered a beauty. A mouth so wide that it reached from ear to ear, a very long, or crooked nose, a chin like that of a harlequin, eyes deeply set in the head, such were the features most highly prized in a fool; a double hump was considered as a rare perfection. The bells, baubles, and cap with long ears, were the distinctive marks of the official jester. At the court of Burgundy, knights and high-born dames, by way of enhancing their mirth, often per

YOL, XXX, NO, CLXXVII,

formed ballets, with fools'-caps on their heads. Shakspeare gives his fools a particular dress,—

Hang a calf's skin on those recreant limbs," &c.

The official jester was put under the management of a governor, who corrected him with lashes when he committed any folly which failed to amuse his master, and at whose feet he generally crouched. He was called by the fool nuncle, and used, during a feast, to throw dainty morsels to the poor jester, as if he had been a favourite lap-dog.

To such an extent was this wretched system carried, that even bishops and abbots fell by degrees into it. The council held at Paris in 1212 forbade the prelates having fools to make them laugh. Notwithstanding, more than a century later, an author reproaches them for liking to amuse themselves with buffoons (morionibus) and women more than with their studies.

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The fancy of keeping fools passed from private individuals to corporations. The abbot of misrule has been brought on the scene by the author of the Monastery, with the talent which rendered so popular the researches of learning, and gave_to history the interest of romance. bert Wace relates that William the Conqueror, duke of Normandy, was warned by his fool Golet of a danger which menaced him. This Golet was in real life as faithful as Sir Walter has represented Wamba to be in his inimitable romance of Ivanhoe. The Memoirs of George Chastelain mention a buffoon of Philip, duke of Burgundy, named Jean de Chasa.

The profession of a jester was not, however, practised exclusively by unfortunate creatures of the rougher sex. It sometimes fell to the part of women to degrade themselves thus far: and St. Remy speaks with admiration of Madame d'Or, as assisting, in this capacity, at the entertainments given on the institution of the Golden Fleece at Bruges in 1429; and we know that Margaret, granddaughter of Charles V. had also a female jester who followed her every where.

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Among other jesters of whom mention is made in history, may be particularised Von der Rosen, the fool of Maximilian, the husband of Mary of Burgundy, to the account of whose life and adventures the German Flogel has devoted a considerable portion of his learned volume. Charles the Bold's jester, likewise, whom Sir Walter introduces to us as Le Glorieux, was a real personage; while of Gonelle, the jester of that Alphonso D'Este, duke of Ferrara, who by his persecutions overthrew the reason of Tasso, the following anecdote is related-The duke was conversing one day about the trade which gave employment to the greatest number of persons. The guests differed one with another on the subject, whereupon Gonelle, being referred to, pronounced that the physician's trade was most to the purpose. To prove the justice of this opinion, he wrapped himself up as if he were sick, and went out, when, sure enough, all whom he met had some remedy to recommend to him. He made a long list of these persons, in which the duke, who suspected nothing, found his own name, as having, among others, offered a prescription. From this Gonelle concluded that every one was a physician.

Triboulet, the jester of Louis XII. and of Francis I., acquired some fame. It was he who, having said that if Charles V. was fool enough to come into France and trust to an enemy whom he had so ill treated, he would give him his cap. The king having asked him what he would do if the emperor returned safe and sound, the fool answered, "Then, sire, I will take back my cap and make you a present of it." It is related of this same Triboulet, that, having been threatened by a great lord that he should die under the rod for having spoken of him with too much freedom, he went to complain to Francis I., who told him to fear nothing, that if any one was bold enough to kill him he would have him hung up a quarter of an hour afterwards. "Ah! sire," said Triboulet, "if it would please your majesty to have him hung a quarter of an hour before."

At the time of Triboulet there were two other fools at the court, the one named Caillette, the other Polite.

Brusquet succeeded Triboulet, and signalised himself as the king's jester during the reigns of Henry II., Francis II., and of Charles IX., and of him Brantome has left well-furnished memoirs, which we do not pretend here to copy. The poor wretch having been suspected of heresy, his house was pillaged, and he was obliged to leave Paris and take refuge at Madame de Valentinois. He languished in this retreat, for grief was not natural to a man who possessed the talent of making four kings and their courtiers laugh. He died in 1562. His singular actions have acquired for him the reputation of having been the most agreeable jester in Europe.

The Cardinal du Perron expatiates largely on the witty repartees of Master William, the Cardinal Bourbon's fool. At the court of Henry IV. there was a female jester of the name of Mathurine, of whom Mezerai speaks, in his history of France, as having been present when Jean Chastel wounded the king with the intention of killing him. She had the honour of dining at the king's table. By degrees, the title of king's jester lost much of its lustre as manners became more polished, and amusements more varied and more refined. Balls, plays, sumptuous feasts, and a taste for luxury, destroyed the relish for the jests of a personage who often obtained greater applause the more he outstepped the bounds of decency and reason. We, however, see a king's jester in the reign of the morose Louis XIII. The king, displeased one day with two of the musicians of his chapel, kept back the half of their wages; the buffoon advised them how to obtain the restitution. They went in the evening to dance a masquerade, led by the king's fool, who made a thousand antics, which at first greatly amused the king; but, perceiving that one of the two musicians had on a jacket and no breeches, and that the other, on the contrary, had on breeches, but no jacket,-"What do you mean," demanded the king, "by appearing thus in my presence ?" "Sire," answered the fool, "the meaning is, that people who have only half their pay can only be half dressed. The king laughed, and forgave. The