The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq. | Page 2

written, according to its
author's own words, 'with a great deal of dulness, unwillingness and labour,' and was
evidently done as the instalments were required, for in August he wrote 'read for "B. L."
all the morning at the club,' and four days later of '"B. L." lying like a nightmare on my
mind.' The journey to the East--which was to give us in literary results NOTES OF A
JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO GRAND CAIRO--was begun with BARRY
LYNDON yet unfinished, for at Malta the author noted on the first three days of
November--'Wrote Barry but slowly and with great difficulty.' 'Wrote Barry with no more
success than yesterday.' 'Finished Barry after great throes late at night.' In the number of
Fraser's for the following month, as I have said, the conclusion appeared. A dozen years
later, in 1856, the story formed the first part of the third volume of Thackeray's
MISCELLANIES, when it was called MEMOIRS OF BARRY LYNDON, ESQ.,
WRITTEN BY HIMSELF. Since then, it has nearly always been issued with other matter,
as though it were not strong enough to stand alone, or as though the importance of a work
was mainly to be gauged by the number of pages to be crowded into one cover. The
scheme of the present edition fortunately allows fitting honour to be done to the memoirs
of the great adventurer.
To come from the story as a whole to the personality of the eponymous hero. Three
widely-differing historical individuals are suggested as having contributed to the
composite portrait. Best known of these was that very prince among adventurers, G. J.
Casanova de Seingalt, a man who in the latter half of the eighteenth century played the
part of adventurer--and generally that of the successful adventurer--in most of the
European capitals; who within the first five-and-twenty years of his life had been 'abbe,
secretary to Cardinal Aquaviva, ensign, and violinist, at Rome, Constantinople, Corfu,
and his own birthplace (Venice), where he cured a senator of apoplexy.' His
autobiography, MEMOIRES ECRIT PAR LUI MEME (in twelve volumes), has been
described as 'unmatched as a self-revelation of scoundrelism.' It has also been suggested,
with I think far less colour of probability, that the original of Barry was the diplomatist
and satiric poet Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, whom Dr Johnson described as 'our lively
and elegant though too licentious lyrick bard.' The third original, and one who, there
cannot be the slightest doubt, contributed features to the great portrait, is a certain
Andrew Robinson Stoney, afterwards Stoney- Bowes.
The original of the Countess Lyndon was Mary Eleanor Bowes, Dowager Countess of
Strathmore, and heiress of a very wealthy Durham family. This lady had many suitors,
but in 1777 Stoney, a bankrupt lieutenant on half pay, who had fought a duel on her
behalf, induced her to marry him, and subsequently hyphenated her name with his own.
He became member of Parliament, and ran such extravagant courses as does Barry
Lyndon, treated his wife with similar barbarity, abducted her when she had escaped from
him, and then, after being divorced, found his way to a debtors' prison. There are
similarities here which no seeker after originals can overlook. Mrs Ritchie says that her
father had a friend at Paris, 'a Mr Bowes, who may have first told him this history of
which the details are almost incredible, as quoted from the papers of the time.' The name

of Thackeray's friend is a curious coincidence, unless, as may well have been the case, he
was a connection of the family into which the notorious adventurer had married. It is not
unlikely that Thackeray had seen the work published in 1810--the year of
Stoney-Bowes's death--in which the whole unhappy romance was set forth. This was
'THE LIVES OF ANDREW ROBINSON BOWES ESQ., and THE COUNTESS OF
STRATHMORE. Written from thirty-three years' Professional Attendance, from letters
and other well authenticated Documents by Jesse Foot, Surgeon.' In this book we find
several incidents similar to ones in the story. Bowes cut down all the timber on his wife's
estate, but 'the neighbours would not buy it.' Such practical jokes as Barry Lyndon played
upon his son's tutor were played by Bowes on his chaplain. The story of Stoney and his
marriage will be found briefly given in the notice of the Countess's life in the
DICTIONARY OF NATIONAL BIOGRAPHY.
Whence that part of the romantic interlude dealing with the stay in the Duchy of X----,
dealt with in chapter x., etc., was inspired, Thackeray's own note\books (as quoted by
Mrs Ritchie) conclusively show: 'January 4,1844. Read in a silly book called L'EMPIRE,
a good story about the first K. of Wurtemberg's wife; killed by her husband for adultery.
Frederic William, born in 1734 (?), m. in 1780 the Princess Caroline of