To this hour the two localities,—whereon the Tuath-de-danaans had fought their two decisive battles with theFir-Bolgs, their immediate predecessors in the occupation of this island,—one near Lough Mask, in the county Galway, and the other near Lough Arran, in the county Roscommon, are called by the name ofMoy-tura, or more correctly, in Irish,Moye-tureadh!
The meaning of this compound, beyond the possibility of disputation, isThe field of the Towers! And when in both those places are still traced the ruins of such edifices, are we not inevitably forced to connect, as well theirerectionas the imposition of thename, with the fortunes or with the feelings of some side of the above combatants?
You will say, then, that theFir-Bolgswere as likely to have originated the name, and built those structures upon the site, inrelianceupontheirdivinities, as that theTuath-de-danaansshould have been the authors ingratitude to theirs?
Our only mode, therefore, is to consider the vestiges of their respective religions: and when we perceive that in the isles of Aran, whither the Fir-Bolgs betook themselves after theirfirstdefeat, for the periodintervening between those two battles, commemorated by the above name, there appears not avestigeof architectural masonry approaching in character to aColumnar temple, while, on the contrary, they abound in specimens ofDruidicalveneration, is it not evident that they, at all events, have no claim thereto?
The worship, therefore, of the Fir-Bolgs differed altogether from that of the Tuath-de-danaans, and sotheyare excluded from those immortal memorials. Indeed the avidity with which they hailed the approach of a new conqueror, and tendered him their assistance for the reduction of the island, arose not so much from any fondly-cherished hope of their being themselves restored to the throne they had lost, or even allowed therein a participation, as from an illiberal aversion to the emblematic ritual of their temple-serving superiors, which their ignorant prejudices could not allow them to appreciate!
We are warranted, then, I presume, in assigning solely to the Tuath-de-danaans the affixing of the nameMoy-tureadhto thosetwo scenes of their success. And did there even adoubtremain on the mind of the most incredulous as to the accuracy of the inference, or the correctness of that reasoning, which would identify this people with the erectionsin generalof those rotundities, it will hide its diminished head, and vanish with self-abasement, when I bring forward the testimony of Amergin, brother to Heremon and, Heber,—the immediate victors of this religious order—in the following graphic and pictorial treasure, as still religiously preserved in the Book of Leccan, viz.:—
“Aonoch righ TeambrachTeamorTur TuatachTuath Mac MiledhMiledh Long Libearne.”
That is—
Noble is the King of Teamor,Teamor theTuathan Tower,Tuaths were the sons of Miledh,Miledh of the Libearn vessels.
Here, then,—a circumstance which I cannot imagine how it could have escaped all before me!—we have this disputed question at length settled, and incontrovertibly adjudicated by the very head ofthat bodywhich Montmorency had assured us never alluded to those edifices as a subject of national boast—I mean theBards. For, whether we admit this Amergin to have been the person above described,[438]the actual contemporary and successor of the Tuatha-de-danaans, or as the other of that name who belongs to the Christian age, and the time of St. Patrick, the supposition is equally valid, to prove the existence of those structures anterior totheirrespective eras! and the ascription in either case remains unshaken and irrefragable, which in the wordTuathan Towerunites theTowererectors with the colony of theTuatha!
My opponents may now demolish, if they can, all my foregoing deductions, as speedily as they please,—nay, did the destructiveness of fire, or other untoward accident, deprive me of the deductions of my preceding labours, tothis one stanzawould I cling, as the palladium of my truth; to this landmark would I adhere as my “ne plus ultra” against error, in its encroachments upon history![439]
In the whole catalogue of Irish deposits, there exists not one of more intrinsic value to the lover of antiquities, so far as the right settlement of history is concerned, than what those four lines present. For, in the first place, we learn that the celebrity of Teamor[440]arose not from any gorgeous suit of palaces of a castellated outline. Its renown consisted in being the central convention for religious celebration to all the distant provincials once in every year; who, after attending the games in the adjoining district ofTailtine, now Telltown, adjourned, for legislative deliberations, to the Hill of Tarah, where they propounded their plans, not within the confined enclosures of any measured dome, but under the open canopy of the expanded firmament.
Teamor, then, was not a palace at all, but one of the Round Towers, or Budhist Temples, belonging to the Tuath-de-danaans; and this is further proved by the result of researches, made to explore the foundation of an edifice, confirmatory of a regal mansion, having all ended in the most confutingdisappointment—no vestiges could be found save those of the Round Tower!
The importance which attaches to theTailtinegames above noticed, makes it necessary that I should bestow upon them something more than a cursory glance. Let me, therefore, first state what other writers have said respecting them.
“We attribute,” says Abbé Mac Geoghegan, “to Lugha Lamh Fada, one of their ancient kings, the institution of military exercises at Tailton in Meath; those exercises consisted in wrestling, the combats of gladiators, tournaments, races on foot and on horseback, as we have seen them instituted at Rome a long time after by Romulus, in honour of Mars, which were called ‘Equitia.’ These games at Tailton, which Gratianus Lucius and O’Flaherty call ‘ludi Taltini,’ were celebrated every year, during thirty days, that is, fifteen days before, and fifteen days after, the first of our month of August. On that account, the first of August has been, and is still called in Ireland, ‘Lah Lugh-Nasa,’ which signifies a day in memory of Lugha. These olympiads always continued amongst the Milesians until the arrival of the English. We discover to this day some vestiges of them, without any other change than that of time and place. Wrestling, which we call in France ‘le tour du Breton,’ the exercises of gladiators, and races on foot, are still on festival days their common diversion in various districts of Ireland, and the conquerors generally receive a prize.”
“Tailtean,” says Seward, “a place in the county of Meath, where the Druids sacrificed in honour of thesunandmoon, andheavenandearth, on the first of August, being the fifth revolution of the moonfrom the vernal equinox. At this time the states assembled, and young people were given in marriage, according to the custom of the eastern nations. Games were also instituted, resembling the Olympic games of the Greeks, and held fifteen days before and fifteen days after the first of August. This festival was frequently denominated Lughaid Naoislean, or the Matrimonial Assembly.”
“This chapter,” says Vallancey, “might have been lengthened many pages, with the description and etymology of the various ornaments of female dress, but enough has been said to convince the reader that the ancient Irish brought with them the Asiatic dress and ornaments of their ancestors, for they could not have borrowed these names of Spaniards, Britons, Danes, or Norwegians.
“Thus dressed and ornamented, the youthful females of Ireland appeared atTailetan, or the mysteries of the sun, on the first day of August in each year, when the ceremony of the marriage of the sun and moon took place, and the females were exposed to enamour the swains. The day still retains the name ofLuc-nasa, or the Anniversary of the Sun. And the name of the month of August, in Sanscrit, is Lukie, whom they make the wife of Veeshnu, the preserver and goddess of plenty. So the Irish poets have made this festival, named Lucaid-lamh-fada,i.e.the Festival of Love, the consecration of hands, to be the feast of Luigh-lamh-fada, or Luigh-longumans, to whom they have given Tailte for wife, who, after his death, was married to Duach.”
“The Taltenean sports,” says Sir James Ware, “have been much celebrated by the Irish historians. They were a sort of warlike exercises, something resembling the Olympic games, consisting of racing,tilts, tournaments, or something like them, and other exercises. They were held every year at Talten, a mountain in Meath, for fifteen days before and fifteen days after the first of August. Their first institution is ascribed to Lugaid-lam-fadhe, the twelfth King of Ireland, who began his reignA.M.2764, in gratitude to the memory of Tailte, the daughter of Magh Mor, a prince of some part of Spain, who, having been married to Eochaid, King of Ireland, took this Lugaidh under her protection, and had the care of his education in his minority. From this lady both the sports and the place where they were celebrated took their names. From King Lugaidh the first of August was called Lugnasa, or the memory of Lugaidh, nasa signifying memory in Irish.”
The truth is, that those games were calledTailtine(whence the EnglishTilts), and the placeTailton, fromTailte, which, in our language, signifies a wife; and the sports, there exhibited, made but a representation of the victory which Budha gained overMara, the great tempter, who had attacked him on the day of his attaining to perfection, with an innumerable host of demons. The conflict is said to have lasted for fifteen days, at the end of which Budha reduced them to submission, and to the acknowledgment of his pretensions as the Son of God.
Thebattle-scenes, therefore, with which theTuath-de-danaan crosses and obelisks are decorated, bear reference, all of them, to this religious achievement: and to this hour you will find those identical games celebrated in various parts of the east, and for the same number of days! In Egypt, also, there was a place called Tailtal,[441]and named from the same cause. Nay,the name of the Eleusinian mysteries wasTailtine! but this the Greeks not comprehending, they bent it, as usual, to some conformity to their own language, and madeTeletaiof it! and then they were at no loss in making areasonfor it in like manner, namely, that no one could befinisheduntilinitiatedtherein!
But it is not alone as assigning those edifices to their real proprietors that this “stanza” is of value; but as giving us an insight into that mysterious personage whom our modern chroniclers would fain represent as the father of Heber and Heremon. A greater error, whether voluntary or accidental, was never incurred. Heber and Heremon were the sons of Gallamh, and invaded this island at the head of a Scythian colony,[442]distinct in all respects, save that of language,[443]from their Tuathan predecessors.
These predecessors were headed by three brothers, Brien, Iuchordba, and Iuchor, the sons of King Miledh, a Fo-morian, by a queen of the Tuath-de-danaan race, agreeably to this record in the Book of Leccan, viz.:—
“D’Hine fineFo-moradosomh de shaorbh a athor, agus doTuathabh Dadananna mhathar”—that is, the father was of the race of the Fo-morians, and the mother a Tuath-de-danaan.
Again, in the Seabright Collection, this genealogy is prosecuted further, and from it, General Vallancey translates some lines, which are by no means irrelevant, as follows, viz.: “Cuill, Ceacht, and Grian,were the children of little Touraine—and their descendants, Uar, Jurca, Jurcatha; and from Uar was descendedBrian, who was named Touran; and many others not here enumerated.”
But the history of those events having been destroyed by time, the degeneratePheeleas, wishing to flatter the vanity of the existing powers, did not hesitate to ascribe to theScythian, ormodernIrish, followers of Heber and Heremon, those brilliant features of primeval immortality which appertained exclusively to the Irish of another day—the Hyperborean or Iranian Irish!
The Tuath-de-danaans having been proved the authors of the Round Towers, my ambition in the investigation is already attained. But since we are told, that this people had claimed possession of the island as inheritors of an antecedent and preoccupying eastern colony, it may be worth while to inquire whether we can discover any traces to connect those predecessors with any of these edifices. Without bestowing upon it, however, more consideration than what the exigency demands, I will briefly observe, that we are likely to find such in the history of theFo-moraice, who are represented in our chronicles,by the party who had ejected them, under the obnoxious character ofmonstersandgiants.[444]
It is high time to give up those abuses in the import of words.Fo-moraicmeans literally themariners ofFo, that is, ofBudh: and theirreligionbeing thus identified with that of theTuath-de-danaans, what could be more natural than that they should have erectedtemplesof the same shape with theirs?
This deduction will appear the more credible from the unanimity of all our historians, on the subject of this people having been perfect masters ofmasonry, as well as from the universally credited report in the days of Cambrensis, of some of the Towers being then visible beneath the inundation of Lough Neagh.[445]
I confess I am one of those persons who give faith to this tradition; for even my experience of the vicissitudes of all things earthly has enabled me to say, in the words of the philosophic poet, that—
“Where once was solid land seas have I seen,And solid land where once deep seas have been,Shells far from seas, like quarries in the ground,As anchors have in mountain tops been found.Torrents have made a valley of a plain,High hills by floods transported to the main,Deep standing lakes sucked dry by thirsty sand,And on late thirsty earth now lakes do stand.”
Having promised early in this volume to identify our island with the Insula Hyperboreorum of antiquity, I shall, without further tarrying, produce the extract referred to, from Diodorus; and, lest I may be suspected of adapting it to my own peculiar views, it shall appear minutely in Mr. Booth’s translation, viz.:—
“Amongst them that have written old stories much like fables, Hecatæus and some others say, that there is an island in the ocean, over against Gaul, as big as Sicily, under the arctic pole, where the Hyperboreans inhabit, so called because they lie beyond the breezes of the north wind. That the soil here is very rich and very fruitful, and the climate temperate, insomuch as there are two crops in the year.
“They say that Latona was born here, and therefore that they worship Apollo above all other gods; and because they are daily singing songs in praise of this god, and ascribing to him the highest honours, they say that these inhabitants demean themselves as if they were Apollo’s priests, who has here a stately grove and renowned temple of round form, beautified with many rich gifts. That there is a city likewise consecrated to this god, whose citizens are most of them harpers, who, playing on the harp, chant sacred hymns to Apollo in the temple, setting forthhis glorious acts. The Hyperboreans use their own natural language, but, oflongand ancient time, have had a special kindness for the Grecians; and more especially for the Athenians and them of Delos; and that some of the Grecians passed over to the Hyperboreans, and left behind them divers presents[446]inscribed with Greek characters; and that Abaris formerly travelled thence into Greece, and renewed the ancient league of friendship with the Delians.
“They say, moreover, that the moon in this island seems as if it were near to the earth, and represents, on the face of it, excrescences like spots on the earth; and that Apollo once in nineteen years comes into the island; in which space of time the stars perform their courses and return to the same point; and therefore the Greeks call the revolution of nineteen years the Great Year. At this time of his appearance they say that he plays upon the harp, and sings and dances all the night, from the vernal equinox[447]to the rising of the Pleiades,[448]solacing himself with the praises of his own successful adventures. The sovereignty of this city and the care of the temple, they say, belong to the Boreades, the posterity of Boreas, who hold the principality by descent in the direct line from that ancestor.”
When copying this narrative from the writings of Hecatæus, it is evident that Diodorus did not believe one single syllable it contained. He looked upon it as a romance; and so far was he from identifying it with any actual locality, that he threw over the whole an air of burlesque. We are, therefore, not at all obliged for the services he has rendered—yet shallwe make his labours subservient to the elucidation of truth. Little did he dream that Ireland, which he, by and by, expressly mentions by the name of Irin, and which he calumniates as cannibal, was one and the same with that isle of which he read such encomiums in the writings of former antiquaries; and, most unquestionably, it did require no small portion of research to reconcile the contradiction which the outline involves, and which is now further enhanced by his scepticism.
Unable to solve this difficulty, Mr. Dalton—wishing to retain, by all means, theHyperborean isle, which, indeed, he could not well discard, yet not bring it in collision with theIranian libel—does not hesitate to throw at once overboard into the depth of the Atlantic the island of Irin (aliasIreland), and affirm that it never was the place which the historian had specified. “It is not quite certain,” says he, “what place Diodorus means by Iris;[449]from the turn of the expression it wouldrather appear to be a part of Britain,—perhaps the Erne, for which Mr. James M‘Pherson contends in another place,—while the island which Diodorus does mention in the remarkable pages cited above, and which so completely agrees with Ireland, is never called Iris by him, nor does the name occur again in all his work, nor is it by any other author applied to Ireland.”[450]
Mind, now, reader, how easily I reconcile the conflicting fact of Diodorus’s incredulity with his positive defamation.
At the period when he flourished as an accredited historian, the occupancy of Ireland had passed intonew hands. The Scythians were the persons then possessed of the soil; and they being a warlike tribe, averse to letters, to religion, and to refinement,[451]—but overwhelming in numbers,—obliterated every vestige of that primeval renown in which the island had once gloried, and which afforded theme and material to the learned of all countries for eulogy and praise.
Hecatæus was one of those who depicted in glowing colours the primitive splendour and the ethereal happiness of Ireland’s first inhabitants. He belonged to an age which was well called antiquarian, even in the day in which Diodorus wrote, viz.B.C.44; and when, therefore, this latter, looking over the pages of his venerable predecessor, saw them so replete with incidents,—at variance with our condition in his own degenerate day,—he did not only not dream of considering Ireland as the place described, but looked upon the whole story as the fiction of a dotard.
Let us, however, despite of Diodorus, establish the veracity of the antiquarian Hecatæus. Then behold the situation of this island, just opposite to France,—in size as large as Sicily,—at once corresponding to the locality and size of Ireland, and subversive of the claims of those who would fain make England, Anglesea, or one of the Hebrides, the island specified.
Considering further the prolificacy of its soil, and with that compare what the old poet has affirmed,—andwhat we know to be true,—of our own country, viz.:—
“Illic bis niveum tondetur vellus in annoBisque die referunt ubera tenta greges.”
Then bring its propinquity to the “arctic pole,” and the high northern latitude which Strabo[452]and other ancients have assigned to Ireland, into juxtaposition with “Hyperborean,” the name given to its inhabitants from the very circumstance of their lying so far to the north, and the identity of the isle with that in which each true Irishman exults is infallibly complete when I quote from Marcianus Heracleotes—who wrote in the third century, and who, as he himself avows, only drew up a compendium from the voluminous works of Artemidorus, who flourished in the hundred and sixty-ninth Olympiad, or 104 years before Christ—the following description of this sacred island, viz. “Iuvernia, a British isle, is bounded on the north (ad Boream) by the ocean called the Hyperborean; but on the east by the ocean which is called the Hibernian; on the south by the Virginian ocean. It has sixteen nations and eleven illustrious cities, fifteen remarkable rivers, five remarkable promontories, and six remarkable islands.”
Here the sea, encompassing Ireland on the north, is called the Hyperborean Ocean;[453]and when we are told that the priests officiating at the round temples ofApollo were called Boreades, we can readily understand the origin of the name, as derived fromBoreas, the deity who presided over the north-east wind, to which they offered their vows,—just as we find the Emperor Augustus erecting a temple at Rome, many centuries after, to the wind called Circius.
To this deification of the energies of nature, which, as before affirmed, was but part and parcel of that form of worship called Sabaism, the author of the Book of Enoch has alluded in the following mysterious episode:—
“Then another angel, who proceeded with me, spoke to me; and showed me the first and last secrets in heaven above, and in the depths of the earth: in the extremities of heaven, and in the foundations of it, and in the receptacle of the winds.He showed mehow their Spirits were divided; how they were balanced; and how both the springs and the winds were numbered according to the force of the Spirit.He showed methe power of the moon’s light, that its power is a just one; as well as the divisions of the stars, according to their respective names;thatevery division is divided; that the lightning flashes; thattheir Hostimmediately obey; and that a cessation takes place during thunder, in the continuance of its sound. Nor are the thunder and the lightning separated; neither do both of them move with one Spirit; yet are they not separated. For when the lightning lightens, the thunder sounds, and the Spirit, at a proper period, pauses, making an equal division between them; for the receptacle of their times is what sand is. Each of them at a proper season is restrained with a bridle, and turned by the powerof the Spirit; which thus propels them according to the spacious extent of the earth.”
Yet beautiful as is the above, it is not much more so than an almost inspired little poem, which appeared some time ago, in one of the public prints, as emanating from the pen of an American lady, named Goold, personifying this element, viz.:—
“We come! we come! and ye feel our might,As we’re hastening on in our boundless flight;And over the mountains and over the deep,Our broad invisible pinions sweep.Like the Spirit of Liberty, wild and free!And ye look on our works, and own ’tis we;Ye call us thewinds; but can ye tellWhither we go, or where we dwell?Ye mark as we vary our forms of power,And fell the forest or fan the flower,When the hare-bell moves, and the rush is bent,When the tower’s o’erthrown and the oak is rent,As we waft the bark o’er the slumbering wave,Or hurry its crew to a watery grave:And ye say it is we! but can ye traceThe wanderingwindsto their secret place?And whether our breath be loud and high,Or come in a soft and balmy sigh,Our threat’nings fill the soul with fear,As our gentle whisperings woo the earWith music aërial, still ’tis we,And ye list, and ye look; but what do ye see?Can ye hush one sound of our voice to peace,Or waken one note when our numbers cease?Our dwelling is in th’ Almighty’s hand,We come and we go at His command;Though joy or sorrow may mark our track,His will is our guide, and we look not back;And if, in our wrath, ye would turn us away,Or win us in gentlest air to play,Then lift up your hearts to Him who binds,Or frees, as He will, the obedientwinds!”
And now, as to those “temples” themselves, “of round form,” sacred to Apollo, where will Borlasse in his championship for England, or Rowland in his claims for the island of Anglesea, or Toland and Carte for the little Hebrides isles, find a single vestige of arotund edificeof antiquated consecration, appertaining to the age which Hecatæus described?—whereas, in Ireland, of the two hundred and upwards, with which its surface was, at one time, adorned, we have not onlyvestigesof each and all to this day; but, out of the sixty thatsurvive,—after an interval of more than three thousand years standing,—about twenty still display their Grynean devotion and their Hyperborean tranquillity, and are likely so to do for three thousand years more, should this world, or our portion of it, but last so long!
To give soul to the solemnisation of this religious pomp, the Irish have ever cultivated the mysteries of music. The harp more particularly had enlisted the energies of their devotional regard, and their eminence in its management made Hecatæus well observe, that “the inhabitants were almost exclusively harpers.” This was a very suitable accompaniment to their worship of Apollo, who was himself the reputed inventor of this instrument; and accordingly we find that, even in the twelfth century, broken down and obliterated as every vestige of thereal Irishthen was, by the ungenial amalgamation of the Scythian and Danish intruders, theharpwas still preserved as the last remnant of their glory; while the elegance of their compositions and performance upon it extorted this reluctant acknowledgment from the prejudiced Cambrensis:—
“The attention,” says he, “of this people tomusical instruments, I find worthy of commendation; their skill in which is,beyond comparison, superiorto that ofany nationI have seen. For in these the modulation is not slow and solemn, as in the instruments of Britain, to which we are accustomed, but the sounds are rapid and precipitate, yet, at the same time sweet and pleasing. It is wonderful how, in such precipitate rapidity of the fingers, the musical proportions are observed, and, by their art, faultless throughout.
“In the midst of their complicated modulations and most intricate arrangement of notes, by a rapidity so sweet, a regularity so irregular, a concord so discordant, the melody is rendered harmonious and perfect, whether the cords of the diatesseron or diapente are struck together. Yet they always begin in a soft mood, and end in the same, that all may be perfected in the sweetness of delicious sounds. They enter on, and again leave, their modulations with so much subtlety, and the tricklings of the small notes sport with so much freedom under the deep note of the bass; they delight with so much delicacy, and soothe so softly, that the excellency of their art seems to be in concealing it.”[454]
Clarsech and Cruit were both names which the Irish gave their harp, from the musical board and the warbling of the strings respectively. But the favourite designation was that of Orphean, an evident derivation from Orpheus, the divine musician of the ancients, who is said to have stayed the course of rivers, and lulled the listening woods,—to have moved the stones into prescribed positions, and tamed the savage propensities of man—all by the instrumentality of his speaking lyre!
“As regards Orpheus himself,” says the learned Barker, “he is stated by some ancient authorities to have abstained from eating of flesh, and to have had an abhorrence of eggs, considered as food, from a persuasion that the egg was the principle of all being. Many other accounts are given of him, which would seem to assimilate his character to that of the ancient priests of India, or Brachmani. The ancients, however, unable to discover any mode by which he could have obtained his knowledge from any other source, pretended that he had visited Egypt, and had there been initiated in the mysteries of Isis and Osiris. This appears, however, to be a supposition purely gratuitous on the part of the ancient writers, since a careful examination of the subject leads directly to the belief that Orpheus was of Indian origin; that he was a member of one of thoseSacerdotal Colonies, which professed the religion of Buddha; and who being driven from their home, in the northern parts of India, and in the plains of Tartary, by the power of the rival sect of Brahma, moved gradually onwards to the west, dispensing, in their progress, the benefits of civilisation and themysterious tenets of their peculiar faith.”
We know little or nothing at this remote day of the ancient music of the Bardic order; that it was eminent, however, and transcendently superior to that of all other countries, is evident from the fact of its having maintained its character when all our other attributes had notoriously vanished. Caradoc admits that his countrymen, the Welsh, borrowed all their instruments, tunes, airs, and measures, from our favoured island. Carr additionally says, that “although the Welsh have been for ages celebratedfor the boldness and sweetness of their music, yet it appears that they were much indebted to the superior musical talents of their neighbours, the Irish.” Selden asserts “that the Welsh music, for the most part, came out of Ireland with Gruffydh ap Tenan, Prince of North Wales, who was cotemporary with King Stephen.” I know not whether our brethren of Scotland will be so ready to acknowledge the loan. But if anyone will compare the spirit of their music with that which pervades the melodies of our country, the identity will be as obvious as the inference is irresistible.
Fuller, in his account of the Crusade, conducted by Godfrey of Boulogne, says, “Yea, we might well think that all the concerts of Christendom in this war would have made no music if theIrish harphad been wanting.”
Andthisis the instrument which Ledwich asserts we borrowed from the Ostmen! Insolent presumption! Neither Ostman nor Dane ever laid eyes upon such, until they saw it in thesunnyvalleys of the Emerald Island. And had they the shadow of a claim either to it or to the Round Towers, to which its services were consecrated, Cambrensis could not fail ascertaining the fact from any of the stragglers of those uncouth marauders, who—having survived the carnage inflicted upon their army, in the plains of Clontarf, under the retributive auspices of the immortal Brien—were allowed to cultivate their mercantile avocations in the various maritime cities, where they would naturally be proud to perpetuate every iota of demonstrative civilisation which they could pretend to have imported. Alas! theyimpartednone, butexporteda great deal; and, what is more to be lamented, annihilated its evidences!
But it is not alone of thepropertyof this national organ that themodernswould deprive us, but the veryexistenceof the instrument they affirm to be of recent date! Why, sir, it is as old as the hills. Open the fourth chapter of the Book of Genesis, and you will find it there recorded that “Jubal was the father of all such as handle theharpand organ.”
And now to the empirics of the “Fine Arts,”[455]and the deniers of their antiquity, I shall quote the next verse, namely, “Zillah, she also bare a son, Tubal-Cain, an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron.”[456]And in Job xxviii. 2 it is said that “iron is taken out of the earth, and brass is molten out of the stone.”
“In thenorth of Europe,” says Herodotus, “there appears to be by far the greatest abundance of gold; where it is found I cannot say, except thatthe Arimaspians, a race of men having only one eye, are said to purloin it from the griffins.[457]I do not, however, believe that there exists any race of men born with only one eye!”
Had this esteemed author known the allegorical import of the word Arimaspians (fromarima, one, andspia, an eye), such as it has been explained atpage 86, he would not have committed himself by the observation with which the above extract has terminated.No doubt he thought it extremelyphilosophical, because it issceptical! but let us see if another instance of hisscepticismwill redound more to hisphilosophy:—“I cannot help laughing,” says he elsewhere, “at those who pretend that the ocean flows round our continent: no proof can be given of it.... I believe that Homer had taken what he believes about the ocean from a work of antiquity, but it was without comprehending anything of the matter, repeating what he had read, without well understanding what he had read!”[458]
Now, without disputing with Siberia the honour of possessing all thisancientgold, I will take the liberty of inserting an extract from one of Mr. Hamilton’s letters on the Antrim coast, which will show, at all events, the antiquity of our mining.
“About the year 1770,” says he, “the miners, in pushing forward an adit toward the bed of coal, at an unexplored part of the Ballycastle cliff, unexpectedly broke through the rock into a narrow passage, so much contracted and choked up with various drippings and deposits on its sides and bottom, as rendered it impossible for any of the workmen to force through, that they might examine it farther. Two lads were, therefore, made to creep in with candles, for the purpose of exploring this subterranean avenue. They accordingly pressed forward for a considerable time, with much labour and difficulty, and at length entered into an extensive labyrinth, branching off into numerous apartments, in the mazes and windings ofwhich they were completely bewildered and lost. After various vain attempts to return, their lights were extinguished, their voices became hoarse, and exhausted with frequent shouting; and, at length, wearied and spiritless, they sat down together, in utter despair of an escape from this miserable dungeon. In the meanwhile, the workmen in the adit became alarmed for their safety, fresh hands were incessantly employed, and, in the course of twenty-four hours, the passage was so opened as to admit some of the most active among the miners; but the situation of the two unhappy prisoners, who had sat down together in a very distant chamber of the cavern, prevented them from hearing altogether the noise and shouts of their friends, who thus laboured to assist them.
“Fortunately, it occurred to one of the lads (after his voice had become hoarse with shouting), that the noise of miners’ hammers was often heard at considerable distances through the coal works; in consequence of this reflection, he took up a stone, which he frequently struck against the sides of the cavern; the noise of this was at length heard by the workmen, who, in their turn, adopted a similar artifice; by this means each party was conducted towards the other, and the unfortunate adventurers extricated time enough to behold the sun risen in full splendour, which they had left the morning before just beginning to tinge the eastern horizon. On examining this subterranean wonder, it was found to be a complete gallery, which had been driven forward many hundred yards to the bed of coal: that it branched off into numerous chambers, where miners had carried on their different works: that these chambers were dressed in aworkmanlike manner: that pillars were left at proper intervals to support the roof. In short, it was found to be an extensive mine, wrought by a set of people at least as expert in the business as the present generation. Some remains of the tools, and even of the baskets used in the works, were discovered, but in such a decayed state, that on being touched, they immediately crumbled to pieces. From the remains which were found, there is reason to believe that the people who wrought these collieries anciently, were acquainted with the use of iron, some small pieces of which were found; it appeared as if some of their instruments had been thinly shod with that metal.”
There is no question but that the era when those collieries were before worked, was that in which the Tuath-de-danaans were masters of this island.Had it been at any later period, we could not fail having some traditions relating thereto.Iron, therefore, the last discovered of the metals, as stated atpage 115, must have been known to this people: and the absence of any name for it in our vernacular language is accounted for on the same principle as that by which those excavations themselves had been so long concealed, namely, the distaste of their successors to such applications, or the reluctance entertained to make them acquainted with their worth.
It is probable, however, that the little minikin fineries of life were not then in fashion—that our loaves were not baked in tin shapes, as at present, nor our carriages constructed in so many different varieties of form, excluding altogether those worked by steam; that our gunlocks were not prepared with percussion caps, nor our sofas furnished with air-blown cushions; that the routine of etiquette wasdifferently negotiated, and that twenty, or more, several hands were not employed in the finish of a common pin, before it could be dignified with the honour of acting a useful part in adjusting the habiliments of a modern dandy:—but in all the grand essentials of life—in all its solid refinements and elegant utilities,—the scholar will confess that those who have gone before us have been fully our equals; and traces, too, are not wanting to countenance the belief that even those knick-knack frivolities on which we so pique ourselves in the present day, have not been at some period without a prototype,—so that the majority of those boasted patents for what are considereddiscoveriesor inventions of something new, should more properly be forrecoveries, or unfoldings of something old, and illustrative of the adage, as remarkable as it is correct, “that there is nothing new under the sun.”[459]
You ask me for the proofs of this early grandeur? I point you to the gold crowns, the gold and silver ingots, the double-headed pateræ or censers, the anklets, lunettes, bracelets, fibulæ, necklaces, etc., which have been repeatedly found throughout all parts of Ireland, evidently the relics of that “Sacred” colony who gave their name to this island, and who, to the refinedtastewhich such possessions imply, united also the science which appears in their workmanship.[460]
But these are scanty and insufficient memorials? Pray, what greater can you produce of ancient Egypt? Her Pyramids? Our Round Towers are asold; are likely to be aspermanent; and are really morebeautiful. What are the vestiges of ancient Etruria? of Assyria? Troy? Chaldea? nay, of Babylon the Great, the queen of the world? A few consolidations of stone and mortar—disjointed rubbish—and incrusted pottery. All theseweretain, in addition to the thousand other evidences which crowd upon the historian. And, while Britain can adduce no single vestige of the Romans—who subjugatedthat country at their highest period of civilisation—but what, in the words of my adversaries themselves, are “only monuments of barbarism,” I answer—no wonder—for the Romans were never to be compared to the Iranian Budhists, who brought all the splendour of the East to the concentrated locality of this Hyperborean Island.
“Infant colonies, forsooth, do not carry a knowledge of the ‘Fine Arts’ along with them; they are only to be found where wealth, luxury, and power have fixed their abode.”[461]Most sapient remark! but unluckily out of place; for the authors of our Round Towers were not “an infant colony” at all; but the veryheadsandprincipalsof the most polished and refined people on the bosom of the habitable earth—the Budhists of Iran. And, accordingly, in their train not only did “wealth, luxury, and power” abound, but they seemedexclusivelyto have taken up their abode amongst them.[462]
Analogous to the above was the rhodomontade of another pillar of the same order. “I, nevertheless,” says Montmorency, “am disinclined to believe that those same persons, had they to choose a residence between Syria and Ireland, would have taken thewintryanduncultivated wildsofFidh-Inis, in preference to the sunny plains which gave them birth.”[463]
In both those cases, of which the former is but theecho, in all opinions, of the latter, our eastern extraction is only objected to,considered as Phœnician;and there, I admit that the Colonel and his pupil may get an easy triumph over their adversaries. For had thePhœniciansbeen the erectors of those Round Towers,what was to prevent their raising similar structures in Cornwall? where it is indisputable that they had trafficked for tin. In Spain we are certain that they had establisheda home; andwhy does this appear as free from every evidence of columnar architecture as does the former place? The same may be said of other countries whither this people resorted, Citium, Crete, Cadiz, and all the islands in the Mediterranean.In no one of them is there to be found a single edifice approaching, either in design or form, the idea of a Round Tower![464]
The Phœnicians, therefore, can have no pretensions to the honour of those memorials; nor, indeed, can their connection with Ireland be at all recognised, further than that, as having been, at one time, masters of the sea,it is merely possiblethat the Tuath-de-danaans may have availed themselves of their geographical information, and even consigned themselves to their pilotage for a secure retreat, aloof from the persecution of intolerance.
But as we see from the stanza quoted atpage 396, that the Tuath-de-danaans were themselves possessed of a navy; and as it is indisputable that, long before the Phœnicians, the dynasty of the Persians had swept the ocean in its widest breadth, there is no need for our giving the Phœnicians credit evenfor this service, which it now appears could be dispensed with.
An effort, however, has been advanced to identifytheir language with ours, by the analysis of the fragment of a speech which occurs in one of the plays of Plautus.[465]The idea was ingenious, but totally unfounded.Affinity, undoubtedly, there does appear,—as there does between all the ancient languages,—but nothing likeidentity; and the very circumstance of its having adistinctdenomination assigned to it in Ireland, viz.Bearla-na-Fene, or dialect of the Phœnicians (who traded here, it is admitted), proves it to be different from ourlocalphraseology—the IranianPahlavi, the polished elocution of the Tuath-de-danaans.
The Phœnicians, besides being a mercantile people, never had any monuments of literary value, whereas the Irish are known to have abounded in such from the earliest era.[466]
It is true that we have been denied the possession of alphabetic characters before the time of St. Patrick: but by whom? By Bolandus; on a false deduction from the writings of Ward, Colgan, Nennius, etc., who state that this apostle was the first who gave the “abjectoria,” or alphabet to our nation. Who says otherwise? But what alphabet was here meant? The Latin, certainly, and no other. Until then the Irish were strangers to theRomanletters;[467]but that they were not towritten characters, or thecultivation of them in every variety of literature, is evident from the very fact of St. Patrick himself having committed to the flames no less than one hundred and eighty volumes of our ancient theology;[468]as well as from the recorded instance of his disciple, Benignus,—his successor also in the See of Armagh,—having, according to Ward, written a work on the virtues of the Saint, half Latin and half Irish, and which Jocelyne afterwards availed himself of, when more fully detailing his biography.
It has been the custom in all ages with those whowould pass as the luminaries of their respective generations, to maintain thatlettersand their application were but arecentdiscovery! Their antiquity, however, is an historical fact, than which there can be no other better authenticated. The Bible makes frequent allusion to the cultivation of alphabetic cyphers—thus in Ex. xxiv. 4, it is said, “And Moseswroteall the words of the Lord”; and in Josh. xxiv. 26, “And Joshuawrotethese words in the book of the law of God.”
Nor is it only to theelementarypart of literature, but to the very highest and noblest department of literary research that we find the ancients had arrived. In the history of Job, an acquaintance with astronomy is quite apparent. The names of Arcturus, Orion, and the Pleiades,[469]are distinctly notified in that elaborate composition.[470]Could this have been without the aid of written characters? Could the abstruse calculations involved in that pursuit be possibly carried on without an intimate knowledge of notation and of numbers? Or, if superior memory may effect it in a few cases, without such characters or legible marks, how could theresultsarrived at, and the steps by which they had been attained, be for any length of time preserved, and their value handed down to successive experimentalists, unless by the instrumentality of expressive signs?
We find, accordingly, in the same treatise,[471]the artof writing expressly named: Thus, “Oh that my words were now written! oh that they were printed in a book! that they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever!” And that it was of long-continued usage is evident from a preceding chapter,[472]where it is said, “Enquire, I pray thee, of theformer age, and prepare thyself for thesearchof their fathers!”
The alphabet which we had here, before the Roman abjectorium, is still preserved, and calledBeth-luis-nion,[473]from the names of its first three letters, just as the English is denominatedA B C, from a similar cause, and the GreekAlpha-betfrom a like consideration.
This, you perceive,falls short, by eight letters, of the number of the Latin cyphers, which could not have occurred if borrowed from that people, and will thereforestand, independently and everlastingly, a self-evident proof of the reverse.
It is well known, that long prior to the arrival of Cadmus the Greeks were in possession of alphabetic writing.[474]Diodorus states so, but adds that adelugehad swept all away. One thousand five hundred and fifty before the era we count by, is agreedupon as the year in which Cadmus visited Greece; and you have the authority of Pausanias, that he himself had read an inscription upon a monument at Megara, the date of which was 1678 before our epoch, that is, one hundred and twenty-eight years before Cadmus’s time.
Besides those ordinary letters of theBeth-luis-nion, the Irish made use of various otheroccultand secret forms of writing, which they calledogham,[475]and of which I insert some specimens.
Among these you perceive thearrow-headed figureswhereof I have already advertised you; and themysterious importof which reminded theinitiatedof thesolemn purchase of salvation by the cross.
These are all peculiar and totally separate from any Phœnician alliance. Instead, therefore, of my beingadverseto themodernsas to the Phœnicianbubble, I am theirauxiliary. But, Mr. Montmorency, are there not other places in the East besides Phœnicia? And may not a people leave the “sunny plains that gave them birth,” from other motives than those of “choice”? And may not “Fidh Inis,” instead of being a name of reproach, such as you affected, by associating it with “wintry and uncultivated wilds,” be one of distinction and of renown? And though to you itsauthors, as well as themystery of its import, were animpenetrablesecret, may it not, notwithstandingwhat you see verifiednow, be made one of the engines exercised in the recovery of truth, to prove the splendour and the refinement of our venerable ancestors?
It is to be hoped, therefore, that after thisexplanation, we shall hear no more sarcasms upon thisfavouredspot. Nor would the anticipation be too great, that the wholeinfidelhost, with the gallant colonel himself at their head,becomingalive to the injustice of their former disbelief, would now slacken their virulence, and if they will notjoinin the acclamations of regenerated history, at least decentlywithdraw, and let the lovers of truth, in security and happiness, celebrate its triumph.
“The appellation of Britain,” says anothergoodly(?) champion of thisorder, “has been tortured for ages by the antiquarians, in order to force a confession of origin and import for it. And erudition, running wild in the mazes of folly, has eagerly deduced it from every word of a similar sound, almost in every known language of the globe. But the Celtic is obviously the only one that can lay any competent claim to it—and the meaning of it may as easily be ascertained as its origin.”—And so, accordingly, he proceeds to show, that “Breatin, Brydain, or Britain,” is derived from a “Celtic word,” which signifies “separation or division!”[476]
It is more than probable that I should have left Mr. Whittaker to his vagaries, or rather hisclericalrecreations, if he had not been propelled by his all-illuminating reforms, to glance a ray upon us, here, across St. George’s Channel.—“This,” says he, “hasequallygiven denomination to thetribesofIreland, the nations of Caledonia, and two or three islands on our coasts!”
“The original world is still retained in the Welch, Britain; and the Irish, Breact,—anything divided orstriped; in the Irish Bricth, a fraction; the Irish Brisead, a rupture; and the Welch brig, a breach. And it was equally pronounced Brict, or Brit (as the Icitus of Cæsar, or the Itium of Strabo), Bris and Brig; and appears with this variety of terminations, in the usual appellation of the islanders, Britanni, in the present denomination of the Armorican Britons, and their language, Brez and Brezonic, and in the name of Brigantes. Brit is enlarged into Briton, or Brit-an in the plural, and Britan-ec in the relative adjective. And so forms the appellation Britones, Britani, and Britanici; as Brig is either changed into Briges, in the plural, and makes Allobroges, or Allo-broges, the name of a tribe on the continent, and of all the Belgæ in the island, is altered into Brigan and Brigants, and forms the denomination of Brigantes.” And again, “the original word appears to have been equally pronounced Brict, Brits, and Bricth, Breact, Breac, and Brig; and appears to be derived from the Gallic Bresche, a rupture, the Irish Bris, to break, and Brisead, a breach. And the word occurs with all this variety of termination in the Irish Breattain or Breatin, Bretam, and in Breathnach, Briotnach, and Breagnach, a Briton; in the Armorican names of Breton, Breiz, and Brezonnec, for an individual, the country, and the language of Armorica; in the Welch Brython and Brythoneg, the Britons and their language; and in the ancient synonymous appellations of Brigantes and Britanni.”
Doubtless the reader has been highly edified by this Britannic dissertation! He is, I am sure, as thorough master of the subject, now, as Mr. Whittaker himself!—can tell how many fractures, cross-lines, and diagonals have been made uponBritainever since Noah’sflood! And as he cannot fail, in consequence, being in love with the Reverend Author, I will indulge his fondness by anothersparkof enlightenment.
“At this period,” he resumes (three hundred years before Christ), “many of the natives relinquishing their ancient seats to the Belgæ, found all the central and northern parts of England already occupied, and transported themselves intothe uninhabited isleof Ireland!”
I will now be understood as to the promise made some while ago,[477]in reference to a definition for the wordmodern. Amodernthen, be it known,is a philosopher(?), who fancies thatuntil three hundred years before Christ, the whole world was in darkness! physical as well as metaphysical! that it was even in a great measure uninhabited! by other than the brute creation!—but that suddenly when ever any mighty feat was to be achieved(in other words, whenever a modern theory was to be bolstered up)innumerable myrmidons armed cap-à-pié! full accoutred, booted and spurred! used to gush forth from some obscure corner of the earth!A miracle of production, to which evenCadmus’s soldierscan bear no parallel; for while the latter are located to a particularplace, and stated to have been generated by regularseed, even though that was nothing more than atoothof adragon,[478]the former burst forward, nobody knowswhence, nor will theirmachinerscondescend to tell even so much as what may have been theelementsof their composition!
To whom, however, is Mr. Whittaker beholden for this intellectual idea? Verily, to a half-senseless poor friar,[479]a few centuries deceased, who was no more competent—and no blame to him from his resources—to analyse this question, than he was to stop the revolutions of the celestial orbs!
Yetjejuneand abortive as were Cirencester’s cerebral conceptions, he was not less dogmatic in the utterance of them than was his imitator. “It is most certain,” says he, “that the Damnii, Voluntii, Brigantes, Cangi, and other nations, were descended from the Britons, and passed over thither after Divitiacus, or Claudius, or Ostorius, or other victorious generals had invaded their original countries. Lastly, the ancient language, which resembles the old British and Gallic tongues, affords another argument, as is well known to persons skilled in both languages.”
Now, by what authority, may I ask, is all this “most certain?” And by authority I do not mean any quotation from previous historians. That I waive, and should not here require it, if eitherprooforprobabilitywere tendered of theoccurrence. But as none such is vouchsafed—as all is mereassertion—and as I canprove the exact contrary to have been the actual fact, is notdogmatismtoomilda name to apply to thescribblerwhopropoundssuch nonsense? And is notservilitytoodignifiedan epithet to brand upon thecopyist, who takes suchipse dixitevidence upon so intricate a proposition as gospel truth? and that too when he must have absolutedemonstration, andcanvas every other statement, emanating from that fraternity, withthe very eye of a Lynceus!
In the first place, then, the nameDamnii(to begin with the beginning) is but a monkish Latinisation forDanaans; andthese I have established to have beenan eastern race, totally and universally distinct from Britain, until upon their overthrow in Ireland they fled for shelter to Scotland, whither on their way some straggling parties, reduced and humiliated, took up their residence in the northern parts of England; where, accordingly, to this hour we find evidences of their worship, such as sculpturedcrosses,[480]and otheremblematic devices, butnever a Round Tower, their impoverished circumstances not being now adequate to such an expense.
The Brigantes, again, is another Latin metamorphosis for the inhabitants ofBreo-cean, in Spain, where the Phœnicians had fixed a colony, and whence they doubtless had brought some portion with them to work the mines at Cornwall. ThisBreo-ceanthe Romans, in conformity with the genius of their language, changed intoBri-gantia, which, however, was a very allowable commutation, the letterscandgbeing always convertible, andtianothing more than an ordinary termination.
Seneca well knew that theBrigantesthus imported were a very different extraction from the nativeBritons.
“IlliBritannosultra noti littora ponti,Et cœruleosScuto-Brigantesdare Romuleis,”
says he, in his satirical invective upon the death of Claudius. Here, you will observe, that theBritonsand theBrigantesareopposed to one another, and marked out asdistinctraces. And to specify still further the origin of the Brigantes is the epithetScuto[481]prefixed thereto, fromScuitte, the ancient mode of spellingScythia.
Those Scoto-Brigantes were the persons who, having been driven from Spain by the conquests of Sesostris, poured in with multitudinous inundation upon the quietude of ourTuath-de-danaans, and wrested from them an island which, during their blissful reign, had eclipsed in sanctity even theirformerIran.[482]
The language which they spoke differed in nothing from the Tuath-de-danaan, but that it was not quite so refined; and this feature of similarity silences at once theconjecturesofStillingfleet, Innes, and their followers, who would make thoseScythiansto beScandinavians, merely because the letter S occurs as theinitialandfinalof either name!
Why, sir, when theScandinaviansdidreallyinvade Ireland, which was not until the early centuries of the Christian era, the great obstruction to their progress was theirignoranceof our tongue; whereas, when theScythiansarrived here, many ages earlier, our legends, our traditions, our histories, and our annals,unanimouslyanduniversallyattest, that they used the same conversable articulation with that of the established dynasty.[483]
Where is the wonder, then, that we should find all the ancient names in the north of England, correspond to a nicety with those of the Irish? And which made Lhuydh, the author of theArchæologia, himself an Englishman, declare, “how necessary the Irish language is to those who shall undertake to write of the antiquity of the isle of Britain.”
But if Lhuydh was thuscandidin the avowal of his conviction, he was not equallysuccessfulin the discovery of the relationship. From want of the truetouchstone, he went onhypothesising! and came at last to thesupposition—“that the Irish must at one time have been in possession of those English localities, and thence removed themselves into Ireland”—the exact opposite having been the fact.