The attention of the Reader is particularly directed to

the Preface.

IRISH LIFE.

IN

THE CASTLE, THE COURTS, AND THE

COUNTRY.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

Good Company's a Chess-board- There are Kings,
Queens, Bishops, Knights, Rooks, Pawns,-The World's a Game;
Save that the Puppets poll at their own strings,
Methinks gay Punch bath sumething of the same.

Don Juan.

VOL. I.

LONDON:
HOW AND PARSONS, 132, FLEET-STREET.

1840.

LONDON: PRINTBD BY MANNING AND MASON,

IVY-LANE, PATER KOSTER-ROW.

PREFACE.

As to the writer of fiction is universally accorded the right of ransacking the venerable repositories of the past, and of selecting from their range whatever particular portion of it he pleases whereupon to erect the edifice of his imaginary history, together with a license founded on custom and established by prescription, of transferring from one age to another those characters he may choose — having invested them with sufficient concealment for his purpose-to bring again upon the scene, and marshal as his own creations, without any regard to the chronological order of their appearance, or any regular observance as to the exact period of their existence, frequently ex