The Round Towers of Ireland

sgusted with the roving character of his previous life, and tired of peregrination, he resolves to build himself a permanent abode, and persuades his followers to emb

ey verified what God had before that memorable epoch with sorrow declared, "that

ity and the basis of their renown,-we find a "Tower" mentioned, "whose top may

ct of this archit

deluge; for in that case, it is probable, they would have built it on an eminence, ra

or the purpose of scaling the celestial abodes, and di

, was it i

se acts shine forth in universal love, but whose spiritual adoration was now partially lost sight

ly imagined, viz. his researches in astronomy, and the application thereto of instruments-procured him the appellation of rebel from nemh, heaven, and rodh, an as

weakness and God's omnipotence:-Here the Noachid? had been then fixed; and the name by which this innovati

he Godhead was recognised was Moloch. The latter, indeed, in accuracy of speech was the name assigned him by the Ammonites and Moabites-both terms, however, corresponded in sense, "Moloch" signifying king, and "Baal" Lord, that is, of the heavens; whence transferring the appellation to the Sun, as the source and dispenser of all earthly favours, h

less. God being invisible, or only appearing to mortals through the medium of His acts, it was natural that man, left to the workings of unaided reason, should look on yon mysterious luminary with mingled s

f all, in

y clime

y savage, a

Jove, o

rth on its ben

red forth their vows and their thanksgivings, under the a?rial canopy of the vaulted expanse; nor can it be denied but that there was something irresist

liensis, in his interpretation of Sanchoniathon. Nor did it stop here, but, proceeding in its progress of melancholy decay, swept before it the barriers of reason and moral light; and, from the bright monar

ings, and a perverted exercise of that inspired authority, something like an excuse for, at least, a decent attention in the ordinary management of that useful article. In Lev. vi. 13 it is said: "The fire upon the altar shall ever be burning, it shall never go out." This injunction given by the Lord to Moses, t

ile in Ex. xiii. 21, it is declared that "the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light." So accordingly we find Elijah, 1 Kings xviii. 24, when challenging the priests of the f

e similar way. God must, undoubtedly, have prescribed that rite to Adam, after his fall in Paradise, else how account for the "skins" with which Eve and he had covered themselves? The beasts to which they belonged could not have been slain for food; for it was not till a long time after that they were allowed to eat the flesh of animals. We may, therefore, saf

ld, the most direct communication, we also find a city denominated "Ur"; and who does not know that the Persians, having borrowed the custom from the Chaldean priests, regarded fire with the utmost veneration? Numerous as were the deities which that nation worshipped, "fire,"

rd; as they durst not, without violating the most sacred rules, and stifling the scruples of all their pr

important secular transactions. Accordingly, we learn from Herodotus, lib. vii., as quoted by Cicero in "Verrem," that when Datis, the prefect of Xerxes' fleet, flushed with the result of his victory over Naxos and the city of Eretria in

all through maintained that they were not all intended for one and the same object, I must have been understood, of course, by the numerous supporters of that fashionable proposition as including fire-worship within the compass of my several views. I put it, however, frankly to the most ardent supporter of that theory, who for a moment considers the diffe

ON retain evident traces, would not only endanger the conflagration of the whole edifice, as it is most probable that they were made of wood,

a fire lighted within that edifice, and continued for any length of time, as the sacred fire is known to have been kept perpetually burning, it would have been impossible for the inner surface of that stately structure to preserve the beautiful and white coating which

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othing. It certainly corresponds with the architectural character of some of our Round Towers, but leaves

cred fire; for it is well known that when temples were at all appropriated to this consecrated delusion, it was within a small crypt or arched vault-over which the temple was erected-that it

rched, such as that which Hanway met with at Baku, and corresponding in every particular with the ed

rm, with three ascending steps on each side, having a tall hollow stone column at every side, through which the flame was seen t

are," he says, "immense enclosures, in the centre of which was erected an altar, where the Magi used to preserve, as well a quantity

Atush Kidi, or fire-temple, which they assert had the sacred fire in it since the days of Zoroaster, we must be prepared to understand it as corresponding in architectural proportio

perstition. This makes the pagodas here much more numerous than in any other part of the peninsula; their form too is different, being chiefly buildings of a cylindrical or round tower shape, with their tops eithe

no manner of relation to the sacred fire, but they had to the sun and moon, the supposed authors of generation and nutrition, of which fire was only the corrupt emblem; and the different forms of their constructural terminations, similar to those elsewhere described by Maundrell, some being pointed, and some being truncated, harmonises most aptly with the radial and hemispherical representations of the two celestial luminaries, as well as with that organ of human procreation which we shall hereafter more particu

d, level and rather oblong in its form. Lord Valentia was so struck with the extraordinary similitude observable between some very elegant ones which he noticed in Hindostan and those in this country, that he could not avoid at once making the comparison. The inhabitants, he observes, paid no sort of regard to those venerable remains, but pilgrims from afar, and chiefly from Jynagaur, adhering to their old religion, used annually to resort to them as the shrines of their ancient worship. Yet in

ronomical observatories. The Septuagint interpreters well understood their nature when rendering the "high place of Baal"[86] by the Greek στηλη του βααλ, or Pillar of Baal, that is, the pillar consecrated to the sun; while the ancient Irish themselves, following in the same train, designated those structures Bail-toir, that is, the tower of Baa

also, besides a sphinx's head, which has been discovered not long since in digging amid the ruins of an ancient and unknown city, on the banks of the Hypanis, bearing an inscription which was found to differ on being compared with Arabic, Persia, Turkish, Chinese, Tartar, Greek, and Roman