But the principal feature in our prospect is the church, the tower and steeple of which are on so respectable a scale, and of such excellent proportions, as to render it a very pleasing object as seen from any quarter or approach of the town. It would be difficult to say in what the true proportions of a spire consist, whether in its obvious and practical utility as a penthouse roofing the tower, or in its emblematic aptitude aspiring to and pointing towards heaven. Still, every cultivated eye will remark how much more dignified and imposing is the effect of a spire which is only moderately lofty, as compared with the breadth of its base, than that of one which is extremely slender. We would point out the spire of St Patrick’s Cathedral, for example, or that before us, on a smaller scale, as instances of the former sort. Any one acquainted with the proportions of those attenuated pinnacles which we so often find perched on the roofs of churches erected within the last ten years, cannot be at a loss for examples of the latter. The church itself at Antrim is, however, rather defective in point of size, as compared with its nobly proportioned tower and spire. The suburb of the town, on this side of the bridge, runs up to the demesne wall of Lord Ferrard’s residence, Antrim Castle, an antique castellated mansion, seated boldly over the river in a small park laid out in the taste of Louis XIV., from the terraced walks and stately avenues of which there are many beautiful views of the surrounding scenery. In point of historical interest, there are but two events connected with Antrim worthy of any particular note--the defeat of the insurgents here in the rebellion of 1798, on which occasion the late Earl O’Neill lost his life; and a great battle between the English and native Irish, in the reign of Edward III., hitherto little spoken of in history, but forming one in a series of events which exercised a great influence over the destinies of this country. Very soon after the first invasion of Ulster by John de Courcy, the English power was established not only throughout the counties of Down and Antrim, but even over a large portion of the present county of Londonderry, then called the county of Coleraine. We find sheriffs regularly appointed for these counties, and the laws duly administered, down to the time of Edward III. The native Irish, who had been pushed out by the advance of this early tide of civilization, took up their abode west of the Bann, and in the hilly county of Tyrone, from whence they watched the proceedings of their invaders, and, as opportunities from time to time presented themselves, crossed the intervening river and “preyed” the English country. The district around Antrim was from its situation the one chiefly exposed to these incursions, and the duty of defending it mainly devolved on the powerful sept of the Savages, who at that time had extensive possessions in the midland districts of Antrim, as well as in Down.