The favour with which the public received ‘Charles O’Malley,’ and the pleasant notices forwarded to me by my publisher, gave me great courage; and when asked if I could be ready by a certain date with a new story, I never hesitated to say Yes. My first thought was that in the campaign of the Great Napoleon I might find what would serve as a “pendant” to the story I had just completed, and that by making--as there would be no impropriety in doing--an Irishman a soldier of France, I could still have on my side certain sympathies of my reader which would not so readily attach to a foreigner. I surrounded myself at once with all the histories and memoirs I could find of the Consulate and the Empire; and, so far as I could, withdrew my mind from questions of home interest, and lived entirely amidst the mighty events that began at Marengo and ended at Waterloo. Whether I failed to devise such a narrative as I needed, or whether--and I suspect this must have been the real reason--I found that the vast-ness of the theme overpowered me, I cannot at this distance of time remember. But so it was, that I found much time had slipped over, and that beyond some few notes and some scattered references, I had actually done nothing; and my publisher had applied to me for the title of my story for advertisement before I had begun or written a line of it. Some disparaging remarks on Ireland and Irishmen in the London press, not very unfrequent at the time, nor altogether obsolete now, had provoked me at the moment; and the sudden thought occurred of a reprisal by showing the many instances in which the Englishman would almost of necessity mistake and misjudge my countrymen, and that out of these blunders and misapprehensions, situations might arise that, if welded into a story, might be made to be amusing. I knew that there was not a class nor a condition in Ireland which had not marked differences from the correlative rank in England; and that not only the Irish squire, the Irish priest, and the Irish peasant were unlike anything in the larger island, but that the Dublin professional man, the official, and the shopkeeper, had traits and distinctions essentially their own. I had frequently heard opinions pronounced on Irish habits which I had easily traced to that quizzing habit of my countrymen, who never can deny themselves the enjoyment of playing on the credulity of the traveller,--all the more eagerly when they see his note-book taken out to record their shortcomings and absurdities. These thoughts suggested ‘Jack Hinton,’ and led me to turn from my intention to follow the French arms, or rather to postpone the plan, for it had got too strong a hold on me to be utterly abandoned. I have already acknowledged that I strayed from the path I had determined on, and, with very little reference to my original intention, suffered my hero to take his chance among the natives. Indeed I soon found him too intensely engaged in the