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their blades around the signal of battle! -They know no sheaths but the body of the foe.

The whirlwind of war is hushed. A lion among roses is Meurig in peace; mild as the sun-beam in spring; in the circling of the festal hour, when the womb of the harp quickens at his touch -or when he conquers in the little battlet of the chequered board.

Son of Urien ! thy place is here. In the strife of the conflict Owen and Urien were inseparable. Twin lions! they fought side by side; and at the feast shall they be divided?

Beset with foes, the barbed steel once searched Meurig's breast-Owen spread his shield before his wounded friend: the Gwyddeliaus saw his ravens and fled; he pursued, and the Cynhen ran red with blood. Urien! thy fame is with the bard but Urien can never die whilst Owen lives!

ON THE ROUND TOWERS IN IRELAND. MR. EDITOR, THE round towers in Ireland, to which the attention of your readers has been called in a short but ingenious paper, (page 105,) have occasioned a variety of conjectures. They are, as their name implies, perfectly circular, both within and without: and are carried up in the same form to the height of from fifty to one hundred and fifty feet, terminating at the top in a tapering sugar loaf covering, which is concave in the inside and convex on the outside. In general they are about fourteen feet in the diameter at the base, comprehending the thick

The Cambrian heroes, like those of Homer, solaced themselves with music

during their intervals of rest from martial

labour.

From bach, little-and cammaun, bat tle, sprang backgammon; and the game here alluded to was chess, a favourite amusement even among the peasantry of Ce

maes.

[Oct. I,

ness of the walls, and about eight feet in the diameter of the cavity. They decrease insensibly up to the top, where they measure about six feet in the interior. They have each a single door, at the height of from eight to sixteen or twenty feet from the ground. They are universally built of stone, though not always of the common stone of the country where they stand. The materials of that at Cashel were evidently brought from a considerable distance, and are even better than those of the adjoining cathedral. Within side they are perfectly empty, and devoid of ornament; but there are some holes in the stonework of the walls, into which beams ap pear to have been inserted for the formation of stories at proper distances; and there are beside small loop-holes for the admission of light. Near the top there are usually four of these holes, corresponding generally with the four cardinal points. These singular structures are always found either immediately near to churches, or upon scites where religious buildings formerly stood.

An

Some have supposed that these round towers were intended for places of security: but they are too contracted to serve this purpose, unless against a single enemy, and it is plain that the persons pent up in so narrow a cell must soon be starved into a surrender.Others have fancied that they were erected for beacons; but most of them are in low situations, and in some instances two and more of them are found very near together, which circumstances completely destroy this notion. other opinion, adopted by the fanciful Vallancey, is, that the round towers were erected by the Phoenicians or Carthaginians, as pyratheia or fire-altars. have been left open at the top, as the MiBut if this were the case they would thraic altars uniformly were in the East. Another hypothesis is, that they were intended for watch-houses, in which guards were to reside, in order to sound an alarm on the approach of an enemy, which idea would have had some shade of probability had the towers been placed near ancient castles instead of churches. Some writers have supposed that they were designed to serve as steeples or belfries, to which notion there is this objection, that they are too small for the swing of a bell of any size. The last idea, and that by far the most probable of all, is that started by Dean Richardson and Harris, and defended by Milner,

that these towers were built as habitations for a set of anchorets, called Inclusi or Cellani.

The last mentioned antiquary conjectures that these recluses were imitators of Simeon the Stylite, so called because he passed twenty years of his life on the top of a pillar, forty cubits high and three feet in diameter. This example of austere discipline was followed by others in the East who were also termed Stylites; but though the same practice was attempted in Germany it was considered as too rigorous for the climate, and suppressed. Dr. Milner, how ever, thinks, and with great plausibility, that the early Irish ascetics had recourse to this improvement of the Stylite mode of seclusion, and thus by living within the column instead of the outside of it, they avoided the ostentation which the western bishops objected to, and by having a covering over their heads, they were protected from the greatest severity of the weather; as it was indispensibly neecessary they should be in this northern climate. On examining the door ways of the towers we find them universally raised from the ground to the distance in some cases of twenty feet; which proves that they were not made for easy access, or the ordinary conveniences of life. It required a ladder to get into the tower, which the recluse of course drew up after him when he entered, and which would be equally necessary for him to ascend or descend from one story to another. He would occupy whichever story suited the weather, his health, or his devotion; but he would undoubtedly receive the priest, who came to communicate him, or the charitable person who brought him provisions, or the pious Christian who sought his advice, in the lower apartment next the door.

Upon the whole, there can be no doubt that these curious and singular monuments of Irish antiquity were built for the habitation of anchorets within a century or two after the conversion of the island. They are admirably well adapted and situated for the purposes of these recluses, and they bear as near a resemblance as circumstances would permit to the crux of the Syrian hermits. It is impossible to shew what other purpose they were calculated for, and it is equally impossible to discover the vestiges of any other Clusorie in the neighbourhood of the great churches; which, however, certainly did heretofore exist near many of them.* W. JAMES. * Milner's Inquiry into certain vulgar NEW MONTHLY MAG.-No. 57.

METHODISM VINDICATED. MR. EDITOR,

217

THE principles of your magazine are so contrary to those of anarchy and atheism, which are so frequently advocated by other periodical publications, that the N. M. Mag. could not but be successful.

At an early period you expressed your determination not to suffer your pages to be occupied with theological controversy. This determination was very judicious, but I have been sorry to see it departed from lately.-You have excluded topics directly of a controversial nature, yet many of your late numbers contain much which would be excluded if your rule was strictly adhered to.

The letter in your Number for August, signed John Oakley, is of this description, and requires some notice, not only because the insertion of it is in effect a departure from your rule, but also, because it contains much incorrect assertion, though a stronger phrase might be used.

I have no wish to introduce discussion of the description just adverted to, but must beg to offer you a few observations upon John Oakley's letter; his arguments (if they may be so denominated) are too loose and desultory to be precisely followed; I will therefore only state my observations upon the topics which he has discussed.

The manners and customs of former times have always been a favourite subject of study and research with me, and for many years past I have been so situated as to have much opportunity for observing the moral state of the lower classes of this country.

I am disposed to admit that there is really more juvenile delinquency, and apparently more crime (generally speaking) in this country, than there was a century ago; but think it may admit of explanation.

The population is doubled: we are changed from an agricultural to a manufacturing nation; the size of our large cities and towns, which are the chief seats of vice and crime, and particularly of juvenile delinquency, is in many instances doubled, in some increased fourfold, or even tenfold; and our present policy, particularly in the metropolis, appears to be encourage to vice, and especially to juvenile delinquency; for though facts on the subject, sufficient to appal any reflecting mind, opinions concerning the inhabitants and antiquities of Ireland, p. 134, 140. VOL. X. 2 F

ness.

I freely acknowledge that 1 consider the sash-bar mentioned in that letter, as a most important article for the improvement of hot-houses, whether of common or curvilinear forms; and as I have elsewhere hinted, I am convinced it will effect a new era in the construction of these buildings. I have found every person without exception, who is conversant with the subject, and has examined the specimens of roofs which I have erected here, nearly as sanguine as myself. Among these I may reckon the first gardeners and engineers in and around London. Other circumstances, and especially some practical proofs of approbation, both in England and France, may have buoyed up my imagination in its favour to such a height as to prevent me from looking down into its defects; and thus the strictures of bye standers,like D-t, may be of salutary consequence, by hurling me down from the (too light and airy throne in which that gentleman is good enough to place me,-too happy, if in the tumble I fall on my feet, without being entangled in that "vast extent of flimsy lines" which D--t has spread out for me, like a spider's web, or enveloped in that newly invented snare glass patch work;" not " that decoration of the face with small spots of black silk," which Addison mentions, but a thing which, like a humane man-trap, is, I have no doubt, intended to catch me alive; and if, gentle reader, I should in this way fall into the hands of D-t, what will be done with me? Surely he would confine

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me in one of those immense" glass cages," spreading wide their bases, which he just hints at in terrorem at the end of his letter, and in which I might hop from bar to bar under the "direct influence of the sun" by day, and the "chilling effect of the night air" by night, to all eternity; cursing all the while the merits of my own invention, and wishing the sash bar "decomposed and decayed," and the "glass broken." Under all these circumstances, however much I may feel obliged to D-t for having made strictures of any sort, I am sorry I cannot thank him either for affording me any specific information on the subject in general - for disproving any part of my letter, or pointing out any error, defect, or insufficiency in the erections here. I am convinced, therefore, that D―t has merely come forward in a general way to humble and abase me for my own good, and that of the public; and for which, of course, I am about as thankful to him as a starving vagrant would be to the Lord Mayor for sending him to board and lodge in the counter.

I shall now develope to the reader the character of the strictures of D-t, in which, in my opinion, he has shewn a singular degree of temerity, by venturing so far into a subject in which he evidently knows so little, and an equal share of bad taste, whilst under the guise of remarking on my letter, and skreened behind the panoply of D-t, he risks assertions evidently or seemingly intended for other purposes than those of science or taste. The following is an instance. It is singular," says D-t, "that Mr. Loudon should have quoted any thing so directly opposed to the scheme of spherical hot-houses, as the judicious observations of Mr. Knight, whose mode of improving hot-houses is certainly much more likely to be of use than the curvilinear ones.'

Now the weight of Mr. Knight's opinion among the patrons and purchasers of hot-houses is known to every person in Britain; and who is there that on reading the above quotation from D-t would not at once conclude that curvilinear or spherical hot-houses were "directly opposed" to the opinions of that gentleman? Have you seen any of Loudon's hot-houses? O Yes, Mr. Knight says they are very bad. O d-n them, then I will have nothing to do with them; I will have the old shape.

The case however is directly the reader to believe; I could prove this in reverse of what D-t would wish the private by letters which I have had

from Mr. Knight, and I here prove it publicly by a quotation from the published writings of that gentleman, in those very publications from which D-t would condemn my designs.

"On making a few trials," says Mr. Knight, "to ascertain the varieties of forms which might be given to forcing houses, by taking different segments of a sphere, I soon became perfectly satisfied, that forcing houses of excellent forms, for almost every purpose, and of any convenient extent, might be constructed without deviating from the spherical form; and I am now perfectly confident that such houses will be erected, and kept in repair at less expense, will possess the most important advantage of admitting greatly more light, and will be found much more durable than such as are constructed according to any of the forms which have been hitherto recommended."- Hort. Trans. v. iii. p. 350.

Now, Mr. Editor, I can imagine one correspondent attacking another on a speculative point, and giving partial statements, in order to elicit further particulars, &c.; but how any reasonable person can justify himself in inaking the broad assertions so contrary to fact, which D-t has done, and in a matter too where the party condemned is interested in the way of trade, or profession, and the party condemning has not even his name before the public, I cannot conceive. If D-t's taste is as bad in visual matters as it appears to be in morals, I certainly shall not be ambitious of his approbation, either in hot-house architecture, or any thing else.

It might prove tiresome to your readers were i to enter equally at length into the rest of D-t's paper, which consists almost entirely of assertions unsupported either by argument or fact; or gross misrepresentations of my letter. I shall give a specimen or two as concisely as possible, and then conclude.

Wrought iron," says D-t, "will soon decompose, notwithstanding painting or tinning, and will soon get out of repair and break the glass." The first question is, what space of time is represented by the word soon? D-t must mean soon in comparison with the materials at present used for glass roofs. These are tin and iron bars, hollow copper bars, compound iron bars, (that is, an iron hoop inserted in a groove formed in a moulding of iron) and wood. Now, as to durability, I think no one will be hardy enough to deny that a solid

iron bar will last longer than either a hollow bar of copper, or one composed of two pieces of metal, either iron, or iron and tin. The reasons are obvious, and shall be omitted. The next question is, whether a solid iron bar will outlast a wooden bar, and this I leave to be solved by any reader.*

"The expense of curvilinear houses," says D-t," will be nearly double that of houses of the common form, and of the best kind." This is a bold assertion, and as false as bold. What sort of houses D-t considers as "of the best kind," I am not aware; but I believe it will be generally allowed that till I put up the specimens here, the copper house at Messrs. Loddige's, Hackney, and the copper honse at Mr. Allan's nursery, King's-road, admitted more light than any other sort whatever, and their forms are "common." Now, so far from curvilinear hot houses costing more than such houses, I can assure the reader they cost less; and as a proof I state that the price of copper houses is or used to be, (for I have erected more than one of them formerly) from 7 to 88. per foot of roof; and the price of curvilinear houses of similar dimensions does not exceed 6s. per foot of roof.t

This assertion of D-t cannot be con

tradicted from fact, because metallic bars are but of recent (say 12 years) introduction and France they have been used, not geneinto hot-houses in England. In Holland rally, but occasionally for sixty years; but the hot-houses in these countries are comparatively few. Adanson, in his "Familles des Plantes," published in Paris, 1763, recommends iron bars and Bohemian glass, as

admitting most light, and he mentions iron as occasionally used in Holland. There are now, or were in 1815, two large doors in a conservatory in the Jardin des Plantes Thuin says have been there fifty years to his in Paris, filled in with iron bar, which Mr. knowledge, and he has no doubt they will last a century longer. Mr. Thuin is well

known to be one of the first, if not the very first gardener in Europe; he has seen the bar, and my schemes for curvilinear hothouses; of both of which he highly approves.

+ In regard to pines, let it be recollected that the roof of a curvilinear house, with curved ends, will inclose more base in prowhich the ends never can be brought into portion than a common shed-like house, in darkened three parts of every day. See a use, or if they are, the house is completely paper of Sir G. S. Mackenzie's, on an economical hot-house in "Caled. Hort. Trans." with the remarks on the same in succeeding papers, &c.