: The Irish Penny Journal Vol. 1 No. 12 September 19 1840 by Various - Ireland Periodicals The Irish Penny Journal

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THE IRISH PENNY JOURNAL.

Travellers whose only knowledge of our towns is that derived in passing through the principal street or streets, will be very apt to form an erroneous estimate of the amount of picturesque beauty which they often possess, and which is rarely seen save by those who go out of their way expressly to look for it. This is particularly the case in our smaller towns, in which the principal thoroughfare has usually a stiff and formal character, the entrance on either side being generally a range of mud cabins, which, gradually improving in appearance, merge at length into houses of a better description, with a public building or two towards the centre of the town. In these characteristics the highway of one town is only a repetition of that of another, and in such there is rarely any combination of picturesque lines or striking features to create a present interest in the mind, or leave a pleasurable impression on the memory. Yet in most instances, if we visit the suburbs of these towns, and more particularly if they happen, as is usually the case, to be placed upon a river, and we get down to the river banks, we shall most probably be surprised and gratified at the picturesque combinations of forms, and the delightful variety of effects, presented to us in the varied outline of their buildings, contrasted by intervening masses of dark foliage, and the whole reflected on the tranquil surface of the water, broken only by the enlivening effect of those silvery streaks of light produced by the eddies and currents of the stream.

Our prefixed view of the town of Antrim may be taken as an illustration of the preceding remarks. As seen by the passing traveller, the town appears situated on a rich, open, but comparatively uninteresting plain, terminating the well-cultivated vale of the Six-mile-water towards the flat shore of Loch Neagh; and with the exception of its very handsome church and castellated entrance into Lord Ferrard's adjoining demesne, has little or no attraction; but viewed in connection with its river, Antrim appears eminently picturesque from several points as well as from that selected for our view--the prospect of the town looking from the deer-park of Lord Massarene.

In our view the river appears crossed by a bridge, which through the upper limbs of its lofty arches affords a pretty prospect of the river bank beyond. In building a bridge in the same place, a modern county surveyor would probably erect a less picturesque but more economical structure, for the arches here are so lofty, that the river, to occupy the whole space they afford for its passage, must rise to a height that would carry its waters into an entirely new channel.

But the principal feature in our prospect is the church, the tower and steeple of which are on so respectable a scale, and of such excellent proportions, as to render it a very pleasing object as seen from any quarter or approach of the town. It would be difficult to say in what the true proportions of a spire consist, whether in its obvious and practical utility as a penthouse roofing the tower, or in its emblematic aptitude aspiring to and pointing towards heaven. Still, every cultivated eye will remark how much more dignified and imposing is the effect of a spire which is only moderately lofty, as compared with the breadth of its base, than that of one which is extremely slender. We would point out the spire of St Patrick's Cathedral, for example, or that before us, on a smaller scale, as instances of the former sort. Any one acquainted with the proportions of those attenuated pinnacles which we so often find perched on the roofs of churches erected within the last ten years, cannot be at a loss for examples of the latter. The church itself at Antrim is, however, rather defective in point of size, as compared with its nobly proportioned tower and spire.

Sir Henry Savage's "castles of bones" were found insufficient in the end to resist the multitudes of the Irish; and the English colonists, as we have mentioned, notwithstanding their victory at Antrim, were finally obliged to cede the valley of the Six-mile-water to the victorious arms of the Clan-Hugh-Buide, whose representative, the present Earl O'Neill, still holds large possessions in the territory thus recovered by his ancestors.

With respect to the origin of the place, there is little to be said beyond the fact, that, like that of most of our provincial towns, it was ecclesiastical. The only remnant of the ancient foundation is the round tower, which still stands in excellent preservation about half a mile north of the town. The name is properly "Aen-druim" signifying "the single hill," or "one mount."

Without doubt I am a benevolent character: the grudge gratuitous to my nature is unknown: I never take offence where no offence is given. Hence, on most animals I look with complacency--for most animals never intermeddle with my comfort--and on only a few with antipathy, for only a few so behave as to excite it. High up on the list of the latter--I was going to say at the very top, but that pestering, pertinacious fly impudently alighting, through pure mischief alone, on the tickle-tortured tip of--but he's gone--no, he's back--there now I have him under my hat at last--tut! he's out again under the rim--up with the window and away with him! At the head, then, ay, at the very head--how my grievances come crowding on my brain!--I unhesitatingly place that thrice-confounded breed of curs, colleys, mongrels, or whatever else they may be called, with which the rural regions of this therein much-afflicted country are infested. The milk of my humanity--yea, I may say the cream, for such it was with me--has in respect to them been changed to very gall--an unmitigable hostility has possessed me, which--did not the scars of the wofully-remembered salting, scrubbing, scarifying, and frying , to which my better leg was twice submitted, counsel me to mingle discretion with my ire--would absolutely make me turn Don Quixote for their extirpation.

Decided by some such discipline to run the gauntlet, and in a state of temper alternating between war and peace, inclining, as I remarked, strange contradiction! to the former when the latter was in prospect, and to the latter when the former, I proceeded in guarded vigilance. "Hope deferred maketh the heart sick," no doubt, but in my case evil deferred doth oftentimes as much. The substantial presence of danger for me, before its fearful imminence--the real onset of a canine crew, before the terrible suspense of passing the open den in which haply they lay wait, the shrill gamut of attack splitting your ear worse in apprehension than in action. But attention! yonder is the first position. Egad! I'm in luck to-day; the coast seems clear, and--the pacific now prevails amain--poor devils, I won't make any ruction.

"Ever follow peace If you'd live at ease,"

But I am pre-eminently a reasoning man, in whom the reign of passion is but brief, and discretion had so far recovered its rightful ascendency as I drew nigh the next "picket," that I began to think it more prudent, more benevolent I mean, to bottle up, or repress I should say, my indignation, and try what the "gentle charities," a benign demeanour and a pleasant salutation, might avail in the way of securing a peaceful transit. With this aim I threw a prodigious amount of amiability into my countenance, and accompanied a few familiar fillips of my finger with a most honied, and, as I thought, captivating phraseology of address, to a sinister-faced wretch who lay recumbent on the nearest threshold. But it would not do: up bounced the vile ingrate with obstreperous bay; his myrmidons were forthcoming on the instant, and in a jiffey I, a grave, reserved, and middle-aged man, a short, stout, and not very well-winded man, was in the mel?e once more, yerking my heels out fore and aft, whacking right and left, puffing, blowing, and altogether cutting such uncouth capers as verily it shames me now to think upon. Whether or not it was that my resentment, and proportionably thereto my prowess, were aggravated by the flagrant ingratitude displayed, I distributed my "dissuaders" on this occasion with such distinguished emphasis as well as science, as speedily to create a considerable diversion in my favour, and make more than one repentant sinner yelp out "devil take the hindmost," in such vigorous style as to bring a bevy of grandam fogies in wrath from their chimney corners. "An what are yees abusin' the poor craythurs for, that wouldn't harm nobody in the world at all at all, barrin' a pig or so? It's a wonder yees been't ashamed to treat the poor dumb brutes that way, that niver did an ill hand's turn to us nor one belonging to us, an' it's longer we're acquaint with them than you. Come here, Trig--come here, Daisy--in there, Snap--down there, Peerie," and so forth. Recrimination on such opponents was out of the question; and this brush over in rather creditable style, I made all speed from the united clamour of the offended crones and their injured innocents.

The next sore point I happily passed in the company of an iron-nerved, long-thonged carman, whom I providently engaged in conversation at the crisis. This fellow minded them no more than if they had been so many sods of turf, nor in truth did they, having probably tasted erewhile the crusty quality of such a customer, pay much regard to him, although not a few ill-favoured glances were cast askew at my poor self, as under his lee I stoutly stumped along; and some ill-suppressed growls and spiteful grins gave me to understand that I owed my safety solely to my company. A jolly beggarman--alack-a-day! that I should ever stand in need of such a convoy--to whose nimble fictions I gave ear for the nonce with singular philanthropy, was my next protector, and a sixpence paid for the safe conduct, at which rate I am pretty confident, had he seen how matters lay, he would have offered to trudge it at my elbow far enough, for the sturdy rogue cared not a snuff for them had they been twice as numerous; and in a few seconds after, I saw him with a flourish of his duster enter a hut in the midst of them all.

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