IT is advantageous as well as honourable to the profession of letters, when men whose profession is that of arms become conspicuous in the ca reer of Literature. It is remarkable, too, that some of the best Topographical, Historical, and Biographical,works among the moderns as well as the ancients, have been written by military men. The author of the Tract now before us (a French officer resident at Paris) sets out by eloquently observing," that Topography in particular holds forth attractions almost equal to the writer and to the reader. Its study engages the kindest feelings of the soul; and brings the inquisitive and patriot reader to identify himself with all that contributes to the embellishment, the glory, and the prosperity, of his country." He undoubtedly shows himself well qualified for inquiries of this nature, not only by the character and style of the present Work, but also by the course he took in conducting a project he once entertained of a Biographical Dictionary, after the manner of Mr. Seward; when in order to accomplish that undertaking with due accuracy, he made "a tour through several counties in search of local information, at which time he also endeavoured (and not unsuccessfully) to acquire some insight into the history of the most antient and many of the modern great families; well convinced that to obtain correct local knowledge respecting any isolated districts and subdivisions of a province or county, the most judicious course to pursue was to learn the biography, and to understand the genealogies of successive owners and occupants of castles, baronies, and manors." Subsequent occurrences, not in his power to foresee or controul, interrupted him in the complete execution of this his favourite project. Upon which he resolved to detach from the general fund of his GENT. MAG. December, 1821.

topographical collections all that is contained in this Tract, "On the Origin and Use of the Pillar Tower."

"Other considerable draughts from the above collections will immediately be communicated to the Publick thro' the channel of a very interesting work by his much-esteemed literary friend Mr. Brewer, now in the press, and on the point of appearing, entitled "The Beauties of Ireland, by the Author of The Beauties of England and Wales." He adds, "that he avails himself of so favourable an opportunity from a respect" (in which we beg to say, we most cordially participate) "for that gentleman's literary character; and from a knowledge of Mr. Brewer's critical acquaintance with statistical, architectural, and antiquarian subjects." In his observation on the growing taste of the age for this department of Literature, in which he liberally admits that England stands pre-eminent, we also are happy to coincide with the gallant Colonel; though not without some qualification in another opinion of his, "that those of Ireland have been neglected." At least, there will remain little ground for that opinion after the appearance of such works as this now before us, accompanied by those of Mr. S. Mason and Mr. Brewer above mentioned.

In order to enable the reader to fix with precision the species of structure called the Pillar-Tower, its age, origin, and primitive use, two Engravings accompany the Work, containing seven specimens. Of these two are Irish, two are Turkish minarets; two are Syriac, given in the celebrated journey of Maundrell; and the seventh is one to which we wish more particularly to draw the reader's attention, as it will afford the clue to the real discovery of the origin and use of the Irish Pillar-Tower.

This Tower is situated near the river Ganges in the province of Bahar, adjoining that of Bengal in India, one mile N. W. of the town of Rhauguipore. It is mentioned along with another, in Lord Valentia's Travels. The Rajah of Jyenagur considers them as consecrated buildings,—a

great

great number of his subjects annually resort there for some purpose of worship: but it seems they are not held in veneration by the Hindoo8.

We regret with the Colonel, that the noble traveller was not more precise in his measurements of these Towers, as well as in his inquiries about them. They have this in common with the Irish Pillar-Tower, the doorway is elevated several feet above the ground. In the other particulars given they vary;-they are less slim in their proportions, they are not pyramidal neither have they the conical capping, but instead of it a cupola, &c. They agree, however, in having a number of indented beltings, an ornament uniformly introduced in the embellish ments of all Indian antiquities.

Giraldus Cambrensis, the first his torian who mentions the Irish PillarTowers, styles them "ecclesiastical Towers of a fashion peculiar to Ireland." He speaks of the popular tradition of Lough Neagh having been originally a fountain; by whose sudden overflow the country was inundated, and a whole region, like the Atlantis of Plato, was overwhelmed. He says that the fishermen, when the lake is clear and unruffled, used to point out to strangers these tall ecclesiastical Towers under the water. This legend seems to have been borrowed from what is reported by travellers of the cities submerged in the Dead Sea. Without professing ourselves either converts to the belief of the Irish tale, or incurable and relapsed infidels on the subject, we can still admire the pretty allusion it has furnished in the following stanza of the "Irish Melodies:"

"On Lough Neagh's lake as the fisherman

strays,

When the clear cold eve's declining, He sees the round Towers of other days, In the deep beneath him shining." But to quit legend (the weaving of whose magic warp and woof poets and bardic songsters delight in, not without enchanting the bystanders, whatever be their pursuit, sect, or country), let us come to plain historical analysis, of which this Tract affords an able specimen. And though we shall perhaps be led to a different conclusion from that drawn by the gallant Colonel, it must not be forgotten that we owe it to the lights

and roads of communication afforded by his industry, that we have arrived at such conclusion.

The

In size, these Pillar-Towers vary, being from 70 to 120 or 133 feet in height. The general circumference, at the height of five feet from the ground, may be computed at from 40 to 56 feet; the shaft decreasing pyramidally to the summit which ends in a cone. This capping is in shape not unlike the Caubeen or bonnet of the Giolaglass (which literally means the follower in a green mantle), the antient Irish soldier, such as he is represented on old stone crosses, and on the Royal tomb in the AbbeyChurch of Roscommon. Withinside, these towers have generally (not always) brackets, apparently intended for the support of from four to seven lofts or floors, which they once (the Author supposes) contained. door almost uniformly faces the East; its dimensions are from five to six feet in height by two in width: it is round-arched, and ever distant from 10 to 15 feet from the ground. The walls measure in thickness from a yard to four feet and a half. The stone is of the very finest quality; in some instances (as the Colonel is strongly persuaded), of the identical substance called Roman brick. In that of Ardmore, for example (which he considers to be one of the most imposing objects of antiquity in all Christendom), each stone, or Roman brick rather, is cut into a cubic block of the dimension of one foot; the whole are arranged in regular layers, so closely cemented, that none of the mortar can be extracted from between the rows; and so dense and solid is the mass, that the edifice resembles an enormous pyramidal shaft, shaped like the obelisks of Axum in Abyssinia, of Mobobedery in India, or of the Egyptian obelisk at Arles in the South of France, with various others; and seems, says our author, as if cut out of a stupendous rock in one block of stone, fixed by an almost supernatural hand. In the pillar of Oughterard, in the county of Kildare, the door (five feet by two) is formed of nine blocks; at the elevation of 20 feet in the South aspect is a window of the same size and shape as the door. The Tower of Ardmore, 90 or 100 feet high, and 45 feet in the girth, has four beltings of hewn stone,

cut

cut with good taste, which designate a correspondent number of stories.

The Pillar-Tower of Devenis or Damh Innis (ost isle), in the county of Fermanagh, is the exact counterpart to that of Ardmore in the county of Waterford. It was built evidently of the same architecture and masonry. On the East aspect, above the door, is a window, in the form of a pointed arch. Still higher up, under the eave, is a square loop-hole; there are two more on the North, two on the South, and one on the Western sides. The eave at its junction, immediately under the capping, is elegantly ornamented with a species of moulding charged with human faces, roses, and other figures. The Pillar-Tower at Roscrea, in the county of Tipperary, has likewise over the door a window partaking of the pointed arch; which, with the one above mentioned, the Colonel considers the oldest specimens of that arch perhaps existing.

There is internal evidence that all these edifices were raised by the same school of architects and masons; of course, much about the same era. The author enumerates no less than 17 of them. These Towers are to be met with in every variety of site; on the sea-coast, in the heart of the country, on elevated summits, and on plains.

Not only must the architects have been consummate masters of masonry, but these structures must have been raised at leisure, in times of profound peace and security, under a regular government. They cannot be Da. nish; for the Danes never penetrated further than the sea-coasts; and, as above observed, these Towers are in all situations, built too in the same style of masonry. Besides, the Danes were too unsettled. To which we may add, they were too uncivilized and barbarous not only to execute, but even to conceive the idea of, such structures. Their occupations were not to invent, to plant, and build but to pull down and destroy.

up,

It is contended for by our author, that the old Bards (unlike the modern one above quoted) having never in their songs made allusion to these Towers, therefore their existence must be subsequent to the bardic ages. But-1. The few scattered and mutilated fragments handed down to us, orally, of these songs, can never

serve for the basis of any legitimate historical deduction. 2. The Bards are known to have flourished for ages after the æra fixed by the Colonel for the erection of these Towers, (viz. the sixth Century,) and therefore these must have been known to them. The Bards existed even after the time of Giraldus Cambrensis, the historian before mentioned, who speaks of these Towers. In Wales the Bards existed so low down as the reign of Edw. I. The silence, therefore, of the Bards proves nothing as to the date of their erection.

As to the silence of Strabo, Diodorus Siculus, &c. the imperfect knowledge they had of Ireland may be admitted as a satisfactory answer.

The Colonel supposes, that from one of the windows the host may have been elevated to the people gathered below sub dio: since, in the very largest Pillar-Towers, a diameter of six or seven feet, within the clear of the walls, would not admit any thing that could be called a congregation. They have, no doubt, been since (occasionally) some, or one, of them converted into a belfry; but this has nothing to do with their "primitive use.' They have no crypis, or subterraneous chambers. Those Pillar-Towers that have such (for example, those two given by Maundrell), have no doors, windows, or other opening, visible and conspicuous like those in the Irish Pillar-Tower. A remarkable observation is made by this Author; that the style of the masonry and sculpture, is Greek or Roman,strongly participating of the Gothic character; being the oldest link of the chain which (according to him) connects these orders. Also, in speaking of the Turkish Minaret, he observes, "in point of date no material disparity appears between them. They both alike claim SYRIA FOR THEIR PROPER COUNTRY."

And in this we concur with him. For we have no doubt, and possibly by this time the reader (on consideration of the particulars above enumerated, especially in Italics) has arrived at the same conclusion with ourselves,

that these Towers were originally Phoenician watch-towers, land lighthouses; first to observe the approach of danger at a distance over land or sea, also to give signals by fire, and

to

to sound the alarm, being so constructed, that the entrance, to every one but the keeper of them, was inaccessible.

now

They are always at, or near, monasteries. From this, however, we draw the very reverse of the inference drawn by the gallant Colonel. For he thinks the Monks built them: we take it that the Monks found them already built to their hands; and that they settled near them, for the sake of the accommodation, afforded not only as watch towers, but as keeps or treasuries for their plate and other valuables. Just as in Judea, a whole fortress has been converted into a convent. "The convent of St. Anthony," says the Colonel, quoting the very learned Jesuit Bonnani, “on Mount Colzoum, stands in the desart of Gebel, a short day's journey from the Red Sea, &c. There is no doorway to it; but visitors are introduced by means of a bucket wound up by pullies, &c. Within the central courtyard there is an isolated [square] tower of masonry. Here the Cophtes (Egyptian Monks, whom we may call the Culdees or Irish Monks of the East) preserve what money and valuables they possess. When assailed by the Arab they defend themselves with stones. There are four other very celebrated monasteries in the desart of St. Macaire, distant about three days journey from Grand Cairo. These have their [square] tower each, and it is applied to the same use. This, however, was only the second use it has been converted to, as subsequently those in Ireland bave been converted to a third use, that of a belfry. But we think the Monks no more founded or raised these wonderful structures than they did the Pyramids. They were as capable of building the one as the other. The first use, we think, was that of a watch-tower and beacon, and that they are all alike Syriac or Phoenician. Nor are we disposed, with the Colonel, to reject by any means the opinion of Gen. Vallancey, "that with their original and real first purpose or use, they were also consecrated to Beal or Baal, the god of fire ;" an opinion which receives countenance from the authority of the incomparable BRYANT, in his "Antient My thology."

The Irish Pillar-Tower differs from

the Turkish Minaret, in that this last has the door even with the ground,— is furnished with two, sometimes three, external galleries; having also the conical capping more acute. The windows in this last are irregularly placed. Possibly the regular distribution of the windows in the Irish Pillar-Tower, facing the four cardinal points, while the door is always due East, might have had reference to the astronomical observations of the Phoenicians, who, though a maritime, were also an astronomical people, as much as the Chaldean shepherds.

It

In speaking of the Irish Monks or Culdees, the Colonel well observes, "they denied the supremacy of the Roman pontiff." In truth, the primitive Irish Church was the Greek Papal, not the Latin or Roman Papal Church. It was England that made Ireland Roman Catholic. were to be wished we could say it had taken the same pains to make it Protestant. The primitive Church of Ireland was Greek, which we understand neither believes in transubstantiation nor in the worship of images. The Greek Church is the nearest to us: at least, it has not wandered so extravagantly as the Latin. Their Clergy enter into the married state; while their ritual has an almost Protestant gravity and simplicity. We throw out this hint for the statesmen on both sides of the gutter, squabbling about emancipation as it is called, but in reality contending who shall be Pope, under the re-establishment of the Roman Catholic Superstition.

To conclude, as we have here given our conclusion, which differs from that of the gallant Colonel, though drawn from his premises, still we have not yet given his conclusion in terms; in doing which, therefore (as in candour we are bound to do), we shall close this article. His system then is, 1. That these Pillar-Towers were built by the Irish Bishops and Abbots about the 6th Century. That the architects and masons of them were Greek and Roman pilgrims and Monks (who then were not an ecclesiastical but a Lay order of men), and who accompanied or followed the above Greek patriarchs to Ireland from Greece. The Lay Monks were men, some of them, of uncommon ingenuity, and all of them of

2.

great