Author Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1845 Excerpt: ...who are best qualified to judge of the difficulties of my undertaking will not censure the expression of opinions, however novel, which are offered for consideration in such a spirit, and which, even if erroneous, being based on evidences which I submit to be tested by the learned, must equally tend to the discovery of truth, as if they had been themselves incontrovertible. Impressed, as I am, with the conviction that the style of architecture variously denominated by antiquaries Romanesque, Tudesque, Lombardic, Saxon, Norman, and Anglo-Norman, belongs to no particular country, but, derived from the corrupted architecture of Greece and Home, was introduced wherever Christianity had penetrated,--assuming various modifications according to the taste, intelligence, and circumstances of different nations,--I think it only natural to expect that the earliest examples of this style should be found in a country supereminently distinguished, as Ireland was, for its learning, and as having been the cradle of Christianity to the north-western nations of Europe, in the sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries. Neither should it, I think, be a matter of wonder that more abundant examples of this style, though on a small scale,--such as might be expected in a kingdom composed of many petty, and nearly independent lordships,--should remain in Ireland, than in those more prosperous and wealthy countries, in which such humble structures would necessarily give place to edifices of greater size and grandeur. The supposition that the style of architecture exhibited in some of the Irish Round Towers,--as shown in the preceding instances,--and in many of the churches, of which I shall presently adduce examples, was derived from the Anglo-Normans, is one in the highest degree...