nches
in stature, and commensurate muscular increase of power, would in former
times have raised the "heir-apparent" to the dignity of the Irish
throne. But these abstruse speculations have led us from our history,
which we must now resume.

Whatever may once have been the importance of the house of O'Donahue,
one thing is certain, that there are many ups and downs in this world;
every family in it has its wheel of fortune, which revolves faster or
slower as the fates decree, and the descendant of kings before the
O'Connor's time was now descended into a species of Viceroy, Squireen
O'Donahue being the steward of certain wild estates in the county of
Galway, belonging to a family who for many years had shown a decided
aversion to the natural beauties of the country, and had thought proper
to migrate to where, if people were not so much attached to them, they
were at all events more civilised. These estates were extensive, but
not lucrative. They abounded in rocks, brushwood, and woodcocks during
the season; and although the Squireen O'Donahue did his best, if not for
his employer, at least for himself; it was with some difficulty that he
contrived to support, with anything like respectability (which in that
part of the country means "dacent clothes to wear"), a very numerous
family, lineally descended from the most ancient of all the kings of
Ireland.

Before the squireen had obtained his employment, he had sunk his rank
and travelled much--as a courier--thereby gaining much knowledge of the
world. If, therefore, he had no wealth to leave his children, at all
events he could impart to them that knowledge which is said to be better
than worldly possessions. Having three sons and eight daughters, all of
them growing up healthy and strong, with commensurate appetites, he soon
found that it was necessary to get rid of them as fast as he could. His
eldest, who, strange to say, for an O'Donahue, was a quiet lad, he had
as a favour lent to his brother, who kept a small tobacconist and
grocer's shop in Dublin, and his brother was so fond of him, that
eventually O'Carroll O'Donahue was bound to him as an apprentice. It
certainly was a degradation for the descendant of such ancient kings to
be weighing out pennyworths of sugar, and supplying halfpenny papers of
tobacco to the old apple and fish women; but still there we must leave
the heir-apparent while we turn to the second son, Mr Patrick
O'Donahue, whose history we a