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to show, with the exception of Scotland, what Brittany, Wales, 

 or Cornwall had contributed to it. They imitated Irish art, and, 

 as Dr. Anderson, of Edinburgh Museum, said, they had 

 specimens of Celtic art, but a great deal of that art was Irish. 

 With regard to what the characteristics of Irish art were, it 

 should be pointed out that it was what would be called simple 

 with regard to work. That was what might be given as the 

 first origin of Irish art, so to speak, which was afterwards 

 developed into what was called "opus hibernicum" and "opus 

 reticulum," The first characteristic of it was the absence of leaf 

 ornament — a curious thing. In this form of pure Irish art 

 there was no such thing as leaf ornamentation. There was 

 certainly something like a trefoil, but that was an exceptional 

 thing, and could hardly be spoken of as leaf ornamentation. 

 The second characteristic was its infinite variety. It would be 

 seen that the surfaces of these specimens of Irish art were cut 

 into very small panels, and these were so varied in shape and 

 form that no two of them would be found to be alike; they had 

 then in addition the infinite variety of the patterns in those 

 panels. The third characteristic was the extraordinary detail 

 and elaboration of detail in these kinds of Irish ornaments, 

 which Westwood and other writers stated had especially attracted 

 their attention. A remarkable thing was that in the space of 

 three-quarters to half an inch there was to be counted 158 lines 

 — all within that narrow space—not simply parallel, but crossing 

 each other in interlaced work ; and no matter how magnified by 

 modern appliances, it would be seen that in the superior kind of 

 Irish art there would not be a single line missing. It had been 

 said at times that this Irish system of ornamentation came to 

 Ireland from Byzantium and Dr. Rock in a work of his said it 

 came to Ireland from England and that England used to send 

 over beautiful manuscripts, which the Irish could not use, 

 stupid people that they were. That book was published forty 

 years ago, and it was to be hoped that the editor of the new 

 edition would change all that, because it was very false. West- 

 wood, speaking of the Book of Kells, stated that he counted in 



