Distinction in Ireland

The most prominent feature in my character, to which I may in a great measure impute all my misfortunes, is the extreme anxiety and impatience I always felt at the approach of any difficulty. To avoid an impending evil, I have formed plans so wild and extravagant, and for the most part so impracticable, that what I had before dreaded appeared light when compared with the distress I incurred by my own precipitate folly. Added to this, an impatience of all control whatsoever, and a temper always impelled to action in proportion to the resistance which it had to encounter; and it will no longer be a matter of surprise if I were continually entangled in some new and perplexing embarrassment.

When I had attained my sixteenth year, *my mother thought proper* to send me to France in order to finish 1 my education. For this purpose she assigned me a yearly allowance of nine hundred pounds, and placed me under the care of a tutor, who had been recommended to her by some persons of distinction in Ireland. He had been in the army, but his pay not corresponding with his expenses he was under the necessity of selling his commission to pay his debts, and had now taken up the profession of governor, or as it is sometimes termed bearleader, to young men of family.

He had had a good education, and profited considerably by the observations he had made abroad. His heart was good; but his constitution .had been impaired by early intempeiance; and he wanted that address and firmness ot character necessary to superintend the conduct of a young man like me, on whom opposition badly managed, or authority indiscriminately exercised, always acted as a stimulus to excess. Though he proved an indifferent Mentor, as will appear in the sequel ; yet I do not by any means wish so far to injure his memory as to lay to his charge the blame of my follies and eccentricities, which I am willing to take on my own account.