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BARRY LYNDON
BARRY LYNDON WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY EDITED BY WALTER JERROLD
CONTENTS
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
I.--MY PEDIGREE AND FAMILY--UNDERGO THE INFLUENCE OF THE TENDER
PASSION
II.--IN WHICH I SHOW MYSELF TO BE A MAN OF SPIRIT
III.--I MAKE A FALSE START IN THE GENTEEL WORLD
IV.--IN WHICH BARRY TAKES A NEAR VIEW OF MILITARY GLORY
V.--IN WHICH BARRY TRIES TO REMOVE AS FAR FROM MILITARY GLORY AS
POSSIBLE
VI.--THE CRIMP WAGGON--MILITARY EPISODES
VII.--BARRY LEADS A GARRISON LIFE AND FINDS MANY FRIENDS THERE
VIII.--BARRY BIDS ADIEU TO THE MILITARY PROFESSION
IX.--I APPEAR IN A MANNER BECOMING MY NAME AND LINEAGE
X.--MORE RUNS OF LUCK
XI.--IN WHICH THE LUCK GOES AGAINST BARRY
XII.--CONTAINS THE TRAGICAL HISTORY OF THE PRINCESS OF X-----
XIII.--I CONTINUE MY CAREER AS A MAN OF FASHION
XIV.--I RETURN TO IRELAND AND EXHIBIT MY SPLENDOUR AND GENEROSITY
IN THAT KINGDOM
XV.--I PAY COURT TO MY LADY LYNDON
XVI.--I PROVIDE NOBLY FOR MY FAMILY AND ATTAIN THE HEIGHT OF MY
(SEEMING) GOOD FORTUNE
XVII.--I APPEAR AS AN ORNAMENT OF ENGLISH SOCIETY
XVIII.--IN WHICH MY GOOD FORTUNE BEGINS TO WAVER
XIX.--CONCLUSION
BARRY LYNDON
A BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Barry Lyndon--far from the best known but by some critics acclaimed
as the finest of Thackeray's works--appeared originally as a serial
a few years before VANITY FAIR was written; yet it was not published
in book form and then not by itself until after the publication of
VANITY FAIR PENDENNIS ESMOND and THE NEWCOMES had placed its
author in the forefront of the literary men of the day. So many
years after the event we cannot help wondering why the story was not
earlier put in book form; for in its delineation of the character of
an adventurer it is as great as VANITY FAIR while for the local
colour of history if I may put it so it is no undistinguished
precursor of ESMOND.
In the number of FRASER'S MAGAZINE for January 1844 appeared the
first instalment of 'THE LUCK OF BARRY LYNDON ESQ. A ROMANCE OF
THE LAST CENTURY by FitzBoodle' and the story continued to appear
month by month--with the exception of October--up to the end of the
year when the concluding portion was signed 'G. S. FitzBoodle.'
FITZBOODLE'S CONFESSIONS it should be added had appeared
occasionally in the magazine during the years immediately precedent
so that the pseudonym was familiar to FRASER'S readers. The story
was written according to its author's own words 'with a great deal
of dulness unwillingness and labour' and was evidently done as the
instalments were required for in August he wrote 'read for "B. L."
all the morning at the club' and four days later of '"B. L." lying
like a nightmare on my mind.' The journey to the East--which was to
give us in literary results NOTES OF A JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO
GRAND CAIRO--was begun with BARRY LYNDON yet unfinished for at
Malta the author noted on the first three days of November--'Wrote
Barry but slowly and with great difficulty.' 'Wrote Barry with no
more success than yesterday.' 'Finished Barry after great throes
late at night.' In the number of Fraser's for the following month
as I have said the conclusion appeared. A dozen years later in
1856 the story formed the first part of the third volume of
Thackeray's MISCELLANIES when it was called MEMOIRS OF BARRY
LYNDON ESQ. WRITTEN BY HIMSELF. Since then it has nearly always
been issued with other matter as though it were not strong enough
to stand alone or as though the importance of a work was mainly to
be gauged by the number of pages to be crowded into one cover. The
scheme of the present edition fortunately allows fitting honour to
be done to the memoirs of the great adventurer.
To come from the story as a whole to the personality of the
eponymous hero. Three widely-differing historical individuals are
suggested as having contributed to the composite portrait. Best
known of these was that very prince among adventurers G. J.
Casanova de Seingalt a man who in the latter half of the eighteenth
century played the part of adventurer--and generally that of the
successful adventurer--in most of the European capitals; who within
the first five-and-twenty years of his life had been 'abbe
secretary to Cardinal Aquaviva ensign and violinist at Rome
Constantinople Corfu and his own birthplace (Venice) where he
cured a senator of apoplexy.' His autobiography MEMOIRES ECRIT PAR
LUI MEME (in twelve volumes) has been described as 'unmatched as a
self-revelation of scoundrelism.' It has also been suggested with I
think far less colour of probability that the original of Barry was
the diplomatist and satiric poet Sir Charles Hanbury Williams whom
Dr Johnson described as 'our lively and elegant though too
licentious lyrick bard.' The third original and one who there
cannot be the slightest doubt contributed features to the great
portrait is a certain Andrew Robinson Stoney afterwards Stoney-
Bowes.
The original of the Countess Lyndon was Mary Eleanor Bowes Dowager
Countess of Strathmore and heiress of a very wealthy Durham family.
This lady had many suitors but in 1777 Stoney a bankrupt
lieutenant on half pay who had fought a duel on her behalf induced
her to marry him and subsequently hyphenated her name with his own.
He became member of Parliament and ran such extravagant courses as
does Barry Lyndon treated his wife with similar barbarity abducted
her when she had escaped from him and then after being divorced
found his way to a debtors' prison. There are similarities here
which no seeker after originals can overlook. Mrs Ritchie says that
her father had a friend at Paris 'a Mr Bowes who may have first
told him this history of which the details are almost incredible as
quoted from the papers of the time.' The name of Thackeray's friend
is a curious coincidence unless as may well have been the case he
was a connection of the family into which the notorious adventurer
had married. It is not unlikely that Thackeray had seen the work
published in 1810--the year of Stoney-Bowes's death--in which the
whole unhappy romance was set forth. This was 'THE LIVES OF ANDREW
ROBINSON BOWES ESQ. and THE COUNTESS OF STRATHMORE. Written from
thirty-three years' Professional Attendance from letters and other
well authenticated Documents by Jesse Foot Surgeon.' In this book
we find several incidents similar to ones in the story. Bowes cut
down all the timber on his wife's estate but 'the neighbours would
not buy it.' Such practical jokes as Barry Lyndon played upon his
son's tutor were played by Bowes on his chaplain. The story of
Stoney and his marriage will be found briefly given in the notice of
the Countess's life in the DICTIONARY OF NATIONAL BIOGRAPHY.
Whence that part of the romantic interlude dealing with the stay in
the Duchy of X---- dealt with in chapter x. etc. was inspired
Thackeray's own noteooks (as quoted by Mrs Ritchie) conclusively
show: 'January 41844. Read in a silly book called L'EMPIRE a good
story about the first K. of Wurtemberg's wife; killed by her husband
for adultery. Frederic William born in 1734 (?) m. in 1780 the
Princess Caroline of Brunswick Wolfenbuttel who died the 27th
September 1788. For the rest of the story see L'EMPIRE OU DIX ANS
SOUS NAPOLEON PAR UN CHAMBELLAN: Paris Allardin 1836; vol. i.
220.' The 'Captain Freny' to whom Barry owed his adventures on his
journey to Dublin (chapter iii.) was a notorious highwayman on
whose doings Thackeray had enlarged in the fifteenth chapter of his
IRISH SKETCH BOOK.
Despite the slowness with which it was written and the seeming
neglect with which it was permitted to remain unreprinted BARRY
LYNDON was to be hailed by competent critics as one of Thackeray's
finest performances though the author himself seems to have had no
strong regard for the story. His daughter has recorded 'My father
once said to me when I was a girl: "You needn't read BARRY LYNDON
you won't like it." Indeed it is scarcely a book to LIKE but one
to admire and to wonder at for its consummate power and mastery.'
Another novelist Anthony Trollope has said of it: 'In imagination
language construction and general literary capacity Thackeray
never did anything more remarkable than BARRY LYNDON.' Mr Leslie
Stephen says: 'All later critics have recognised in this book one of
his most powerful performances. In directness and vigour he never
surpassed it.'
W.J.
The Memoires of BARRY LYNDON ESQ.
CHAPTER I
MY PEDIGREE AND FAMILY--UNDERGO THE INFLUENCE OF THE TENDER PASSION
Since the days of Adam there has been hardly a mischief done in
this world but a woman has been at the bottom of it. Ever since ours
was a family (and that must be very NEAR Adam's time--so old
noble and illustrious are the Barrys as everybody knows) women
have played a mighty part with the destinies of our race.
I presume that there is no gentleman in Europe that has not heard of
the house of Barry of Barryogue of the kingdom of Ireland than
which a more famous name is not to be found in Gwillim or D'Hozier;
and though as a man of the world I have learned to despise
heartily the claims of some PRETENDERS to high birth who have no
more genealogy than the lacquey who cleans my boots and though I
laugh to utter scorn the boasting of many of my countrymen who are
all for descending from kings of Ireland and talk of a domain no
bigger than would feed a pig as if it were a principality; yet truth
compels me to assert that my family was the noblest of the island
and perhaps of the universal world; while their possessions now
insignificant and torn from us by war by treachery by the loss of
time by ancestral extravagance by adhesion to the old faith and
monarch were formerly prodigious and embraced many counties at a
time when Ireland was vastly more prosperous than now. I would
assume the Irish crown over my coat-of-arms but that there are so
many silly pretenders to that distinction who bear it and render it
common.
Who knows but for the fault of a woman I might have been wearing
it now? You start with incredulity. I say why not? Had there been a
gallant chief to lead my countrymen instead or puling knaves who
bent the knee to King Richard II. they might have been freemen; had
there been a resolute leader to meet the murderous ruffian Oliver
Cromwell we should have shaken off the English for ever. But there
was no Barry in the field against the usurper; on the contrary my
ancestor Simon de Bary came over with the first-named monarch and
married the daughter of the then King of Munster whose sons in
battle he pitilessly slew.
In Oliver's time it was too late for a chief of the name of Barry to
lift up his war-cry against that of the murderous brewer. We were
princes of the land no longer; our unhappy race had lost its
possessions a century previously and by the most shameful treason.
This I know to be the fact for my mother has often told me the
story and besides had worked it in a worsted pedigree which hung up
in the yellow saloon at Barryville where we lived.
That very estate which the Lyndons now possess in Ireland was once
the property of my race. Rory Barry of Barryogue owned it in
Elizabeth's time and half Munster beside. The Barry was always in
feud with the O'Mahonys in those times; and as it happened a
certain English colonel passed through the former's country with a
body of men-at-arms on the very day when the O'Mahonys had made an
inroad upon our territories and carried off a frightful plunder of
our flocks and herds.
This young Englishman whose name was Roger Lyndon Linden or
Lyndaine having been most hospitably received by the Barry and
finding him just on the point of carrying an inroad into the
O'Mahonys' land offered the aid of himself and his lances and
behaved himself so well as it appeared that the O'Mahonys were
entirely overcome all the Barrys' property restored and with it
says the old chronicle twice as much of the O'Mahonys' goods and
cattle.
It was the setting in of the winter season and the young soldier
was pressed by the Barry not to quit his house of Barryogue and
remained there during several months his men being quartered with
Barry's own gallowglasses man by man in the cottages round about.
They conducted themselves as is their wont with the most
intolerable insolence towards the Irish; so much so that fights and
murders continually ensued and the people vowed to destroy them.
The Barry's son (from whom I descend) was as hostile to the English
as any other man on his domain; and as they would not go when
bidden he and his friends consulted together and determined on
destroying these English to a man.
But they had let a woman into their plot and this was the Barry's
daughter. She was in love with the English Lyndon and broke the
whole secret to him; and the dastardly English prevented the just
massacre of themselves by falling on the Irish and destroying
Phaudrig Barry my ancestor and many hundreds of his men. The cross
at Barrycross near Carrignadihioul is the spot where the odious
butchery took place.
Lyndon married the daughter of Roderick Barry and claimed the
estate which he left: and though the descendants of Phaudrig were
alive as indeed they are in my person[Footnote: As we have never
been able to find proofs of the marriage of my ancestor Phaudrig
with his wife I make no doubt that Lyndon destroyed the contract
and murdered the priest and witnesses of the marriage.--B. L.] on
appealing to the English courts the estate was awarded to the
Englishman as has ever been the case where English and Irish were
concerned.
Thus had it not been for the weakness of a woman I should have
been born to the possession of those very estates which afterwards
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 was solemnly pronounced at
the tavern in the company of Sir Dick Ringwood Lord Bagwig Captain
Punter and two or three other young sparks of the town. Roaring
Harry won 300 pieces that very night at faro and laid the necessary
information the next morning against his brother; but his conversion
caused a coolness between him and my uncle Corney who joined the
rebels in consequence.
This great difficulty being settled my Lord Bagwig lent my father
his own yacht then lying at the Pigeon House and the handsome Bell
Brady was induced to run away with him to England although her
parents were against the match and her lovers (as I have heard her
tell many thousands of times) were among the most numerous and the
most wealthy in all the kingdom of Ireland. They were married at the
Savoy and my grandfather dying very soon Harry Barry Esquire
took possession of his paternal property and supported our
illustrious name with credit in London. He pinked the famous Count
Tiercelin behind Montague House he was a member of 'White's' and a
frequenter of all the chocolate-houses; and my mother likewise
made no small figure. At length after his great day of triumph
before His Sacred Majesty at Newmarket Harry's fortune was just on
the point of being made for the gracious monarch promised to
provide for him. But alas! he was taken in charge by another
monarch whose will have no delay or denial--by Death namely who
seized upon my father at Chester races leaving me a helpless
orphan. Peace be to his ashes! He was not faultless and dissipated
all our princely family property; but he was as brave a fellow as
ever tossed a bumper or called a main and he drove his coach-and-
six like a man of fashion.
I do not know whether His gracious Majesty was much affected by this
sudden demise of my father though my mother says he shed some royal
tears on the occasion. But they helped us to nothing: and all that
was found in the house for the wife and creditors was a purse of
ninety guineas which my dear mother naturally took with the family
plate and my father's wardrobe and her own; and putting them into
our great coach drove off to Holyhead whence she took shipping for
Ireland. My father's body accompanied us in the finest hearse and
plumes money could buy; for though the husband and wife had
quarrelled repeatedly in life yet at my father's death his high-
spirited widow forgot all her differences gave him the grandest
funeral that had been seen for many a day and erected a monument
over his remains (for which I subsequently paid) which declared him
to be the wisest purest and most affectionate of men.
In performing these sad duties over her deceased lord the widow
spent almost every guinea she had and indeed would have spent a
great deal more had she discharged one-third of the demands which
the ceremonies occasioned. But the people around our old house of
Barryogue although they did not like my father for his change of
faith yet stood by him at this moment and were for exterminating
the mutes sent by Mr. Plumer of London with the lamented remains.
The monument and vault in the church were then alas! all that
remained of my vast possessions; for my father had sold every stick
of the property to one Notley an attorney and we received but a
cold welcome in his house--a miserable old tumble-down place it was.
[Footnote: In another part of his memoir Mr. Barry will be found to
describe this mansion as one of the most splendid palaces in Europe;
but this is a practice not unusual with his nation; and with respect
to the Irish principality claimed by him it is known that Mr.
Barry's grandfather was an attorney and maker of his own fortune.]
The splendour of the funeral did not fail to increase the widow
Barry's reputation as a woman of spirit and fashion; and when she
wrote to her brother Michael Brady that worthy gentleman
immediately rode across the country to fling himself in her arms
and to invite her in his wife's name to Castle Brady.
Mick and Barry had quarrelled as all men will and very high words
had passed between them during Barry's courtship of Miss Bell. When
he took her off Brady swore he would never forgive Barry or Bell;
but coming to London in the year '46 he fell in once more with
Roaring Harry and lived in his fine house in Clarges Street and
lost a few pieces to him at play and broke a watchman's head or two
in his company--all of which reminiscences endeared Bell and her
son very much to the good-hearted gentleman and he received us both
with open arms. Mrs. Barry did not perhaps wisely at first make
known to her friends what was her condition; but arriving in a huge
gilt coach with enormous armorial bearings was taken by her sister-
in-law and the rest of the county for a person of considerable
property and distinction. For a time then and as was right and
proper Mrs. Barry gave the law at Castle Brady. She ordered the
servants to and fro and taught them what indeed they much wanted
a little London neatness; and 'English Redmond' as I was called
was treated like a little lord and had a maid and a footman to
himself; and honest Mick paid their wages--which was much more than
he was used to do for his own domestics--doing all in his power to
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Unpublished Work 
