Dick Sheridan, though not a well-bred person, was as amusing and ingenious a table-companion as ever I met; and though during Mr.Edmund Burke's interminable speeches in the English House I used always to go to sleep, I yet have heard from well-informed parties that Mr.Burke was a person of considerable abilities, and even reputed to be eloquent in his more favourable moments.
I soon began to enjoy to the full extent the pleasures that the wretched place affords, and which were within a gentleman's reach: Ranelagh and the Ridotto; Mr.Mossop, at Crow Street; my Lord Lieutenant's parties, where there was a great deal too much boozing, and too little play, to suit a person of my elegant and refined habits.

'Daly's Coffee-house,' and the houses of the nobility, were soon open to me; and I remarked with astonishment in the higher circles, what I had experienced in the lower on my first unhappy visit to Dublin, an extraordinary want of money, and a preposterous deal of promissory notes flying about, for which I was quite unwilling to stake my guineas.

The ladies, too, were mad for play; but exceeding unwilling to pay when they lost.

Thus, when the old Countess of Trumpington lost ten pieces to me at quadrille, she gave me, instead of the money, her Ladyship's note of hand on her agent in Galway; which I put, with a great deal of politeness, into the candle.

But when the Countess made me a second proposition to play, I said that as soon as her Ladyship's remittances were arrived, I would be the readiest person to meet her; but till then was her very humble servant.