"Know thyself," was the wise advice of the ancient Greek philosopher; and
it is certainly desirable that we should know ourselves, and take every
pains in our power to acquire self-knowledge. But the task is by no means
an easy one; and hence the poet Burns well exclaims,
"Oh, wad some power the giftie gi'e us,
To see oursells as others see us;
It wad frae monie a blunder free us,
And foolish notion.
What airs in dress and gait wad lea' us,
And e'en devotion!"
Determined, however, as we for own part always are, to acquire a
knowledge of ourselves, we felt no small gratification at the opportunity
which, we presumed, would be amply afforded us by the work of Messrs
Bartlett and Willis, the first an English artist, and the second an
American _litterateur_, who have left their homes, in a most commendable
spirit of philanthropy, to depict our scenery and antiquities, and to
tell us all that it behoves us to know about them and ourselves. We
accordingly lost not a moment in possessing ourselves of the precious
treasure that would, as we hoped, "the giftie gi'e us, to see oursells as
others see us;" and verily we must acknowledge that our wonderment during
its perusal has been excessive, and that it has convinced us that we
never knew ourselves before, or ever saw any thing about us with proper
eyes. Henceforward we shall be cautious how we trust to the evidence of
our senses for any thing we may see, for it is pretty plain that hitherto
they have been of no manner of use to us. They have deceived and
bamboozled us our whole lives long; and from the present moment we will
trust to none save those of Messrs Bartlett and Willis--at least we will
never trust to our own.
The very vignette on the title-page gave us some startling notification
of the fearful discovery that awaited us. We had flattered ourselves that
we were quite familiar with all the remarkable features of Irish scenery,
and should not fail at a glance to identify any delineation of them,
inasmuch as there is not a river or lake in Ireland of any extent that we
have not sailed on, not a mountain that we have not climbed, not a
headland or island on our coast that we have not visited. But here was a
subject of a striking and most remarkable character that appeared quite
new to us, nor should we ever have been able to guess at it, if a friend
to whom we applied for information had not assured us, to our utter
astonishment, that he was informed it was nothing less than our old
acquaintance the Giants' Causeway! The wonder at our blindness, however,
in some degree diminished when we perceived--if we can guess at the only
point from which such a view could be obtained--that the ingenious artist
had represented the sun setting in the north; for as often as we had been
at the Causeway, we never had the observation or good fortune to witness
such a sight. We must confess, moreover, that our feelings of
mortification at our ignorance were partly soothed, when we turned over
to the next vignette, which we at once recognised by its bridge to have
been intended for Poul-a-phuca, or, as Messrs Bartlett and Willis name
it, more correctly we presume, Phoula Phuca! We cannot, however, state
the impression left on our minds by each of the prints in succession; but
we shall take a glance at two or three of them; and when we have pointed
out the particulars that most confounded us in each, we can have little
doubt that such of our readers as have never seen the places they are
intended to represent, will concur in the conviction that has been forced
upon us by our inspection of them.
The first of them that astounded us beyond measure was that called
"Ancient Cross, Clonmacnoise." At this place we had erewhile spent some
of our happiest hours, meditating among its tombs, and admiring alike its
various ancient architectural remains, and the sublimely desolate but
appropriate character of its natural scenery. So familiar had we grown
with this most exciting scene, that we thought that we should have been
able to identify every stone in it blindfold; but that was all a mistake:
we had only a dim and erroneous vision of its features; we saw nothing
accurately. For instance, the stone cross which forms the principal
object in the foreground, and which gives name to this subject--this
cross, which we had often drawn and measured, and found to be just
fifteen feet in height, as Harris the antiquary had supposed before us,
here appears to be more than twenty feet! while the base of it, which to
our eyes always presented the appearance of a surface covered with a
sculptural design of a deer-hunt, by men, dogs, chariots, and horses, is
here an unadorned blank! The small round tower in the middle ground,
which, as we believed, stood on the very shore, nearly level with the
Shannon, has in this view mounted up the side of the hill. But what
struck us as furnishing the most remarkable proofs of our defect of
vision is, that the doorway of the great round tower, called O'Rourke's
Tower, which, according to our measurement, was five feet six inches in
height, and placed at the distance of eight feet from the ground, is here
represented as at least twenty feet from it; and the stone wall of the
cemetery, which, as it seemed to our perception, ran nearly from the
doorway of the tower to within a few yards of the cross, has no existence
whatever in the print, its place being occupied by some huge Druidical
monument which we never were able to see. The perspective in this view is
also of a novel kind, and well worthy of the attention of the Irish
artists, and all those in Ireland who may hitherto have supposed that
they knew something of this science. They will see that the level lines,
or courses, on circular buildings, instead of ascending to the horizontal
line when below it, descend to some horizontal line of their own; and
that in fact there is not one horizontal line only in the picture, but
perhaps a dozen, which fully proves that our previous notions on this
point were wholly erroneous.
But we must hurry on. What have we got next? "Clew Bay from West Port,"
or "Baie De Clew, vue de West Port." Well, we believe this is intended
for the beautiful Bay of Westport, called Clew Bay; but, if so, what has
become of the beautiful country of Murisk, renowned in Irish song, which
used to be situated at the base of Croagh Phadraig, or Croagh Patric? And
is this the noble Reek itself? Good heavens! but it must have suffered
from some strange convulsion since we saw it; it has been actually torn
into a perpendicular cliff from its very summit to its base. But what are
we thinking of? It was, we suppose, always so; and our not having
observed it, is only a proof that we were never able to look at it
correctly--and we should know better in future.
One peep more, and we shall have done. What is this? Scene from
Cloonacartin Hill, Connemara. Ay, that's a scene we have looked at for
many an hour. That group of jagged and pointed mountains to the left is
the glorious Twelve Pins of Binnabeola. We never indeed saw them grouped
so closely together, or standing so upright; but no matter: the hurricane
of last year perhaps has blown them together, and carried away their
sloping bases. But what do we see in the middle ground? The two lakes of
Derry Clare and Lough Ina joined in one; and the rapid and unnavigable
river which united them, or which we thought we saw there--where is it?
_Non est incentus_: alas! alas! it is not to be found. Most wonderful!
Lough Ina, with its three little wooded islands, no longer exists as a
separate lake. It has, however, now got ten islands instead of three;
but, then, they are all bare--all, all!--and the ancient ones have lost
their wood. In like manner the flat heathy grounds between the mountains
and the lakes to the right, have wholly disappeared, and nothing but
water is to be seen in their place.
But our limits will not permit us to notice any more of Mr Bartlett's
innumerable discoveries, which are equally remarkable in all his other
views; so, after making him our grateful bow, we turn to the labours of
his coadjutor, the celebrated author of "Pencillings by the Way," little
doubting that by his lucubrations we shall be equally edified and
astonished. Mr Willis does not attempt a description of the scenes
depicted by his co-labourer--it would, perhaps, be a difficult task for
him, as in the instance of the view from Cloonacartin Hill, which we have
noticed. But instead thereof, he treats us to pencillings of his own of a
very graphic character, and usually as little like nature, as we had
supposed it in Ireland, as even the drawings of Mr Bartlett. The chief
difference between them is, that while the sketches of the one are
landscape, those of the other are generally in the figure line; and after
the model of the Dutch masters, mostly consisting of hackney-car drivers,
waiters, chambermaids, and, what his principal forte lies in, beggars! In
his sketches of the latter he beats Callot himself; they are evidently
drawn for love of the thing. After witnessing "the splendid failure at
Eglintoun Castle," Mr Willis embarks at Port-Patrick, and lands at
Donaghadee. This he tells us he did in imitation of St Patrick, "who
evidently," like Mr Willis, "knew enough of geography to decide which
point of Scotland was nearest to the opposite shore." This was new to us;
but it should be noted in chronicles. He then travels on an Irish car to
Belfast, and, like more of our modern visitors who favour us with their
lucubrations, gives us a sketch of the said car, horse, and its driver,
which, of course, are all singular things in their way. The pencilling,
however, is a pleasant one enough, as it shows us that the car-driver
very soon smoked the character of the travellers he had to take care of,
and quizzed accordingly in a very proper and creditable Irish style.
After a dangerous journey Mr Willis arrives safely in Belfast, and
proceeds to give us his sketch of its inhabitants in the following
words:--
"It was market-day at Belfast, and the streets were thronged with the
country people, the most inactive crowd of human beings, it struck me,
that I had ever seen. The women were all crouching under their grey
cloaks, or squatting upon the thills of the potato-carts, or upon steps
or curb-stones; and the men were leaning where there was any thing to
lean against, or dragging their feet heavily after them, in a listless
lounge along the pavement. It was difficult to remember that this was the
most energetic and mercurial population in the world; yet a second
thought tells one that there is an analogy in this to the habits of the
most powerful of the animal creation--the lion and the leopard, when not
excited, taking their ease like the Irishman."