182i).] ' The City oj'llie Seven Churches. 177 



that previous to the English invasion the Church of Ireland was primi- 

 tive, and independent ; she acknowledged no foreign supremacy, spiri- 

 tual or temporal, her bishops were nominated by domestic suffrage, and 

 the pious and learned were glad to fly from the anarchy of Europe, to 

 the peaceful retirement of the Island of Saints. Pray have you ever 

 heard of Sir William Betham, Ulster King of Arms ? — take my advice, 

 and read his Essays on Irish Antiquities ; don't puzzle yourself with 

 the rhapsodies of bards, or the solemn Baalam of fabulous annalists, lay 

 or ecclesiastical, but take information from a dispassionate writer (and 

 he an Englishman), who has made the study of antiquity his profession, 

 and you may find that the ancient Irish were wiser than you take them 

 to have been, notwithstanding the follies and vices of some of their 

 descendants in modern times. A propos, I warn you that there are 

 impostors abroad; and that a good half of those who now-a-days figure 

 as the " sons of Irish kings," have no more claim to the title than you 

 have, who, for aught I know to the contrary, may be a hereditary 

 cockney. 



The city of the Seven Churches is indeed a " city of the dead ;" its 

 pastoral warriors and sages are gathered to their fathers, their far-off 

 history is lost in the dimness of antiquity, their very name is an apple 

 of discord among antiquarians, and nature has resumed the domain 

 which they held at her hands. The eternal mountains are there, 

 unchanged, unchangeable ; the deep blue lake still sleeps in the silent 

 valley ; and the bright swift stream, that flowed past the ancient city, 

 still slakes the thirst of thoughtful idlers, like myself, who moralize 

 among its ruins. JMethinks there is something in this silent triumph 

 over all we love — this decay, and death, and oblivion of all we have 

 fondly devoted to immortality, that reads a deeper lesson to the heart 

 than a thousand homilies. 



In the centre of the valley rises one of those tall, pillar-like towers, 

 which have baffled the dark industry of our most indefatigable antiqua- 

 rians (mind, I do not include the ignorant Ledwich among the num- 

 ber*). Though inferior in l^eight to many that I have seen, it adds 

 much to the picturesque character of the scene : it speaks of a race 

 utterly gone by, of manners and of a religion which the depths of time 

 have buried for ever ; we stand upon the brink of the gulf, and cast our 

 little nets into the deep waters, but we draw up no memorials of its 

 primeval architects — we might as well fish for elliptic springs, and 

 chariot wheels, in the Red Sea. For my part, I like to see this con- 

 founding of the wise in their own conceit — this stumbling of the race 

 who for ever look back, while they walk forward ; the study of the 

 past, when applied to the instruction and improvement of the present, 

 is eminently useful, but I would not give a fig to know who rotted in 

 the great pyramid. I leave the survey of the Garden of Eden to more 

 imaginative engineers. I shall never hunt for the timbers of the diluvian 

 first-rate (I disclaim the pun) among the snows of Ararat. I am not to 

 be found among the busy purblind pack, who would unearth old Time, 

 and run down Antiquity as if she were a fox. 



At the same time, I confess a strong — I had almost said a super- 



This poor old gentleman, who did not know one word of the Irish languagp, wrote 



three d- d square hoolcs (one in his own name, tlic others in (irose's) on Irish Anti- 



gutties, in which, secundum ariem, he is very severe upon all wlio happen to be wiser tlian 

 himwlf. 



M.M. Xrw Serics-.— Vou. VIII. No. 44. 2 A 



