Excerpt from A Memoir of Michael William Balfe Street, Dublin. It is often said that distinguished men derive their intellectual gifts rather from the mother than the father: but Balfe's mother, whose maiden name was Ryan, seems to have been no other wise remarkable than for the beauty of her person, which is said to have been of the most striking kind. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.