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A DAY AT THE SEVEN CHURCHES AT GLENDALOUGH.

(Continued from page 51.)

A cemetery is often an interesting, sometimes even a beautiful, spot. I suppose not, here, such a dank, noisome enclosure as a city church-yard; neither do I contemplate that finished specimen of Parisian affectation, Pere la Chaise. But I summon to my fancy the burying-ground of some English village, surrounding a parish church, gray and time-touched, like its venerable vicar; but, like him also, firm, orderly, and upright;-a shady place, where

"The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep"

under chesnuts that witnessed the Norman invasion, and yews that supplied, during the wars of the Plantagenets, the tough bow for the formidable archery of England. Or, I would rather ponder on such a spot as this at Glendalough-surrounded as it is by mighty mountains, dark winding glens-all its lakes, and streams, rocks, and waterfalls, in keeping and accordant association with a place of ruins-ruins that testify of altars and of a priesthood overthrown a worship made desolate-a people scattered and peeled; where the long-continuous shadow of the lofty and slender round tower moves slowly from morn till eve, over wasted churches, overturned oratories, shattered crosses, scathed yewtrees, and the tombs, now undistinguishable, of bishops, abbots, and anchorites-walking its round as time-centinel, and telling forth to the Ancient of Days, how many suns have run their diurnal and annual course, since these holy men of old had descended to their graves.

I certainly did feel strongly impressed with the scene around, and entered into abstracted communion with the Genius loci, and my imagination had Coemgen, and Moliba, and Aidan,” and their successors, Malachy and Laurence O'Toole, passing before me, and mourning over this their sanctuary, their mountain retreat for ascetic contemplation, now trodden under foot by the ruthless spoiler, and become curious for its desert loneliness and hoary desolation-where the carion crow croaks hoarsely from the briared chapelry, where she has made her a nest-and where the fox, the martin, and the wild cat now find their dens and hiding-places.Such were the imaginings that came thick upon me, as I walked across the church-yard of Glendalough. And, after all, they were unfounded fancies I was then possessed of. For it was not the work of the reformation to cause these ruins-it was not the churchspoiler of Henry or Elizabeth's day-nor yet the curse of Cromwell, that swept all here into desolation. As we have the best authority for supposing, that long before the changes brought about by Protestantism, or even before the suppression of monastaries, this place had become a ruined and deserted scene. An Archbishop of Tuam, cited by Ware, writing 616 years ago, mentions that this

place, though from ancient times it was held in great veneration on account of St. Kevin, had now become so deserted and desolate, that instead of being a retreat for Churchmen, it had become a den of robbers and the resort of thieves so much so, that more homicides and crimes are committed in this valley, than in any other place in Ireland.* Before we finish this article, we may, perhaps, show that Glendalough, though somewhat improved in this respect, is not free from those characteristics attributed to it by good Archbishop Felix O'Ruadan.

1

But to proceed: As I passed over the flag stones covered with the uncouth memórials and shapeless sculpture of the Byrnes and Tooles, and other sons of little men-for there is not an ancient monument in the whole cemetery-I came to where, beside the little chapelry in which Priests are buried, a new closed grave heaved its trunked and unsubsided turf. The white paper ornaments and faded flowers fixed at its head and foot, denoted that the human form now dissolving away underneath, was young and unmarried a woman, wrapped in her mantle, on her knees, was bending over the grave: she every now and then beat her bosom, and used that peculiar rocking motion which Irishwomen employ to express grief. As I passed her, I could hear the rapid utterings of her prayers, and moved hastily away, desirous not to intrude on the abstractedness of her sorrow; for indeed my feelings found excuses for the fond superstition that fixed the poor creature there: I felt a respect for this earliest and most excusable deviation from the simplicity of scriptural Christianity; and I entered into conversation with my guide. "I see," says I, "that a great deal of wild mint grows amongst the graves; it has a strong and not unpleasant smell." "Yes, please your honour, and well it is for us sometimes of a hot summer that it is here. A poor mother, some years ago, stuck a sprig of it over the grave of her only child, and it has grown more and more every year since, and well it is for us that come often in the summer season to this yard, that the poor woman planted it, for it hides, in a measure, the smell that rises from the graves, which, saving your presence, of a dog-day, is enough to knock down a horse; and to tell you the truth, Sir, when the English quality come here in such hot weather, I always, if I can, guide them and keep them at the windy side of the place." "Why, how deep are the graves sunk?" "About three feet or so; and I believe the bodies smell the stronger because as how blessed Kevin won't allow any worms to stay in the place, and so, Sir, there's nothing at all to eat up the corpses.' "" Before this short conversation had concluded, I by chance turned me round to where I left the woman praying, and was surprised to see a number of shawls, handkerchiefs, and pieces of muslin opened out and dis

• Licet magna reverentia haberetur ab antiquis, propter St. Kievin, nunc tamen ita deserta est et desolata, per quadraginta fere annos, quod de ecclesia facta est spelunca latronum et fovea furum, ita quod plura homicidia committuntur in illa valle quam aliquo alio loco in Hibernia.- Harris's Ware, p. 376.

played for sale, by this very woman, on the grave she had been an instant before weeping over: and now she was as busy and intent as the spirit of a pedlar could make her, in disposing of her commodities to some strangers who had come up, and she certainly neither spared oaths nor lies in recommending her wares. I was shocked, though not surprised, at the rapid transition from apparently intense devotion and hallowed grief, to this deep engagement in the concerns of worldliness. I say, not surprised; for after all, the work of praying over the graves of relations, as well as other devotional works of Romanists, are too often but routine forms and heartless observances: as I know of another occasion, in which a woman was seen beside a grave, in all the attitudes and work of woe, keening, rocking herself up and down, beating her breast, and tearing her dishevelled hair; but, while carrying on the process, one came up and said, "Ah then, Judy, you fool of the world, what are you doing there? Sure that's not Rose's grave at all at all, but farmer Mulvanny's, who is neither kiff nor kin to us.' "Oh, blessed day, cousin Jem, do you tell me so; and must I go now and begin all again, and do it out of a face, over and over, in the right place?"

over his weather, or "Why," said Why, Sir,

66

Having left the mourning pedlar, I passed on to where there were some better kinds of tombstones, composed not of the common mica slate flag to be found in the neighbourhood, but of fine, compact, sonorous, blue limestone, which is brought from the county Carlow. That's the right sort of stuff," says my guide, "for a a tombstone-it was placed there by Father Pat father. There's no danger of that giving with the slacking into powder, as other stones have done." I," do limestones ever go to pieces in that way?" not in this holy place. But three or four miles off, in the Protestant Church-yard, there were limestone flags brought from Carlow, and would you believe it, that one night they all took fire and slacked off into powder. The people, it is true, thought it an unlucky place, and said that the like would not happen if it was consecrated by those who could do it." "Oh, then," says a respectable farmer-like looking man, who was sitting on a tombstone just near us, "that cannot be the case any more, seeing as how the Priest the other day brought a jug of holy water, and sprinkled and sanctified Derrylossory churchyard, so that now the curse is off it." "On what occasion, Sir, was that, may I ask?" said I. Why, Sir, I'll tell you. There was a man here of the name of H, whose breed and seed, as well as himself, were all Protestants, and this man had the falling sickness, and the Priest undertook to cure him, provided he never darkened a church door, and so the man joined hands with the Priest, and sure enough he was cured, and a Catholic he continued all his days. Now last patron-day, the 3d of June, the man being fond of a drop, and loving carousing, horse-racing, and devilment, as well as e'er a man in Wicklow; this man, after being in the midst of a row in this very churchyard, and after they were all sent home by the

Priest; as he was pelting along on horseback, and blind mad drunk, he dashed his leg against a gate, and he was so injured that he died. Well, then, he was to be buried-it was right to bury him in Derrylossory, seeing that all his people were there, but it was also right to bury him as a Catholic, and so the Priest, as I said before, came with a great following, and without even saying with your leave or by your leave to the Protestant minister, the man was decently, and like a true Catholic, interred." "Oh, then," says another man that was near hand, "I can tell the gentleman of another curious thing about the two churchyards." "Thank you, Sir," said 1: " pray tell it me." "Why, Sir, not long ago a man beyond there at Castle Kevin, cut his throat from ear to ear, and in course he died. As a Catholic, his proper berrin ground was the place where we now stand; but when he was brought here, the neighbours all rose in a faction, and they swore that not a mother's soul-body I mean-should the bearers bring of him within this holy ground that was sanctified by St. Kevin. No, said they, carry him off, if you like, to Derrylossory, and bury him among the Protestants; he has no business with Christian berrin, and amongst heretics let him lie, and it's a place good enough for him; so away the bearers started for Derrylossory, but behold you, before they got there the Protestants had intimation of the matter, and their pride being up, they assembled and stood at the gate of the graveyard, and swore that the first man who attempted to bring the corpse in, should lose his life; so the body was left at the gate, and home his friends started; upon which the Protestant boys that very evening carried it off and left it at the Priest's door. But his Reverence could have no call to it, and what now was to be done? Why the best that could-for the gentleman on whose property he lived and died, seeing that it was very likely there would be some terrible work between the factions, very quietly sent his cart and horse, and conveyed him to the rere of his garden-wall, where digging a deep hole, the remains of the suicide were deposited. It's an ill wind that blows nobody luck, and so it turned out here; for Squire -'s garden, that year after year was robbed of its fruit and vegetables, was as safe this season as if it was guarded by a regiment of horse. There's no manner of doubt but the ghost was seen stalking up and down with his throat cut from ear to ear. It would have been well, perhaps, for Squire -'s garden and premises had the self-murderer's corpse been let to rot here until the day of judgment; but it did not turn out so for by the greatest good luck, some friend of the deceased, who had known that he had in former days subscribed a penny a week to a purgatorian society, and wore the scapular, came and told the Priest. "Oh," says his Reverence, "that certainly changes the face of the matter. His relations may now go and put him in consecrated ground; not, to be sure, at Glendalough; but there's a nice snug little place at Merrion, near Dublin; so his friends took the hint they came by night, raised the man out of the meadow, and before morning he was dacently laid in Catholic and Chris

tian ground, where, for aught I know, he lies to this day." I thanked my informant for this tint, which, as a sketcher of Ireland and its people, I am enabled to throw upon my picture; and now having, as I may say, written a whole chapter on a churchyard, it is time for me to step into the principal ruin which it surrounds, and which is here called the cathedral. This ruin, in sooth, requires a prepared imagination to give it the consideration of such a metropolitan building, with which are commonly associated the ideas of size and solidity, in the whole; and ornament and accurate finish, in the detail; arches and aisles, buttresses, and groined interlacings, mullioned windows, and the grotesque heads, faces, and flowers of Gothic tracery-nothing of all this is here-nothing but the four walls of a common roofless church, and that a small one, being but sixty-seven feet in length, and its inclosure defiled with the ugly graves, and the uncooth head and flag-stones of little men, amidst whose paltry remains spring up the thistle, the hemlock, and nettle, in noisome vegetation: the whole place exhibiting not only a poverty in original execution, but a meanness in its present decay. The eastern window of the CATHEDRAL, every one who has been at Glendalough, no doubt, has remarked. Reader, if you have been here, and brought a guide with you, you must have perceived that all his explanatory powers were here put forth. Mr. Irwin, my Cicerone, was very ample in his lore. The window was to exhibit the fullness of his legendary researches, and yet it was never large, or richly decorated; but still there is some ornamental work, and a sort of frieze, on which are rudely carved what purport to be a serpent, a dog, a man, and a willow tree. It is worth while to observe, that the stone on which the carvings are executed, and the other ornamental work of the window, is a cream-coloured oolite, or roestone, similar to that used at Bath and at Paris, but which is not to be found in Ireland; for there is none of the oolite formation in Ireland, except at Killala, in the county of Mayo, and that is of a blue, and not of cream-colour; this shows, that at the period of the building of this church, there was a communication between England and Ireland of rather a settled character; and the sceptic, concerning the superior civilization and proficiency of Ireland in arts and literature in the olden time, might hint, that here was a proof that the Irish ecclesiastics were obliged to import the ornamental parts of their architecture from another country. Be it as it may, I have found the same foreign stone used at Mellifont, and other old churches and abbeys throughout Ireland.

Mr. Irwin was, as I said, quite diffuse in his scholia on this frieze. "Does your honour see that serpent, there to the right, whose head yon dog has in his mouth? Stand up, Sir, on this stone, and you'll see the better.-Jem Mulligan, avick, shew me that hazel switch, until I point out the dog and serpent to the gintleman, and make him sinsible. Look, Sir-that's a serpent the point of my switch touches; the same serpent that blessed St. Kievin had such work and bother about: for you must know, Sir, that when the blessed man-heaven's blessing go with his name