In this paper it is not with the Shanahus whose name and avocations are associated with high and historical dignity, that we have any thing to do. Our sketches do not go very far beyond the manners of our own times; by which we mean that we paint or record nothing that is not remembered and known by those who are now living. The Shanahus we speak of is the dim and diminished reflection of him who filled a distinct calling in a period that has long gone by. The regular Shanahus--the herald and historian of individual families, the faithful genealogist of his long-descended patron--has not been in existence for at least a century and a half, perhaps two. He with whom we have to do is the humble old man who, feeling himself gifted with a strong memory for genealogical history, old family anecdotes, and legendary lore in general, passes a happy life in going from family to family, comfortably dressed and much respected--dropping in of a Saturday night without any previous notice, bringing eager curiosity and delight to the youngsters of the house he visits, and filling the sedate ears of the old with tales and legends, in which, perhaps, individuals of their own name and blood have in former ages been known to take a remarkable and conspicuous part. Indeed, there is no country in the world where, from the peculiar features of its social and political changes, the chronicles of the Shanahus would be more likely to produce such a powerful effect as in Ireland. When we consider that it was once a country of princes and chiefs, each of whom was followed and looked up to with such a spirit of feudal enthusiasm and devoted attachment as might naturally be expected from a people remarkable for the force of their affection and the power of imagination, it is not surprising that the man who, in a state of society which presented to the minds of so many nothing but the records of fallen greatness or the decay of powerful names, and the downfall of rude barbaric grandeur, together with the ruin of fanes and the prostration of religious institutions, each invested with some local or national interest--it is not surprising, we say, that such a man should be welcomed, and listened to, and honoured, with a feeling far surpassing that which was awakened by the idle jingle of a Provençal Troubadour, or the gorgeous dreams begotten by Arabian fiction. Neither the transition state of society, however, nor the scanty diffusion of knowledge among the Irish, allowed the Shanahus to produce any permanent impression upon the people; and the consequence was, that as the changes of society hurried on, he and his audience were carried along with them; his traditionary lore was lost in the ignorance which ever arises when a ban has been placed upon education; and from the recital of the high deeds and heroic feats of by-gone days, he sank down into the humble chronicler of hoary legends and dim traditions, for such only has he been within the