disturbed; and that nothing was found but bones mingled with earth and stone. Fragments, which were thought to belong to a funeral urn, were found; circumstances clearly indicative of interments. Many different opinions have been given concerning the uses for which these structures were intended; the following are submitted to consideration.

The learned antiquary, Vallancey, affirms that these round towers were constructed for the Persian worship of fire; to which purpose, he says, they are well adapted, for that the openings or windows beneath the cupola might well suffice for the escape of the smoke, the fire burning below being well defended by the walls. In confirmation of this opinion, he observes that in the language of the Irish they are called Breocan, which signifies a fire-hearth. This word seems to have been taken for the name of Brechin, a town in the county of Angus or Forfar in Scotland, where there is a tower similar in all respects to that of Ardmore. In the Brechin tower two bells formerly hung, but now a clock with, it is presumed, one bell, holds their place. From this circumstance the towers have obtained the name of cloghteach, or bell-houses. On the west side of the tower at Brechin there is, in a niche, a perfect representation of the crucifixion, which shews beyond the possibility of denial that this tower is of Christian construction.

The close resemblance between these towers and those of India and China, shews most decidedly that they are all of the same family, and, like them, owe their form to the same principle—the altar or barrow. That such towers were first constructed by the disciples of Buddha is equally certain from their constant use in China, and their constant rejection in Hindosthàn, where no such structures are admitted by the Brahmèns, the irreconcileable enemies of Buddha. It is to be observed that these towers are extant only in Ireland and the Highlands, the Celtic provinces of Scotland,—countries

y Vallancey de Reb. Hib. p. 203.

which were never in complete subjection to the Romans; whence it is inferred that their use was introduced by members of the Buddhist sect to the Celtic theologues after the Roman conquest of Britain, when the Christian religion overthrew Celticism, and of course forbade the construction of round towers within the boundaries of the Roman dominion. That the missionaries of Buddha should visit the British Isles will not appear extraordinary, when it is understood that Buddhism arose in India in consequence of abhorrence entertained of the murderous cruelties of the Brahmèn sacrifices, which, it is evident, the Buddhists nearly shamed out of practice in India; and that the same humane principle was equally wanted to restrain the cruelty of sacrifices in the Celtic provinces of Ireland and Scotland.

It being thus far certain that these towers were constructed upon Buddhist principles, it follows in certainty that they cannot have ever been used as pyræa for the rites of fire. The Buddhists never introduce that element in any of their religious rites. Had it been intended to have introduced fire into these towers, chambers would not have been admitted, for they would have so effectually obstructed the passage of the smoke as to have rendered the openings of the four upper windows useless for that purpose. That they should have been constructed to receive bells is almost impossible; their dimensions would not admit more than one at most, and that of little size.

The round towers have generally, perhaps in all cases, been used in the British Isles for interment. This must, perhaps, be admitted, although the towers of India do not appear to have been ever so applied, and certainly all are not so used in China. The interments appear to have been made according to Buddhist doctrines: no sacrifices of either men or animals appear to have been made at the funeral rites, for the bones of animals discovered in the towers are believed to have been introduced by accident only. Some fragments of

urns, such as contain the ashes of the departed, though rare, are said to have been found; but it is known that such urns occur in barrows where the interments of unburned bodies have been made, and their use is explained by the supposition that the person whose corpse was consumed by fire had died at a distance, from whence it was not possible to bring the corpse for interment at the desired place, and therefore the remains after being burnt were consigned to the urn.

Let it be admitted, that all the round towers of which there are any remains are sepulchral; yet it does not follow that all should have been appropriated, without exception, to that purpose. It is far from improbable that the towers may have been constructed and dedicated to Buddha and his host of divine spirits, and that the chambers of the towers may have been as fully furnished with idols as are those of China at the present day. If there were such, it must be presumed that those dedicated exclusively to Buddha were overthrown by Christian zeal, when in the fifth century Saint Patrick converted Ireland to the Christian faith. The same fate would await the round towers in Ireland, as had befallen the cromlechs and barrows of Britain a few centuries before. There the structures dedicated to gods were dilapidated or completely destroyed; those devoted to the memory of individuals, whether eminent or not, were spared, after being divested of their most offensive idolatrous appendages.

The reasons why the round towers should have been denominated bell-houses and fire-towers invite conjecture. It is well known that the relations and friends of the departed were bound by obligations, or induced by choice, to perform religious rites at the taphos or barrow. Alexander the Great did so at the taphoi of the Grecian heroes who fell at Troy, and the Celts performed the deasuil at the barrows of their ancestors or friends. The Celtic Buddhist, influenced by the same motives, might deem it necessary to make offerings at

The

the daghope, as the Buddhists would speak; that is, a round tower, beneath and within which the remains of his father or his friend were buried. When the votary made the oblation and began the rites, the rules of Buddha required and still require him to sound a bell. This rule rendered that instrument a necessary appendage to the tower. zeal of friends might induce them to engage a person to perform these rites vicariously, as now the Romanist hires masses for the benefit of the soul. It might be required that these rites should be performed, as are some of those of the Romanists, at midnight hours. To secure the watchfulness of the minister, he might be enjoined to maintain a light, which, in a wild country, must have been of much use to the darkling traveller. Such were most probably the practices. during the prevalence of the heathen religion. The ascetic exercises of the heathens have been adopted by persons calling themselves Christians. Paul the Hermit was a Christian yogi. This propensity will explain why a Christian round tower came to be erected at Brechin; in which the Christian anchorite, perhaps the constant inhabitant of the tower, shewed to the converted Buddhists, and to others, that the Christian could endure mortification as well as the heathen the form of the building likewise shewing that the Christian had no objection to structures of heathen erection, especially when they had become familiar from long usage. The effect of this adoption of the Celtic rites and observances tended, no doubt, to lessen the reluctance of the idolatrous Celt to embrace Christianity, when he saw that they admitted such similarity of observances; and thus he must have been allured into the adoption of the Christian faith. This being admitted, it will not seem strange that a Christian should have adopted the round tower for religious rites.

The towers noticed as above, the structures of nations settled in various countries and living in different and distant ages, lead all alike to one and the following con

clusion, that they were all constructed upon the same principle, and all conveyed the same symbolical import. The raised altar or high place of sacrifice and worship adopted by the earliest patriarchs as the symbol of the mount of the Garden of Ece, became by degrees, through inductive argument, an idol of the world; and, when idol worship prevailed, it became an idol of the Deity, the Creator of the world. The column reared on the summit of the altar, high place, or barrow, was regarded as the symbol of the divine power exercised in sustaining the world steadily and permanently. The column exhibited in a conical shape, such as were the pillars in the porch of the temple of king Solomon, was the form which columns bore in the ages when they were first constructed; columns were in fact nothing else than the conical mound, in which the height bore a great proportion to the diameter of the base. It has been shewn how the tower was adopted as an improvement of the column, but with a symbolical import somewhat different: the column signified the sustaining power of the Deity; the tower the same power employed in affording protection to persons in distress. As such it is regarded in Holy Writ. A tower was a safe asylum to the daughters of Danaus. The towers of Christian churches ought to be regarded as bearing the same symbolical import. They may suggest to the contemplative mind the important truth, that as in times of danger our rude ancestors often took refuge in the towers of churches from the insult and pillage of marauding invaders, so now the divine power may be found "a strong tower from the enemy,”z a defence against evils and mischiefs, a place of safety and repose to those that come unto it "labouring and heavy laden.”a