The preceding remarks have spun out to a most unexpected extent; and I have to apologise both for their extravagant length and rambling character. At the same time, however, I believe that it would be considered an object of no small interest if it could be shown to be at all probable that we had still near us a specimen, however rude and ruinous, of early Scoto-Irish architecture. All authorities now acknowledge the great influence which, from the sixth to the eleventh or twelfth century, the Irish Church and Irish clergy exercised over the conversion and civilisation of Scotland. But on the eastern side of the kingdom we have no known remains of Scoto-Irish ecclesiastical architecture except the beautiful and perfect Round Tower of Brechin,[123] and the ruder and probably older Round Tower of Abernethy. If, to these two instances, we dare to conjoin a specimen of a house or oratory of the same Scoto-Irish style, and of the same ancient period, such as the Oratory on Inchcolm seems to me probably to be, we would have in such a specimen an addition of some moment to this limited and meagre list. Besides, it would surely not be uninteresting could we feel certain that we have still standing, within eight or ten miles of Edinburgh, a building whose roof had covered the head of King Alexander I., though it covered it for three days only; for that very circumstance would at the same time go far to establish another fact, namely, that any such building might claim to be now the oldest roofed stone habitation in Scotland.[127] [Illustration: Fig. 13. Oratory on Inchcolm, as lately repaired by the Earl of Moray.] FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 16: From the _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_, vol. ii. part iii.] [Footnote 17: These contributions by the "Abbas Aemoniae Insulae" are alluded to by Boece, who wrote nearly a century afterwards, as one of the works upon which he founded his own _Scotorum Historiae_.--(See his _Praefatio_, p. 2; and Innes' _Critical Essay on the Ancient Inhabitants of Scotland_, vol. i., pp. 218 and 228.) Bower, in a versified colophon, claims the merit of having completed eleven out of the sixteen books composing the _Scotichronicon_ lib. xvi. cap. 39:-- "Quinque libros Fordun, undenos auctor arabat, Sic tibi clarescit sunt sedecim numero, Ergo pro precibus, petimus te, lector eorum," etc.]