The Irish Penny Journal, Vol. 1 No. 03, July 18, 1840 — John Shaqi
The Irish Penny Journal, Vol. 1 No. 03, July 18, 1840Various
History
The Irish Penny Journal, Vol. 1 No. 03, July 18, 1840
Various
Ireland -- Periodicals
doubt that such of our readers as have never seen the places they are
intended to represent, will concur in the conviction that has been forced
upon us by our inspection of them.
The first of them that astounded us beyond measure was that called
"Ancient Cross, Clonmacnoise." At this place we had erewhile spent some
of our happiest hours, meditating among its tombs, and admiring alike its
various ancient architectural remains, and the sublimely desolate but
appropriate character of its natural scenery. So familiar had we grown
with this most exciting scene, that we thought that we should have been
able to identify every stone in it blindfold; but that was all a mistake:
we had only a dim and erroneous vision of its features; we saw nothing
accurately. For instance, the stone cross which forms the principal
object in the foreground, and which gives name to this subject--this
cross, which we had often drawn and measured, and found to be just
fifteen feet in height, as Harris the antiquary had supposed before us,
here appears to be more than twenty feet! while the base of it, which to
our eyes always presented the appearance of a surface covered with a
sculptural design of a deer-hunt, by men, dogs, chariots, and horses, is
here an unadorned blank! The small round tower in the middle ground,
which, as we believed, stood on the very shore, nearly level with the
Shannon, has in this view mounted up the side of the hill. But what
struck us as furnishing the most remarkable proofs of our defect of
vision is, that the doorway of the great round tower, called O'Rourke's
Tower, which, according to our measurement, was five feet six inches in
height, and placed at the distance of eight feet from the ground, is here
represented as at least twenty feet from it; and the stone wall of the
cemetery, which, as it seemed to our perception, ran nearly from the
doorway of the tower to within a few yards of the cross, has no existence
whatever in the print, its place being occupied by some huge Druidical
monument which we never were able to see. The perspective in this view is
also of a novel kind, and well worthy of the attention of the Irish
artists, and all those in Ireland who may hitherto have supposed that
they knew something of this science. They will see that the level lines,
or courses, on circular buildings, instead of ascending to the horizontal
line when below it, descend to some horizontal line of their own; and
that in fact there is not one horizontal line only in the picture, but
perhaps a dozen, which fully proves that our previous notions on this
point were wholly erroneous.
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