heard in the boggy flat, although the singer was too remote to be visible. To such sounds I have been glad to turn for company during the course of the day.

"Readers who have had no experience of the feelings excited in the mind by scenes like this, can have little idea of the deep effect they are capable of producing, and will, perhaps, smile when I tell them that I have felt a degree of regret when the song of the milkmaid ceased, and the paddle of the boatman would be no longer heard, and when the little dusk figure of the fisherman was no longer found on the margin of the river, like the depression caused by parting with a friend whom we do not expect to meet for a long time again. This landscape, so striking and harmonious, is rendered still more affecting by the appropriate figures of groups of pilgrims, that give at once increased interest and picturesqueness to the scene.

"This is but an outline of Clonmacnoise, such as may be intelligible to general readers. The deep interest which this astonishing place afforded in detail, can only be appreciated by the enthusiastic painter or accomplished antiquary. The former will understand the kind of delight with which I was inspired by those groups of pilgrims, clothed in draperies of the most picturesque form, and the most splendid and varied colours. The aged sinner supported by his pilgrim's staff, barefooted and bareheaded; his large gray coat, the substitute for the forbidden cloak or mantle, sweeping the road; his white hair floating on the disregarded wind! The younger man, similarly attired, whose face betrays the deepest guilt, hurrying along with energetic strides. The females of all ages, to whom uninquiring faith and enthusiastic devotion seem natural and characteristic; but, above all, the young and beautiful girl, with pale face, blue eyes, long black eyelashes, and dark hair, whose look betrays no conscious guilt in the midst of her sighing prayers, but rather a feeling of love and devotion; who, notwithstanding her religious duties, is not so entirely unconscious of the power of her beauty but that she can spare an occasional glance towards the strangers who are endeavouring to fix her figure on their paper, or on their memories a figure, as a friend well observed, that no one but Raphael could draw; such are the poor remains of the once celebrated Cluainmacnoise, for a considerable time the chief retreat, not alone of piety, but also of such learning as the age possessed; a place which the petty kings of three provinces of Ireland contributed to adorn ; a spot so sacred that all that were high in the land desired it as their last resting place."

The name of Petrie will ever be associated with the Round Tower controversy. Before the publication of his wellknown essay, read before the Royal Irish Academy in 1832, the origin of the Round Towers was "lost in the twilight of fable." Two years previously the Academy offered fifty pounds and the gold medal to the writer of the best essay on these interesting national memorials. Petrie won the prize, and the essay which carried off the palm developed itself into the magnificent quarto volume, in which the subject is exhaustively treated. It would require a separate paper to give even an outline of the various theories which have been broached relative to the date of these towers, and the objects for which they were built. We must refer the reader to Dr. Stokes' work for the ablest and clearest statement of the whole question to be met with. Petrie's theory is now universally accepted by the learned antiquarians of Ireland. Dr. Stokes observes "It has been said by a learned and witty writer, that a ready method of testing the sanity or insanity of an Irish antiquary is to ask him his opinion as to the Round Towers."

Petrie's opinion, held by all "sane" antiquaries, is as follows: "Ist-That the towers were meant to serve as belfries to the Christian churches. 2nd-That they also were intended and used as keeps or places of strength, in which the sacred utensils, books, relics, and other valuables, were deposited, and into which, the ecclesiastics to whom they belonged, could retire for security in cases of sudden predatory attack." Petrie then holds that they were not constructed before the Irish became Christians, and that their construction ranges from the sixth to the thirteenth century. His main argument to prove that they could not be pre-Christian is: that before the advent of our National Apostle, the Irish did not know the use of cement or mortar, and were ignorant of the principle of the arch. In support of these two points he appeals to all the known remains of Pagan buildings in Irelandon the Boyne, in the Arran Islands, &c. No opponent of Petrie's theory has attempted to adduce one single Pagan building that shows in its construction any presence of mortar, or any formation of arch. As these occur in all our Round Towers, together with the Symbols of Redemption forming part of the original doorways of some of the towers, there seems to be no evading the force of Petrie's argument.

"O mystic tower, I never gaze on thee-
Altho' since childhood's scarce remember'd spring
Thou wert to me a most familiar thing—

Without an awe, and not from wonder free :
Wild fancies, too, oft urge themselves on me,
Working as though they had the power to fling
The veil aside, year after year doth bring
More closely round them, thing of mystery!
Yes, thou dost wake within me such a sense
As few things earthly can,-thy airy brow
Hath felt the breeze for centuries immense;
Who knows what hand hath raised thee, or how?
And Time so much of his own reverence
Hath lent to thee, we venerate thee now."

-

Quoted in the History of St. Canice's Cathedral.

We observed in the first of these papers that there seemed to be a radical incapacity in the Anglo-Saxon mind to do justice to Celtic character-an inherent indisposition to value the tone of our national mind, to understand our national aspirations, or to appreciate our national genius. When we turn from the flippant leader of the Times to the cynical bitterness of the Saturday Review, we find the same hostility showing itself in more vigorous onslaughts of unscrupulous writers; nor does the evil end here.

Mr. Matthew Arnold is an able, conscientious critic, who dispassionately weighs and calmly adjusts the balance-hence his judgments command respect. Now let us hear him upon the shortcomings of our Celtic race :—

"Ireland, that has produced so many powerful spirits, has produced no great sculptors or painters."-(Study of Celtic Literature.) It would be strange, indeed, if this were true. That a people acknowledged to be gifted with great imagination, poetic instincts, and quickest sensibilities, should not have given any examples of excellence in the sculptor's or the painter's art, would seem a startling paradox. But it is the old story-we are an inferior race-any good in us has been borrowed from our Anglo-Saxon neighbours. In reply to Mr. Arnold's criticism, we refer to Maclise and Barry, as painters, and we note with pride the fact, that of the four artists now engaged on the sculpture of the Albert Memorial for Hyde Park, two are Irish, M'Dowell and Foley. The latter has won his way to the highest eminence, and stands unrivalled amidst the living sculptors of these kingdoms. As Pericles, when he got his artist, Phidias, employed him to decorate Athens with those numerous statues which are the glory of sculpture, so does it seem reserved for Mr. Foley to ornament and beautify his native city of Dublin. We are gratified to learn that the last commission he has received is to execute

the statue of Henry Grattan. When to the graceful form of Goldsmith, and the life-like energy of Burke, are added the colossal figure of the great tribune of the Irish people, O'Connell, and the impassioned vehemence of emancipated freedom embodied in the form of Grattan, then may we with benefit read these books lying open in our thoroughfares, to teach us that we have Celtic names worthy of our best hero-worship. But we must return from this pleasing digression to the ancient sculpture of Ireland, and ask, what have we to show in this department? We answer at once-Go to Monasterboice and examine the stone crosses there; go thence to the centre of Ireland and see crosses of the same character at Clonmacnoise; pass thence to Castledermot, and, having surveyed the great cross there, proceed northwards and examine the Irish stone cross at Drumclieff, and then show us any monuments in England of the same date, so beautiful in design, so graceful in form, so delicate as the interlacements which decorate the arms of the Irish cross. England has truly reason to boast of her glorious cathedrals. They are the evidences of Catholic times, when the earnest faith of the people prompted them to raise those palaces of religion. They are also the proofs of splendid, artistic genius, devoted to the highest purposes of Christian worship. But these gorgeous temples which cover the land and delight the eye of the traveller—

"A thing of beauty is a joy for ever"—

such temples were erected long subsequent to the period in which our exquisite stone crosses were executed. Dr. Stokes, with that moderation and truthfulness which characterize his admirable biography of Petrie, observes:

"The art of the carver or sculptor may next be considered; and to deny the quality of a certain beauty to the early stone and metal work of Ireland, is only an example of a narrow prejudice. True it is that in the drawing of the figure, as seen in the older MS. and in sculpture, whether in stone or metal, it is easy to perceive a deficient power of execution and design; but even with such defects the old Irish artists are often most successful in expression. In the Petrie Museum the small metal shrine of St. Moedoc, which is of great antiquity, and ornamented with bas-reliefs of ecclesiastics and holy women in their early costumes, of an execution marvellously delicate, the expression of the countenances is in a high degree felicitous and varied; and, to come to later times, the crowned effigies of O'Brien and O'Conor, at Corcomroe and Roscommon Abbeys, exhibit a power of sculpture which may

compare with anything of the same date in England. The same admirable quality of expression may be seen in the figure of the Saviour on the cross of Tuam, and in many other examples. . . But it is in the variety of form, and the exquisite tracery in metal work, that the skill and the taste of the old artificers is mainly shown. The jewelled shrines of the consecrated bells, as well as many of the earlier and even of the later croziers, down to the fifteenth century, exhibit great power both in design and execution. This Irish art has been by some styled barbarous. It may be presumed, in the same sense, that the pointed architecture was called Gothic; but to him whose sense of beauty and of excellence is not narrowed or tied down by formulæ, it has, in all the qualities of proportion, variety, and gracefulness, a singular and unapproachable beauty.".

(To be continued.)

RELIGION IN EDUCATION AS AN INSTRUMENT
OF MENTAL CULTURE.

A LECTURE DELIVERED BEFORE THE HISTORICAL, LITERARY, AND ÆSTHETICAL
SOCIETY OF THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND, BY THE
VERY REV. MONSIGNOR WOODLOCK, D. D.

We have been accustomed to hear the arguments developed which prove the importance, or rather the necessity, of uniting religious with secular instruction in the great work of Education. With Bacon we have considered Religion as the precious perfume of the sciences which hinders them from corrupting the human heart-" aroma scientiarum." We know, that it alone, by being the basis, the companion, and the crown of the instruction of youth, can make that instruction an Education which will fit man for the two-fold end of his existence, to be for a while a worthy denizen of earth, and thus to become an everlasting citizen of heaven. These holy and supernatural advantages of Religion in Education are often considered. But not so frequently, as it seems to me, do we reflect on another very important part, which the study of religious truth, and the scientific acquirement of sacred knowledge ought to occupy in the education of a Christian citizen; and many persons, I think, do not sufficiently bear in mind the grievous intellectual loss sustained by those whose minds are submitted to a system of culture, from which is excluded a study of Religion proportionate to