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nation the intelligence caused on every side is impossible; nothing in history equals it, except, perhaps the entrance of the French army into Moscow, deserted and forsaken by its former inhabitants. While terror and dismay, therefore, spread amid that wide and respectable body who formed O’Malley’s creditors, the preparations for his funeral were going on with every rapidity—relays of horses were ordered at every stage of the journey; and it was announced that, in testimony of his worth, a large party of his friends were to accompany his remains to Portumna Abbey—a test much more indicative of resistance in the event of any attempt to arrest the body, than of anything like reverence for their departed friend.

Such was the state of matters in Dublin, when a letter reached me one morning at O’Malley Castle, whose contents will at once explain the writer’s intention, and also serve to introduce my unworthy self to my reader, It ran thus :—

“Dear Charley,—“Your uncle Godfrey, whose debts [God pardon him] are more numerous than the hairs of his wig, was obliged to die here last night. We did the thing for him completely; and all doubts as to the reality of the event are silenced by the circumstantial detail of the newspaper ‘that he was confined six weeks to his bed, from a cold he caught ten days ago while on guard.’ Repeat this, for it’s better we had all the same story, till he comes to life again, which, maybe, will not take place before Tuesday or Wednesday. At the same time, canvass the county for him, and say he’ll be with his friends next week, and up in Woodford, and the Scariff barony: say he died a true Catholic; it will serve him on the hustings, Meet us in Athlone on Saturday, and bring your uncle’s mare with you—he says he’d rather ride home; and tall Father MacShane to have a bit of dinner ready about four o’clock, for the corpse can get nothing after he leaves Mountmellick,—No more now, from yours, ever.

“Harry Boyle.
“Daly’s, about eight in the evening.

“To Charles O’Malley, Esq.,
“O’Malley Castle, Galway.”

When this not over-clear document reached me, I was the sole inhabitant of O’Malley Castle, a very ruinous pile of incongruous masonry, that stood in a wild and dreary part of the county of Galway, borderiug on the Shannon. On every side stretched the property of my uncle, or at least what had once been so; and, indeed, so numerous were its present claimants that he would have been a subtle lawyer who could have pronounced upon the rightful owner. The demesne around the castle contained some well-grown and handsome timber, and, as the soil was undulating and fertile, presented many features of beauty; beyond it all was sterile beak, and barren. Long tracts of brown heath-clad mountain, or not less unprofitable valleys of tall and waving fern, were all that the eye could discern, except where the broad Shannon, expanding into a tranquil and glassy lake, lay still and motionless beneath the dark mountains; a few islands, with some