Others display a peculiar affluence of sculpture, that atones for any defect of skill in design or execution, and which no artist, or man of cultivated taste, can view with a feeling bordering on indifference. In these crosses the clustered plenitude of decoration, rich in figures, in fanciful devices, and storied passages of scripture, often produces an unspeakable degree of beauty, when mellowed by the lenient touches of time.

Many sculptured crosses in this country are evidently of high antiquity, and some are usually ascribed to ages previous to the conversion of the Danes. It would appear to be unquestionable that the greater number are the work of those incorporated masons and artists, who travelled over different parts of Europe, and built the churches and performed the religious sculpture of Ireland, in common with those of other countries. Amongst the most antient remaining examples may be noticed the crosses of Monasterboice; Armagh; Kilry; and Kells, in the County of Meath.

MILITARY AND DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE.-Ireland abounds in vestiges of military architecture; but these remains are in few instances of a higher date than the entrance of the English, in the twelfth century; and nearly the whole are the works of invading nations. Whilst Britain acquired numerous castles of defence from the Romans and Saxons, the Celtic and Belgie tribes of Ireland remained destitute of an exemplar of fortification, on scientific principles. Attached, at a later period than neighbouring countries, to the antient and rude methods of irregular warfare, they retired to the morass, or climbed the mountain, when overpowered by numbers or by military tactics. The Danes, their first invaders subsequent to the christian æra, were scarcely more skilful than themselves in constructing places of artificial defence.. Thus, the vestiges of such modes of fortification as were practised by the antient Irish chiefly consist of earthworks, rude traces in the soil, which, from situation and character, have proved more durable than most works of stone.

Many writers assert that the Danes introduced to Ireland the use of cement in building; and Giraldus Cambrensis notices the great number of fortified places constructed by that people. But

there are at present scarcely any traces of stone buildings, which can, with a satisfactory calculation of correctness, be ascribed to a Danish origin. The antient tower at Waterford, termed Reginald's Tower, is usually believed to present an example of the fabrics of stone erected by the Danes in Ireland, for the purpose of defence. We are told, in the work on the Antiquities of Ireland published under the name of Grose, that the Ostmen, or Danes, had in Waterford " Turgis's, Magnus's, and Reginald's towers; names fully indicative of a Norwegian, or Danish, origin.' It will be obvious that the mere retention of a founder's name is no proof that the existing building was erected under his auspices. The name might be habitually retained, after the structure had undergone re-edification. The building in question is of a circular form, and of a considerable height. The interior is ascended by spiral stairs of stone, and the few windows are small and square. The walls are not less than nine feet in thickness.

These characteristics would equally apply to the AngloNormans, by whom the fortifications of Waterford were restored after their ruinous assault of the town in the year 1171. It is observable that the author of "Northern Antiquities" describes the fortresses of the antient Danes as being " rude castles, situate on the summit of rocks, and rendered inaccessible by thick, misshapen, walls;" and we have reason to believe that the Danes settled in Britain introduced no particular mode of fortification, but merely imitated the works of their Saxon predecessors. No direct historical testimony, nor marked peculiarities, denote any stone towers in Ireland to be of Danish workmanship; and the examiner, who is averse to the indulgence of conjecture in antiquarian inquiries, will, perhaps, believe that the only military vestiges in this country, satisfactorily attributed to the Danes, are the earthworks noticed in a previous page, several of which retain traces of the foundation of former buildings.

The earliest castles in Ireland, on an extensive plan, were erected subsequent to the invasion by the English, in the reign of Henry II. Owing to the unsettled state of Britain, and the constant bias of our sovereigns of the Norman line to continental

warfare, Henry and his successors neglected to raise in Ireland a sufficiency of strong castles by royal mandate, in resemblance of those constructed in England, which were built at the public cost, and garrisoned for the defence of the state. The attainment of security, however, induced the military leaders and other powerful settlers, to construct strong holds of defence; and by these distinguished persons numerous castles were erected, with great celerity, in different parts of the island.

Of the structures erected by the first settlers, or in ages briefly succeeding the reign of the second Henry, comparatively few remains are now to be seen; but there are sufficient examples to shew that strength was the primary object cultivated by the builders. It is certain that these fabrics were designed by architects brought from England; and they consequently bear a great similitude to structures remaining in that country; but it may be remarked that they are of a character less intricate, or mixed, than is commonly attributed by architectural antiquaries to castellated buildings of a later date than the reign of Henry the First. The keep was often, but not invariably, flanked with round towers, and placed on an elevated site, either natural or artificial. Traces of machicolation, portcullisses, and the various other refinements of defence carried to high perfection by the Anglo-Normans, in that improved mode of fortification cultivated by Bishop Gundulph,* are still visible; and these castles of the early settlers evidently comprised a ballium, and attendant outworks. Although strongly defensible, they are usually inferior in extent and beauty to English structures erected in the same ages; their whole aspect declaring, in characters as intelligible as the mournful pages of the annalist, the local troubles amidst which they were erected, and the ferocious rudeness of the mere soldiers, however dignified in name, by whom they were occupied. An example, although mutilated by recent innovation, occurs in the castle of Carlow.

* For some account of the improvements introduced to military architecture by this distinguished Bishop of Rochester, see "Introduction to the Beauties of England and Wales," article Anglo-Norman Antiquities.

To these fortresses, of Anglo-Norman character, succeeded, as in England, an irregular mode of castellation, in which the plan no longer consisted simply of a keep, or central tower, surrounded by embattled outworks. In this latter mode numerous towers of defence, united by mural lines, are combined in the scheme of one structure. This style obtained in England as early as the reign of Stephen, and probably grew into use in Ireland before the middle of the thirteenth century. As an example may be named Roscommon Castle, commenced in the year 1268. It may be noticed, as a minor, but strongly marked, feature of such castles as were erected subsequent to the early part of the thirteenth century, that round-headed windows and doorways often give place to those of a pointed form.

The disturbed state of Ireland unhappily rendered of slow growth that ameliorated style of castellated architecture which was adopted in the sister-island in the reign of Edward I. and in which a captivating richness of exterior lineaments is united with an internal amplitude of domestic arrangement, calculated for social enjoyment and sumptuous festivity. A faint imitation of manners, however, arose by tardy steps; and the architectural vestiges of part of the fourteenth, and the whole of the fifteenth century, act as memorials of the increased splendour of baronial establishments. Several buildings remain, although deserted and ruinous, in which the towers of defence are united by lines of capacious building, instead of mere embattled walls; the whole edifice assuming the aspect of a fortified assemblage of spacious dwellings. The decaying castle of Clonmore, county of Carlow, may be noticed as an example of this kind of building. But, in ascribing a date to such structures, the examiner must hold in remembrance that in Ireland, as in Britain, many castles were altered, in conformance to the new mode; and additional buildings, not older than the sixteenth century, are therefore often seen united with towers of considerable antiquity.

It will be obvious that the whole of the above remarks apply to the castles of the principal grantees, or most powerful and wealthy amongst the English settlers. There succceded to the

structures last noticed a species of dignified residence, appertaining to the same class of persons, of which there are many remains in Ireland, but none in England, except on the northern borders of that country. This is the castellated house, strictly so termed. In England there arose, after the disuse of regular fortresses as places of residence, a form of building on which this term is bestowed; but, in every instance with which we are acquainted, as Haddon Hall, in the county of Derby, these structures displayed only a mimickry of castellation, presenting loops and battlements, without possessing, in reality, a defensible character. In Ireland the coeval dwellings of the affluent, when not absolute fortresses, were large, massive, and irregular mansions, affording much of the convenience of the English halls, but of a more severe external character, and provided at every point with the means of formidable resistance. Such fabrics must chiefly be ascribed to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and they are exemplified in the ruins of Moret Castle, in the Queen's County; and those of Carnew Castle, in the county of Wicklow.

It is sufficiently evident that the custom of residing in fortified: buildings prevailed in Ireland to a much later date than in Britain.* If history were mute, the architecture of a country would explain, in no mean degree, the manners of the inhabitants in progressive ages. Thus it is painfully apparent, without the aid of record, that a want of security pervaded all ranks of this harassed country in the early years of the seventeenth century, whilst the more favoured inhabitants of England resided incapacious halls, having unguarded windows carried nearly to the level of the soil. Nor must it be supposed that these domestic perils, as they related to the upper orders of English settlers, proceeded entirely from the avenging spirit of natives, only half-subdued and vexatiously governed. The English, ambitious of extending their domains, and insolent in individual power whilst remote

It is believed that there is not in England any instance of a regular castle, erected as a residence, subsequent to the reign of Richard II. Introduction to "Beauties of England and Wales," p. 148.