That I denied; mentioning several instances in which I had conquered the most intractable tempers among the sex.

’They will beat you in the long run, my Tipperary Alcibiades.  As soon as you are married, take my word of it, you are conquered.  Look at me.  I married my cousin, the noblest and greatest heiress in England—­married her in spite of herself almost’ (here a dark shade passed over Sir Charles Lyndon’s countenance).  ’She is a weak woman.  You shall see her, sir, how weak she is; but she is my mistress.  She has embittered my whole life.  She is a fool; but she has got the better of one of the best heads in Christendom.  She is enormously rich; but somehow I have never been so poor as since I married her.  I thought to better myself; and she has made me miserable and killed me.  And she will do as much for my successor, when I am gone.’

‘Has her Ladyship a very large income?’ said I. At which Sir Charles burst out into a yelling laugh, and made me blush not a little at my gaucherie; for the fact is, seeing him in the condition in which he was, I could not help speculating upon the chance a man of spirit might have with his widow.

‘No, no!’ said he, laughing.  ’Waugh hawk, Mr. Barry; don’t think, if you value your peace of mind, to stand in my shoes when they are vacant.  Besides, I don’t think my Lady Lyndon would quite condescend to marry a’——­

‘Marry a what, sir?’ said I, in a rage.

“Never mind what:  but the man who gets her will rue it, take my word on’t.  A plague on her! had it not been for my father’s ambition and mine (he was her uncle and guardian, and we wouldn’t let such a prize out of the family), I might have died peaceably, at least; carried my gout down to my grave in quiet, lived in my modest tenement in Mayfair, had every house in England open to me; and now, now I have six of my own, and every one of them is a hell to me.  Beware of greatness, Mr. Barry.  Take warning by me.  Ever since I have been married and have been rich, I have been the most miserable wretch in the world.  Look at me.  I am dying a worn-out cripple at the age of fifty.  Marriage has added forty years to my life.  When I took off Lady Lyndon, there was no man of my years who looked so young as myself.  Fool that I was!  I had enough with my pensions, perfect freedom, the best society in Europe; and I gave up all these, and married, and was miserable.  Take a warning by me, Captain Barry, and stick to the trumps.”

Though my intimacy with the knight was considerable, for a long time I never penetrated into any other apartments of his hotel but those which he himself occupied.  His lady lived entirely apart from him; and it is only curious how they came to travel together at all.  She was a goddaughter of old Mary Wortley Montagu:  and, like that famous old woman of the last century, made considerable pretensions to be a blue-stocking and a bel esprit.  Lady Lyndon wrote