Barry Lyndon—far from the best known, but by some critics
acclaimed as the finest, of Thackeray's works—appeared originally
as a serial a few years before VANITY FAIR was written; yet it was
not published in book form, and then not by itself, until after the
publication of VANITY FAIR, PENDENNIS, ESMOND and THE NEWCOMES had
placed its author in the forefront of the literary men of the day.
So many years after the event we cannot help wondering why the
story was not earlier put in book form; for in its delineation of
the character of an adventurer it is as great as VANITY FAIR, while
for the local colour of history, if I may put it so, it is no
undistinguished precursor of ESMOND.
In the number of FRASER'S MAGAZINE for January 1844 appeared
the first instalment of 'THE LUCK OF BARRY LYNDON, ESQ., A ROMANCE
OF THE LAST CENTURY, by FitzBoodle,' and the story continued to
appear month by month—with the exception of October—up to the end
of the year, when the concluding portion was signed 'G. S.
FitzBoodle.' FITZBOODLE'S CONFESSIONS, it should be added, had
appeared occasionally in the magazine during the years immediately
precedent, so that the pseudonym was familiar to FRASER'S readers.
The story was 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 Brunswick Wolfenbuttel,
who died the 27th September 1788. For the rest of the story see
L'EMPIRE, OU DIX ANS SOUS NAPOLEON, PAR UN CHAMBELLAN: Paris,
Allardin, 1836; vol. i. 220.' The 'Captain Freny' to whom Barry
owed his adventures on his journey to Dublin (chapter iii.) was a
notorious highwayman, on whose doings Thackeray had enlarged in the
fifteenth chapter of his IRISH SKETCH BOOK.
Despite the slowness with which it was written, and the
seeming neglect with which it was permitted to remain unreprinted,
BARRY LYNDON was to be hailed by competent critics as one of
Thackeray's finest performances, though the author himself seems to
have had no strong regard for the story. His daughter has recorded,
'My father once said to me when I was a girl: "You needn't read
BARRY LYNDON, you won't like it." Indeed, it is scarcely a book to
LIKE, but one to admire and to wonder at for its consummate power
and mastery.' Another novelist, Anthony Trollope, has said of it:
'In imagination, language, construction, and general literary
capacity, Thackeray never did anything more remarkable than BARRY
LYNDON.' Mr Leslie Stephen says: 'All later critics have recognised
in this book one of his most powerful performances. In directness
and vigour he never surpassed it.'
W.J.