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Mr. Falconer was, or rather had been, a country gentleman in the north of Ireland, where his ancestors had long flourished in the midst of an attached tenantry, thankful for their residence, and proud of their merit. His father, it is true, had early in life made a trip to Bath, which occasioned a mortgage on his estate, but he brought thence a wife whose future fortunes repaired it, and he determined in consequence of this error, to bring up this his only son at home, and so imbue his mind with the love of his country, so satisfy his desire of pleasure by the indulgences he would procure him, that the mania of spending his estate in England, which was even then a very prevalent one, should never affect the head of his beloved Carlos.

Year after year passed on, and the cares of parental solicitude appeared to attain their object. The youth became unrivalled as a sportsman, seldom sighed even for a winter in Dublin, and had the further merit of entering with the utmost ardour into the various schemes for bettering his estates, which now employed the riper years of his father—so that what with following hounds, or birds; raising fences, or destroying them, draining bogs, irrigating commons, clearing rough land, cultivating meadows, feeding cattle, netting fish, dancing at balls of all kinds, riding to meetings of all descriptions,—aiding his father to entertain the gentlemen, and his mother to amuse the ladies; Carlos was fully employed, and although he always "kept moving," in a more extended sense,