Chapter XXV

On the east side of the river Shannon, about ten miles distant from Athlone, in the barony of Garrycastle, and King’s County, is situated the _Sanctuary_ of Clonmacnoise. Within the narrow limits of two Irish acres, are here condensed more _religious_ ruins, of antiquarian value, than are to be found, perhaps, in a similar space in any other quarter of the habitable world.

Nine churches, built respectively by the individuals whose names they bear, namely: (1) that of Macarthy More; (2) that of Melaghlin; (3) that of MacDermott; (4) that of Hiorphan; (5) that of Kieran; (6) that of Gawney; (7) that of O’Kelly; and (8) that of O’Connor;--independently of the _cathedral_,--here moulder, in kindred mortality, with the ashes of nobles, of princes, and of kings, entombed beneath their walls; and who, at feud, mayhap, in life, are now content to sleep beside each other, “their warfare o’er,” in the levelling indistinction of death.

Your curiosity is, no doubt, excited to know how so circumscribed a little spot could have been chosen as the nucleus of such ecclesiastical ambition? The answer is found in the circumstance of this having been one of the strongholds of _Budhism_, in the days of its corruscations, which made it now be singled out, in common with other places memorable for that creed, as the appropriate locality for Christian superincumbency.

Two Round Towers, _the chief object of emulation_, are, as you may have supposed, here to be encountered: and _these are the very ones, which the reader may recollect have been alluded to at_ p. 38, as ridiculously claimed by Montmorency for _Christian_--because, forsooth, in the vagueness of popular titles, they are _recently_ distinguished by the names of _MacCarthy_ and _O’Rourke_!

The _Eastern columns_, denominated after _Pompey_[411] and _Cleopatra_,[412] have been equally productive of historical mistakes; until, at last, it has appeared that those celebrated lovers have had no more to do with such erections, than have had the _O’Rourkes_ or _MacCarthys_ with our _Round Towers_!

Here also are _three crosses_ belonging to the same religion, to _one_ of which only shall I now direct your observation. It is fifteen feet high, composed of a single stone, and sculptured with imagery of the most elegant execution.

The devices upon this sculpture are such as you would have expected from the _authors of the Allegory of the Paradisiacal Fall_: and here, accordingly, it presents itself, just as in _language_ they had clothed it, in all the mysteriousness of the figurative _tree_.

Immediately over the equestrian and chariot sports, which decorate the pedestal, you see Adam and Eve conversing at each side of this _symbol_ of their dearly-bought _knowledge_! Farther up are other emblems of mythological allusion: while, in the centre above, you observe a _Cabir_ priest, alias, a _Freemason_, holding the implements of his craft--a high honour--in his hand;[413] and encompassed by a retinue of several more persons, all in the glow of joy!

The other sides, though less complex, are not less graceful, nor less significant, than the two which I have introduced. In them, also, everything bears reference to the _Budhist_ ceremonial. Nor are the _mouldings_ and the _flowerings_, the _networks_, and other ornaments which figure upon them, the _least essential_ constituent of that fruitful code,[414]--while the personation of a _dog_,--an invariable accompaniment, as it is also amongst the sculptures at Persepolis, and other places in the East,--_would, in itself be sufficient to fix the appropriation of those crosses_, as that animal can have no possible relation to Christianity, whereas, by the Tuath-de-danaans, it was accounted _sacred_, and its maintenance enjoined by the ordinances of the state, as it is still in the Zend books, which remain after Zoroaster.

To Clondalkin Tower, represented at p. 101, there belongs also a stone cross, and bearing its own history upon its _Tuath-de-danaan_ countenance. In Armagh is another. I cannot afford time to point out any more, but that at _Finglas_ is too remarkable to be quite neglected.

Every body is acquainted with the legendary tale of _St. Patrick having banished all venomous reptiles from this_ island. Now, I am very willing, as has been shown, to give this apostle all the credit which he deserves; but I am a chronicler of _truth_, and from me he shall have no romances. Solinus, who flourished A.D. 190, that is, above two centuries before St. Patrick was born, has noticed the phenomenon of there being no vipers here. Isidore has repeated it in the seventh century; as has Bede in the eighth; and, in the ninth, Donatus, the famous bishop of Fesula. This exemption, therefore, cannot be attributable to St. Patrick, whose honour would be better consulted by his religious admirers in confining themselves to _facts_, which are numerous enough, than in shocking credibility by their _pious frauds_.

As to the _local_ phenomenon, to which you perceive _he_ can have no pretensions, I cannot resist bestowing upon it a passing observation. Bede, I think, has gone so far as to say that not only are there no snakes to be found in Ireland, but that they would not live, if imported: nay, that, when brought within sight of the shore, they expire! I should like to see this ascertained; if the fact be such, then the question is solved, the air or the soil is the cause.

But if the case be otherwise, then must we ascribe it to some _human_ instrumentality; and, as there occur various texts in Scripture, allusive, it would seem, to a very prevailing opinion in the _East_, as to the manageableness of that species, by the power of charms,--such as, “I will send serpents, cockatrices, among you, which will not be charmed” (Jer. viii. 17); and “the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear, which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming never so wisely” (Ps. lvii. 4, 5);--and as our Tuath-de-danaans, who were an Eastern people, are recorded by all our early ecclesiastical writers, and with no view to encomium, as so eminent for incantations, that the island seemed, during their sway, to have been one continuation of enchantment, it is past doubt, that, if practicable by man’s efficacy at all, the merit of extinction belongs solely to them. And it is well worth notice, that the island of Crete, where a colony of them also had settled, is said to be gifted with a similar exemption. “The professed snake-catchers in India,” says Johnson, “are a low caste of Hindoos, wonderfully clever in catching snakes, as well as in practising the art of legerdemain; they pretend to draw them from their holes by a song, _and by an instrument resembling an Irish bagpipe, on which they play a plaintive tune_.”[415]

Every _legend_, however, is founded upon _reality_, and I will unfold to you from what has Joceline concocted _this about St. Patrick_. All the _crosses_ of the Tuath-de-danaans had _snakes_ engraved upon them. Look back at that at Killcullen,[416] and you will see them there still, and more plainly, by and by, upon that at Kells. These to the Irish were objects of reverence, because of the _passions_ which they symbolised; and accordingly the Saint, in order to obviate the recurrence of such contemplations, effaced them, when practicable, from off the stones.[417]

The same precisely was the course, but with a less hallowed intention, which the Moslems had pursued in the dissemination of their creed. “Whenever,” says Archer, “these figures were introduced, the fanatic Moslem had hammered away all those within his reach; and when this process was too slow for the work of demolition, another mode of obliteration was requisite. Whole compartments of sculpture were plastered over to hide the profane imagery! In clearing away the rubbish, to bring these beautiful remains to light, the engineer stumbled on a long frieze, part of which had had the destroying mallet passed over it; but this method of despatch was not active enough, and that portion which had escaped violence, had been plastered over with a composition of the colour of the stone.”[418]

We read also in the Puranas, as an historical circumstance, that the whole _serpent_ race had been destroyed by Janamijaya, the son of Parieshit, which, in truth, only implies, as the talented professor of Sanscrit in Oxford University has already remarked, “the subversion of the local and original superstition, and the erection of the system of the Vedas upon its ruins.”

St. Patrick, in like manner, having established Christianity _here_, in supercedence of a religion, the most prominent symbols of which were _snakes_, _cockatrices_, and _serpents_, may be truly said to have _extirpated_ their race from the country, but, as you see, in an acceptation heretofore unexplained.

The _statement_ given by Major Archer of the _symbolic representations_ upon one of the Indian temples, as well as the particulars of its _fate_, are so perfectly in unison with what I have been describing, that I must be excused if I give it a place here.

“Reached Burwah-Saugor,” says he. “Immediately on the right is a Hindoo temple, which I think one of the rarest sights, on the score of architecture and sculpture, which have gratified our curiosity. The work of the chisel would have immortalised the artist had he lived in the present day. I have never seen its execution rivalled, although tolerably conversant with similar objects of art. The elegance of design--the arrangement of the figures, which were too numerous to be computed--the position of them--the sharp and bold relief--and the elaborate ornaments of _foliage_ and _animals_, render it one of the _most remarkable monuments_ of art it is possible to conceive. There are compartments on the lintels of the doors and the entablature, four deep; _figures of the subordinate deities in the voluminous code of Brahma_, _symbols of their attributes_, _sacred utensils_, and _animals_. Two vases are on the threshold, which, for shape and execution, would compete the palm of excellence with Grecian art. _Wreaths of snakes_, and groups of _men_ and _women_, are on the _columns_, which also have _their_ ornaments, and are well proportioned.

“I could not resist a second visit to this edifice, which, at the risk of appearing opinionative, I can seriously aver, I never saw equalled for richness and taste; but the hand of intolerant bigotry has marred the work of fair proportion. The fanatical Moslems, who overran the country in the time of Acbar, broke and defaced every image they saw; and, with few exceptions, the head of every figure, of any size or importance, has been demolished; and nothing remains but relics, which attest the advance of the arts at the time the structure was reared.”

The effects of fanaticism are the same in all ages. It desecrates alike human and divine laws. St. Patrick was no fanatic; and accordingly, in _his_ course, what he could not himself comprehend, he was resolved, at all events, to have respected. Those crosses, therefore, which had previously been looked upon with an eye of veneration, _though the cause had long ceased to be transmitted_, he literally _Christianised_, by removing the sculpture; and thus were they made, in the ritual of the new religion, as hallowedly expressive as they were ever before.

Precisely similar was the system pursued by the missionaries in India.

“The island of Salsette,” says Captain Head, “abounds in mythological antiquities and pagan temples--two gigantic figures of Buddha, near twenty feet high, of complete preservation, which they owe to the zeal of the Portuguese, who painted them red, and converted the place they ornamented to a Catholic chapel.”

The Pantheon at Rome was new modelled in the same manner. In a word, as Grotius has before affirmed, “infinite appropriations have been made.”

But, independently of this conversion, the conformity itself between the Christian and the Budhist religion was so great that the Christians, who rounded the Cape of Good Hope with Vasco de Gama, performed their devotions in an Indian temple, on the shores of Hindustan! Nay, “in many parts of the peninsula,” say the _Asiatic Researches_, “Christians are called, and considered as followers of Buddha, and their divine legislator, whom they confound with the apostle of India, is declared to be a form of Buddha, both by the followers of Brahma and those of Siva; and the information I had received on that subject is confirmed by F. Paulino.”

It was not so with those who made religion a trade, and only the auxiliary password to their selfish aggrandisement! When the “abomination of desolation”[419] swept over this country, and strewed the verdure of its surface with the indiscriminate fragments of cathedrals, of castles, and of towers, the crosses but as little escaped the scourge!

Having had occasion to pass through Finglas, on their march to the siege of Drogheda, and fancying the cross which stood there to have been _necessarily_ the erection of obnoxious _Romanism_, they gave it an _iconoclast_ blow, which broke its shaft into two! Thus decapitated, it fell. But the citizens, wishing to avoid further profanation, soon as ever the army evacuated the town, took the disjointed relic and buried it very decorously within the confines of the churchyard!

Here it remained, in consecrated interment, until the beginning of the year 1816, when an old man of the parish, recounting anecdotes of bygone times, mentioned amongst others, the particulars of this tradition, and excited some curiosity by the narrative.

The Rev. Robert Walsh was then curate of Finglas, and this mysterious history having reached his ears, he determined forthwith to ascertain its evidences. His first step was to see the chronicler himself.--This personage’s name was Jack White. Jack, who was himself well stricken in years, told him that he had learned, a long while ago, from his father, who was then himself rather elderly, that he had been shown by his still older grandfather the identical spot where the cross had been concealed, and could point it out now to anyone with certainty and preciseness.

The proposal was accepted; workmen were employed; and, after considerable perseverance, the cross was _exhumed_, its parts _reunited_ by iron cramps, and _re-erected_, as opposite, within a short distance of the scene of its subterranean slumbers, as if in renascent triumph over the destroyer!

“Let such approach this consecrated land
And pass in peace along the magic waste:
But spare its relics--let no busy hand
Deface the scene, already how defaced!
Not for such purpose were those altars placed:
Revere the remnants nations once revered;
So may our country’s name be undisgraced,
So may’st thou prosper where thy youth was reared,
By every honest joy of love and life endeared.”[420]