I never kept any beggarly books of accounts in those days.  I had no debts.  I paid royally for everything I took; and I took everything I wanted.  My income must have been very large.  My entertainments and equipages were those of a gentleman of the highest distinction; nor let any scoundrel presume to sneer because I carried off and married my Lady Lyndon (as you shall presently hear), and call me an adventurer, or say I was penniless, or the match unequal.  Penniless!  I had the wealth of Europe at my command.  Adventurer!  So is a meritorious lawyer or a gallant soldier; so is every man who makes his own fortune an adventurer.  My profession was play:  in which I was then unrivalled.  No man could play with me through Europe, on the square; and my income was just as certain (during health and the exercise of my profession) as that of a man who draws on his Three-per-cents., or any fat squire whose acres bring him revenue.  Harvest is not more certain than the effect of skill is:  a crop is a chance, as much as a game of cards greatly played by a fine player:  there may be a drought, or a frost, or a hail-storm, and your stake is lost; but one man is just as much an adventurer as another.

In evoking the recollection of these kind and fair creatures I have nothing but pleasure.  I would I could say as much of the memory of another lady, who will henceforth play a considerable part in the drama of my life,—­I mean the Countess of Lyndon; whose fatal acquaintance I made at Spa, very soon after the events described in the last chapter had caused me to quit Germany.

Honoria, Countess of Lyndon, Viscountess Bullingdon in England, Baroness Castle Lyndon of the kingdom of Ireland, was so well known to the great world in her day, that I have little need to enter into her family history; which is to be had in any peerage that the reader may lay his hand on.  She was, as I need not say, a countess, viscountess, and baroness in her own right.  Her estates in Devon and Cornwall were among the most extensive in those parts; her Irish possessions not less magnificent; and they have been alluded to, in a very early part of these Memoirs, as lying near to my own paternal property in the kingdom of Ireland:  indeed, unjust confiscations in the time of Elizabeth and her father went to diminish my acres, while they added to the already vast possessions of the Lyndon family.

The Countess, when I first saw her at the assembly at Spa, was the wife of her cousin, the Right Honourable Sir Charles Reginald Lyndon, Knight of the Bath, and Minister to George II. and George iii. at several of the smaller Courts of Europe.  Sir Charles Lyndon was celebrated as a wit and bon vivant:  he could write love-verses against Hanbury Williams, and make jokes with George Selwyn; he was a man of vertu like Harry Walpole, with whom and Mr. Grey he had made a part of the grand tour; and was cited, in a word, as one of the most elegant and accomplished men of his time.