upon, that there actually is a residence named Red Hall in my own native
county of Tyrone. I mention this, lest the respectable family to whom it
belongs might take offence at my having made it the ancestral property
of such a man as Sir Thomas Gourlay, or the scene of his crimes and
outrages. On this point, I beg to assure them that the coincidence of
the name is purely accidental, and that, when I wrote the novel, I had
not the slightest notion that such a place actually existed. Some of
those coincidences are very odd and curious. For instance, it so happens
that there is at this moment a man named Dunphy actually residing on
Constitution Hill, and engaged in the very same line of life which I
have assigned to one of my principal characters of that name in the
novel, that of a huckster; yet of this circumstance I knew nothing. The
titles of Cullamore and Dunroe are taken from two hills, one greater
than the other, and not far asunder, in my native parish; and I have
heard it said, by the people of that neighborhood, that Sir William
Richardson, father to the late amiable Sir James Richardson Bunbury,
when expecting at the period of the Union to receive a coronet instead
of a baronetcy, had made his mind up to select either one or the other
of them as the designation of his rank.

I think I need scarcely assure my readers that old Sam Roberts, the
retired soldier, is drawn from life; and I may add, that I have scarcely
done the fine old fellow and his fine old wife sufficient justice. They
were two of the most amiable and striking originals I ever met. Both
are now dead, but I remember Sam to have been for many years engaged in
teaching the sword exercise in some of the leading schools in and about
Dublin. He ultimately gave this up, however, having been appointed to
some comfortable situation in the then Foundling Hospital, where his
Beck died, and he, poor fellow, did not, I have heard, long survive her.