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84 This blossom is most near. Statue! Oh, thou

Whose beard a moonlight river is, whose brow

Is stone: old sleeper! this same afternoon

O'er much I've talked: I shall be silent soon,

If wrong my choice, as silent as thou art.

Oh! gracious Pan, take now thy servant's part.

He was our ancient god. If I speak low,

And not too clear, how will the new god know

But that I called on him?

[Pulls the flower, and becomes stone. From among the flowers a sound as of a multitude of horns.

A Voice.Sleeping lord of archery,

No more a-roving shalt thou see

The panther with her yellow hide,

Of the forests all the pride,

Or her ever burning eyes,

When she in a cavern lies,

Watching o'er her awful young,

Where their sinewy might is strung

In the never-lifting dark.

No! Thou standest still and stark,

That of old wert moving ever,

But a mother panther never

O'er her young so eagerly

Did her lonely watching take

As I my watching lest you wake,

Sleeping lord of archery.

As by the cast-off shell, fossilated and imbedded in the rock through numberless years, we can reconstruct the animal that once produced it; so also by the works of man—though since their production centuries have rolled along the pathway of time, into the limitless past—we can know the mind of which they are the offspring—we can estimate its genius.

When Rome was proud mistress of the world, art ministered to the pomp of heathenism: idols were in every temple; idolatry or infidelity was in every heart. When the Roman Empire began to dissolve, Christianity arose like a phœnix, and from Art, associated and bound up as it was with the very spirit of heathenism, it could only shrink with horror.

From sculpture the aversion of the Christians spread to all art, and whoever carried on the hateful calling of an artist was declared a servant and emissary of Satan, unworthy of the cleansing waters of baptism. The ultimate effect of this iconoclastic spirit was, that between the fifth and eighth centuries Italy and the entire European continent was plunged into complete darkness as regards artistic productions. In Ireland, however, different circumstances brought about different results, and it so happens that in these very centuries art here flourished and attained to a perfection which was very remarkable—the Christian missionaries, the class that drove it from the Continent, being the very section that cultivated it, and held forth their fostering hand. Two accidents contributed to bring about this result: first, the Irish received their Christianity at a very early period, and before any question with regard to image worship arose. In the second place, the religion which the early Christian missionaries found on their arrival was not idolatrous, consequently they were not imbued with any of the Continental bigotry which proved so hostile to art, nor was there any reason why it should arise in this country.

In the fifth, and down to the tenth century, the Celts possessed an advanced civilization. It did not partake, however, of that refinement which is acquired from intercourse with other nations, but was of a class peculiar to themselves, brought about by an internal advancement through the influence of the literati: a barbaric civilization.

It matters not how far distant the nations or the epoch, invariably we find the same principle resorted to by barbarous people in their first artistic attempts. Ignorant of the higher branches of art, they make a substitute of laborious and endless interweaving of lines, sometimes bringing about good broad effects in a manner which would scarcely be supposed possible. The remaining monuments of ancient Mexico, the rude carvings of the South Sea barbarian, or more finished productions of the semi-civilized Hindoo, all display this character.

It is not within our province to give a detailed account of the many wonderful works that have placed the Celtic art upon its golden throne in history. We must content ourselves with merely giving a brief outline of its chief characteristics.

The art of illumination was cultivated in the monasteries by the monks, chiefly with the object of decorating the Scriptures, the revered word of the Deity to His creatures. Thus it comes to pass, that the most beautiful examples of Celtic art which have descended to us are illuminated copies of the Gospels. As might be expected, from a knowledge of the history of Celtic civilization, their works exhibit no signs of external influence, neither the acanthus leaf, nor any other feature of the Roman ornament, forming portion of their compositions, whilst they portray all the characteristics of the barbaric state of art.

The chief peculiarities of the Celtic ornamentation may be placed under two heads: first, the entire absence of