the centuries, into which this Essay is next to travel, to be here antici- 

 pated, what an appalling rush of rapine would be presented ! 



It would be trifling with the time of our readers, were we to em- 

 plo}^ much of ours, in illustrating the architectural beauty that may be 

 displayed in edifices without stone or brick. 



The rustic architecture of wood, was general throughout Greece. 

 The Royal Palace of Zengis was of wood, and that of the destroyer of 

 the Roman Empire, (Attila,) was of the same material, but built with 

 a magnificence of which we can form no idea. It covered an imrnense 

 space of ground, comprehending towers and a great variety of edifices, 

 columns of carved and polished timber, &c. The houses of the Huns 

 were of wood, and structures are numerous at this day in those very 

 countries, with whose customs and habits Ireland in her infant days 

 should have most naturally associated. Timber fabrics were in truth 

 the models that it was sought to imitate in stone or marble, and from 

 the simple originals of ornamental woodwork, the most complicated 

 forms of gothic architecture have been fashioned,* But none should 

 expect that such edifices could survive the revolutions of time — of 

 manners — of Ireland ! Where are the buildings that were erected by 

 the Phoenicians in Majorca, Minorca, Malta, Spain, &c. ? Not a 

 vestige of them remains. Where "the ingenious cottages of cane or 

 reeds interwoven," used by the Egyptians-f- in the early ages .'* 

 Where those rustic temples and primitive erections of Grecian archi- 

 tecture, from whose accidental combinations the numerous ornaments 

 of that beautiful style have been derived ? Where those " creberrima 

 aedificia fere Gallicis consimilia, " those " casae quee more Gallico 

 stramentis erant tectae,"^ which Cajsar saw in Britain ? Where 



• See Edinb. Philos. Trans, vol. 4. f Laugbton's Ancient Egypt, p. 65. 



+ De Bell. Gall. lib. 6. 



