And now, as to those “temples” themselves, “of round form,” sacred to Apollo, where will Borlasse in his championship for England, or Rowland in his claims for the island of Anglesea, or Toland and Carte for the little Hebrides isles, find a single vestige of a _rotund edifice_ of antiquated consecration, appertaining to the age which Hecatæus described?--whereas, in Ireland, of the two hundred and upwards, with which its surface was, at one time, adorned, we have not only _vestiges_ of each and all to this day; but, out of the sixty that _survive_,--after an interval of more than three thousand years standing,--about twenty still display their Grynean devotion and their Hyperborean tranquillity, and are likely so to do for three thousand years more, should this world, or our portion of it, but last so long! To give soul to the solemnisation of this religious pomp, the Irish have ever cultivated the mysteries of music. The harp more particularly had enlisted the energies of their devotional regard, and their eminence in its management made Hecatæus well observe, that “the inhabitants were almost exclusively harpers.” This was a very suitable accompaniment to their worship of Apollo, who was himself the reputed inventor of this instrument; and accordingly we find that, even in the twelfth century, broken down and obliterated as every vestige of the _real Irish_ then was, by the ungenial amalgamation of the Scythian and Danish intruders, the _harp_ was still preserved as the last remnant of their glory; while the elegance of their compositions and performance upon it extorted this reluctant acknowledgment from the prejudiced Cambrensis:-- “The attention,” says he, “of this people to musical instruments, I find worthy of commendation; their skill in which is, _beyond comparison, superior_ to that of _any nation_ I have seen. For in these the modulation is not slow and solemn, as in the instruments of Britain, to which we are accustomed, but the sounds are rapid and precipitate, yet, at the same time sweet and pleasing. It is wonderful how, in such precipitate rapidity of the fingers, the musical proportions are observed, and, by their art, faultless throughout. “In the midst of their complicated modulations and most intricate arrangement of notes, by a rapidity so sweet, a regularity so irregular, a concord so discordant, the melody is rendered harmonious and perfect, whether the cords of the diatesseron or diapente are struck together. Yet they always begin in a soft mood, and end in the same, that all may be perfected in the sweetness of delicious sounds. They enter on, and again leave, their modulations with so much subtlety, and the tricklings of the small notes sport with so much freedom under the deep note of the bass; they delight with so much delicacy, and soothe so softly, that the excellency of their art seems to be in concealing it.”[454]