THE IRISH PENNY JOURNAL.
| Number 7. | SATURDAY, AUGUST 15, 1840. | Volume I. |
REMAINS AT MONASTERBOICE. COUNTY LOUTH.
To the observing and imaginative traveller, our island mustpresent a great number of peculiarities of aspect whichwill not fail to excite his notice, and impress themselves indeliblyupon his mind. The scantiness of wood—for its naturaltimber has nearly all disappeared—and the abundanceof water, are two of the characteristics that will most strikehim; and, next to these, the great extent of prospect usuallyafforded to the eye in consequence of the undulating characterof its surface. Sparkling streams are visible everywhere,and shining lakes and noble rivers come into view in rapid succession;while ranges of blue mountains are rarely wantingto bound the distant horizon. The colours with which Naturehas painted the surface of our island are equally peculiar.There is no variety of green, whether of depth or vivid brightness,which is not to be found covering it; they are hues whichcan be seen nowhere else in equal force; and even our bogs,which are so numerous, with all their mutations of colour,now purple, and anon red, or brown, or black, by their vigorouscontrasts give additional beauty and life to the landscape,and assist in imparting to it a sort of national individuality.Our very clouds have to a great degree a distinctivecharacter—the result of the humidity of our climate;they have a grandeur of form and size, and a force of lightand shadow, that are but rarely seen in other countries; theyare Irish clouds—at one moment bright and sunny, and in thenext flinging their dark shadows over the landscape, and involvingit in gloomy grandeur. It is in this striking force ofcontrast in almost every thing that we look at, that the peculiarityof our scenery chiefly consists; and it appears to havestamped the general character of our people with those contrastinglights and shades so well exhibited in our exquisiteand strongly-marked national music, in which all varieties ofsentiment are so deeply yet harmoniously blended as to produceon the mind effects perhaps in some degree saddening,but withal most delightfully sweet and soothing. A countrymarked with such peculiarities is not the legitimate abode ofthe refined sensualist of modern times, or the man of artificialpleasure and heartless pursuits, and all such naturallyremain away from it, or visit it with reluctance; but it is theproper habitation of the poet, the painter, and, above all,the philanthropist; for nowhere else can the latter find soextensive a field for the exercise of the godlike feelings ofbenevolence and patriotism.
Yet the natural features of scenery and climate which wehave pointed out, interesting as all must admit them to be,are not the only ones that confer upon our country the peculiarand impressive character which it possesses. The relics ofpast epochs of various classes; the monuments of its Pagantimes, as revealed to us in its religious, military, and sepulchralremains; the ruins of its primitive Christian ages, asexemplified in its simple and generally unadorned churches,and slender round towers; the more splendid monastic edificesof later date, and the gloomy castles of still more recenttimes—these are everywhere present to bestow historic intereston the landscape, and bring the successive conditionsand changes of society in bygone ages forcibly