into many novels,--into too many, no doubt,--but I have always felt
myself deprived of a legitimate joy when the nature of the tale has
not allowed me a hunting chapter. Perhaps that which gave me the
greatest delight was the description of a run on a horse accidentally
taken from another sportsman--a circumstance which occurred to my
dear friend Charles Buxton, who will be remembered as one of the
members for Surrey.

It was altogether a very jolly life that I led in Ireland. I
was always moving about, and soon found myself to be in pecuniary
circumstances which were opulent in comparison with those of my
past life. The Irish people did not murder me, nor did they even
break my head. I soon found them to be good-humoured, clever--the
working classes very much more intelligent than those of
England--economical, and hospitable. We hear much of their spendthrift
nature; but extravagance is not the nature of an Irishman. He
will count the shillings in a pound much more accurately than an
Englishman, and will with much more certainty get twelve pennyworth
from each. But they are perverse, irrational, and but little bound
by the love of truth. I lived for many years among them--not finally
leaving the country until 1859, and I had the means of studying
their character.

I had not been a fortnight in Ireland before I was sent down to a
little town in the far west of county Galway, to balance a defaulting
postmaster's accounts, find out how much he owed, and report upon
his capacity to pay. In these days such accounts are very simple.
They adjust themselves from day to day, and a Post Office surveyor
has nothing to do with them. At that time, though the sums dealt
with were small, the forms of dealing with them were very intricate.