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flying on to the sabres of my advancing soldiers!

      The next minute, Glogger and Stuffle were in my arms, Pappendick leading on the Irregulars. Friend and foe in that wild chase had swept far away. We were alone: I was freed from my immense bar; and ten minutes afterwards, when Lord Lake trotted up with his staff, he found me sitting on it.

      "Look at Gahagan," said his Lordship. "Gentlemen, did I not tell you we should be sure to find him AT HIS POST?"

      The gallant old nobleman rode on: and this was the famous BATTLE OF FURRUCKABAD, or SURPRISE OF FUTTYGHUR, fought on the 17th of November, 1804.

      * * *

      About a month afterwards, the following announcement appeared in the Boggleywollah Hurkaru and other Indian papers:-

      "Married, on the 25th of December, at Futtyghur, by the Rev. Dr. Snorter, Captain Goliah O'Grady Gahagan, Commanding Irregular Horse, Ahmednuggar, to Belinda, second daughter of Major-General Bulcher, C.B. His Excellency the Commander-in-Chief gave away the bride; and, after a splendid dejeuner, the happy pair set off to pass the Mango season at Hurrygurrybang. Venus must recollect, however, that Mars must not always be at her side. The Irregulars are nothing without their leader."

      Such was the paragraph--such the event--the happiest in the existence of

      G. O'G. G., M.H.E.I.C.S., C.I.H.A.

      Footnotes:

      {1} So admirable are the performances of these watches, which will stand in any climate, that I repeatedly heard poor Macgillicuddy relate the following fact. The hours, as it is known, count in Italy from one to twenty-four: THE DAY MAC LANDED AT NAPLES HIS REPEATER RUNG THE ITALIAN HOURS, FROM ONE TO TWENTY-FOUR; as soon as he crossed the Alps it only sounded as usual.--G. O'G. G.

      {2} In my affair with Macgillicuddy, I was fool enough to go out with small swords:- miserable weapons, only fit for tailors.--G. O'G. G.

      {3} The Major certainly offered to leave an old snuff-box at Mr. Cunningham's office; but it contained no extract from a newspaper, and does not quite prove that he killed a rhinoceros and stormed fourteen entrenchments at the siege of Allyghur.

      {4} The double-jointed camel of Bactria, which the classic reader may recollect is mentioned by Suidas (in his Commentary on the Flight of Darius), is so called by the Mahrattas.

      {5} There is some trifling inconsistency on the Major's part. Shah Allum was notoriously blind: how, then, could he have seen Gahagan? The thing is manifestly impossible.

      {6} I do not wish to brag of my style of writing, or to pretend that my genius as a writer has not been equalled in former times; but if, in the works of Byron, Scott, Goethe, or Victor Hugo, the reader can find a more beautiful sentence than the above, I will be obliged to him, that is all--I simply say, I will be obliged to him.--G. O'G. G., M.H.E.I.C.S., C.I.H.A.

      {7} The Major has put the most approved language into the mouths of his Indian characters. Bismillah, Barikallah, and so on, according to the novelists, form the very essence of Eastern conversation.

       BARRY LYNDON

      FROM THE WORKS OF

      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

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