Barrington's memoirs - which is what they are usually called - are not only indispensable as sourcebooks of Irish history and society at the end of the 18th century, they are marvellously readable in themselves. Lawyer, politician, society figure, raconteur and wit, he was no heavyweight in any of those capacities, yet he played a prominent role in Irish public life about the time of the Act of Union and was a friend of Grattan, Curran and many more. Apart from his close-up sketches of these men, Barrington tells anecdote after anecdote of duelling, gambling, hard drinking (the claret orgies of the landed gentry make lurid reading), of life on the legal circuit, of witticisms and blunders (Sir Boyle Roche, the original perpetrator of Irish bulls, was an active member of the old Irish Parliament whose sessions Barrington attended). Though he belonged to the Protestant Ascendancy, he was no religious bigot and enjoyed the company of priests if they were witty and convivial; he also has a good deal to say about literary figures, including Sheridan, Moore and Lady Morgan. Barrington's prose style is loose and garrulous, and he was not in any sense a profound man, but he is a vivid chronicler of his period. As an exile in France, he saw Napoleon's return for the Hundred Days and observed at first hand the treachery of the infamous Fouche. A pity that this edition does not contain a good essay-introduction or notes.