with wide lines, were written a set of directions to her mantua-maker, setting forth the articles of dress for which my Lady had need, the peculiarity of their make, the stuff she selected, &c.  She would make out long lists in this way, writing each article in a separate line, so as to have more space for detailing all my cruelties and her tremendous wrongs.  Between these lines she kept the journal of her captivity:  it would have made the fortune of a romance-writer in those days but to have got a copy of it, and to have published it under the title of the ’Lovely Prisoner, or the Savage Husband,’ or by some name equally taking and absurd.  The journal would be as follows:—­

. . . . . . .

’Monday.—­Yesterday I was made to go to church.  My odious, monstrous, vulgar she-dragon of A mother-in-law, in a yellow satin and red ribands, taking the first place in the coach; Mr. L. riding by its side, on the horse he never paid for to Captain Hurdlestone.  The wicked hypocrite led me to the pew, with hat in hand and a smiling countenance, and kissed my hand as I entered the coach after service, and patted my Italian greyhound—­all that the few people collected might see.  He made me come downstairs in the evening to make tea for his company; of whom three-fourths, he himself included, were, as usual, drunk.  They painted the parson’s face black, when his reverence had arrived at his seventh bottle; and at his usual insensible stage, they tied him on the grey mare with his face to the tail.  The she-dragon read the “Whole Duty of Man” all the evening till bedtime; when she saw me to my apartments, locked me in, and proceeded to wait upon her abominable son:  whom she adores for his wickedness, I should think, as Stycorax did Caliban.’

. . . . . . .

You should have seen my mother’s fury as I read her out this passage!  Indeed, I have always had a taste for a joke (that practised on the parson, as described above, is, I confess, a true bill), and used carefully to select for Mrs. Barry’s hearing all the compliments that Lady Lyndon passed upon her.  The dragon was the name by which she was known in this precious correspondence:  or sometimes she was designated by the title of the ‘Irish Witch.’  As for me, I was denominated ‘my gaoler,’ ‘my tyrant,’ ’the dark spirit which has obtained the mastery over my being,’ and so on; in terms always complimentary to my power, however little they might be so to my amiability.  Here is another extract from her ‘Prison Diary,’ by which it will be seen that my Lady, although she pretended to be so indifferent to my goings on, had a sharp woman’s eye, and could be as jealous as another:—­