The Irish Penny Journal, Vol. 1 No. 52, June 26, 1841Various
History
The Irish Penny Journal, Vol. 1 No. 52, June 26, 1841
Various
Ireland -- Periodicals
The wood-cut engraving prefixed to this article is descriptive of
Curran’s tomb at Glasnevin, of which Mr J. T. Papworth, A.R.H.A.,
architect of the Royal Dublin Society, was the architect, and conductor
of its construction and successful execution. It is a fac simile of
the celebrated chef-d’œuvre of the antique known as the tomb of Scipio
Barbatious, exemplars of which are favourite objects of purchase to the
visiters of Rome, and lovers of virtu. It is a magnificent specimen of
that simple, durable, massive grandeur, which the early artists of the
mistress of the world deemed suitable to the character of a great man’s
sepulchre; fit to outlive, like its great Roman prototype, numerous
generations of men, and bear down the name of its honoured object to the
admiration of a most distant posterity. Napoleon’s tomb at St Helena was
of course the suggestion of the best taste of France and Italy combined.
It bears a close resemblance to that of Scipio. The material of the
latter is of an inferior description of stone, greatly surpassed by
that of Curran’s tomb, which is composed of the best specimen, perhaps,
extant, of our finest Irish granite, and sparkles like silver in the
sun. The application of this product to sepulchral purposes is recent
and appropriate. The late palace of our dukes, the late halls of our
parliament, the testimonials commemorating the victors who most exalted
the glory of Britain on the ocean and by land, our custom-house and
post-office, our courts of justice, the harbours of Wicklow, Howth, and
Dunleary, the spire of St Patrick’s, the grandest of our bridges, with
most other of our magnificent public edifices, have long displayed and
will long display the value of our granite for beauty and solidity. It
has superseded the use of Portland stone, for, capable of being cut into
the finer figures of architecture, it admits of any shape, it withstands
any weather; and harder than freestone, and hardening in the air, and
susceptible of every formation from the chisel, the mallet, and the
hammer, it stands of all the mineral kingdom most faithful to the trust
of monumental fame. But it is not by such memorials, as was justly
observed by the eminent prelate already referred to; it is not by such
memorials as art may construct from marble or brass, or our own enduring
granite, that the immortality of Curran’s fame can be achieved, it is in
the great efforts of his transcendant genius we best can contemplate his
deathless monument, and in that respect it may be said of him as Johnson
said on a like occasion,
“A mortal born, he met a mortal’s doom,
But left, like Egypt’s kings, a lasting tomb.”
The tomb is in the form of a Sarcophagus, of the Doric order of
architecture, richly sculptured. The triglyphs are most delicately
wrought, and the metopes are ornamented with pateras. It is erected so as
to appear upon a tumulus, which has a good effect. The dimensions are as
follow:--
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