264 



Mr. PETEIE'S Inquiry into the Origin and 



the caprice of the carver, but the design and execution being uniform, the 

 whole must be consigned [assigned] to a particular people and era." This 

 strange opinion, as I have shown, he endeavours to sustain by references to 

 legends in the mythology and history of the northern nations. But his evidences, 

 I have no doubt, will be deemed insufficient to sustain such a conclusion, 

 and his arguments wholly unworthy of notice. It is certainly not among the 

 northern nations of Europe, who had no stone architecture previously to their 

 conversion to Christianity, that we are to look for the prototype of a style of 

 decoration, which obviously had its origin, however moulded by local caprice, 

 in the debased architecture of Greece and Rome. 



Among the many other ornamented churches in Ireland, the styles of which 

 appear to indicate a very early antiquity, and of which we have historical 

 notices to support such antiquity, one of the most curious is the church called 

 Teampull Finghin, or Fineen's Church, at Clonmacnoise. Of this interesting 

 building a portion only remains, namely, the chancel, and a Round Tower at- 

 tached to it at its south-east junction with the nave ; but the foundations of the 

 walls of the nave may still be traced with sufficient certainty to determine its 

 original form and extent, as shown in the annexed ground-plan, made for 

 Colonel Conyngham by Monsieur Beranger in 1779, when this building was 

 less ruined than it is at present. 



The only ornamented portion of this church remaining is its chancel arch- 

 way. Its doorway, which, there can be little doubt, was ornamented in a similar 

 style, has long since disappeared ; and even of this archway, which appears 

 to have consisted originally of three concentric arches, the innermost was de- 



