I do not deny indeed but that there may have been in Ireland at one time such a person as the Goban Saer: but if ever he did belong thereto, it must have been at least sixteen hundred years before the epoch which the Academy sanction—and so sanction, be it observed, because that a weak-minded poor monk, when writing the biography of St. Abhan, and torturing his invention, in all quarters, for the purpose of conjuring up miracles to lay to his score, thought the similarity of sound between Abhan and Gobhan so inviting, that he must contrive an interview between the parties; and so, with “one fell swoop,” alias, dash of the pen, cutting off the centuries of separation, he treats himself and his pupils to the following burlesque:—
“Quidam famossissimus in omni arte lignorum et lapidum erat in Hibernia nomine Gobbanus, cujus artis fama usque in finem sæculi erit in ea. Ipse jam postquam, aliis sanatis, in superflua artis suæ mercede lumen oculorum amisit, et erat cæcus. Hic vocatus est ad S. Abbanum et dixit ei: Volo ædificium in honorem Dei ædificare, et tu age illud. Et ille ait: Quomodo possum agere cum sim cæcus? dixit ei sanctus, Quamdiu illud operaberis lumen oculorum habebis, sed tibi postea non promitto. Et ita factum est, nam ille artifex apud sanctum Dei in lumine suo operatus est, et cum esset illud perfectum lumen oculorum amisit”[435]—that is, in the true spirit of what my countrymen call a sceal Feeneechtha, or Phœnician story, i.e. an entertaining lie (a proof, by the way, that they claim no kindred with the Phœnicians, else they would not thus confirm the well-known epithet of Punica fides); however to put this sceal Feeneechtha into English, it runs thus: “Once upon a time there lived in Erin a man most celebrated for his universal mastery over wood and stone; and whose fame, accordingly, will live therein as long as grass shall grow or purling streams flow in its enchanting scenery. This good man’s name was Gobhan, who, wallowing in wealth from the meritorious exertions of his abilities, yet incapacitated from enjoying it by the deprivation of his sight, was summoned before St. Abhan, who had already healed the rest of the world by his miraculous gifts, and who thus addresses him: ‘I wish to build a house to the honour of God; and set you about it.’ ‘How can I,’ says Gobhan, ‘seeing that I am blind?’ ‘O very well,’ says Abhan, ‘I will settle that; long as ever you are engaged in the business, you shall have the use of your eyes; but I make no promises afterwards!’ And verily it was so, for long as ever he did work with the saint he had the use of his sight, but soon as ever the work was done he relapsed into his former blindness!”
Well, you may laugh if you chose, in future, at the simplicity of the monks; but here is one for you, who, in the very extravagance of his simplicity, and that while bursting almost with risibility himself at the speciousness of his conceit, has contrived to bamboozle a jury of umpires who pique themselves upon their contempt for everything monkish, and who actually, in any other case, had they the sworn evidence of a monk, would go counter thereto; but here, where an old doting friar is drawing upon his ingenuity, every syllable that escapes him is taken for gospel!
Now, I as readily believe, as they would fain persuade me, that “long as Gobhan did work with Abhan he had the use of his sight,” and that “soon as ever the work was done he relapsed into his former blindness.” And why? because the two men, living in different ages, never laid eyes upon each other at all, and thus were they both, morally and literally, blind to each other!
The Scythians, who were masters of this country at the Christian era, and for many centuries preceding, had a sovereign contempt for everything like architecture. “They have no towns,” says Herodotus, “no fortifications; their habitations they always carry with them.”[436] The principle which actuated them, in this indifference to houses, was precisely that which governed the Britons in a similar taste—they were a race of warriors, and dreaded the imputation of cowardice more than they did the inclemency of the weather. It is not without reason, therefore, that we find Hollingshed, who wrote his Chronicles in Queen Elizabeth’s reign, complaining that “three things were altered for the worse in England: the multitude of chimneys lately erected, the great increase of lodgings, and the exchange of treen platters into pewter, and wooden spoons into silver and tin. Nothing but oak for building houses is now regarded: when houses were built with willow, then had we oaken men; but now our houses are come to be built of oak, our men are not only become willow, but a great many altogether of straw.”[437]
St. Bernard, also, in reference to the Irish, having mentioned that Malachy O’Morgan, archbishop of Armagh, was the first (of the Scythian race) who had erected a stone house in the island, introduces a native upbraiding him with it, in these terms: “What wonderful work is this? why this innovation in our country? we are Scots, and not Gauls, what necessity have we for such durable edifices?”
St. Abhan, therefore, who belonged to the sixth century, at which time the Scythians had here absolute sway, never once dreamt of erecting a stone edifice, or of evoking from the grave the manes of Gobhan, who, if he ever existed, must have been a member of the former dynasty.
Those pious fabrications which the biographers of early saints had concocted, with a view to magnify the reverence due to their subjects, remind me of one which was invented for the benefit (but in reality to the detriment) of St. Patrick, and which, even at the risk of appearing tedious, I must detail.
“Whereas,”—you perceive the record begins with all the formalities of office,—“in the year of the world 1525, Noah began to admonish the people of vengeance to come by a generall deluge for the wickednesse and detestable sinne of man, and continued his admonition for 120 years, building an arke for the safeguard of himself and his family; one Cæsarea (say they), according unto others, Caisarea, a niece of Noah (when others seemed to neglect this warning), rigging a navy, committed herself, with her adherents, to the seas, to seeke adventures and leave the plagues that were to befall. There arrived in Ireland with her three men, Bithi, Largria, and Fintan, and fifty women. Within forty days after her arrivall the universal flood came upon them, and those parts, as well as upon the rest of the world, and drowned them all; in which perplexity of mind and imminent danger, beholding the waves overflowing all things before their eyes, Fintan is said to have been transformed into a salmon, and to have swoome all the time of the deluge about Ulster; and after the fall of the water, recovering his former shape, to have lived longer than Adam, and to have delivered strange things to posterity, so that of him the common speech riseth, ‘If I had lived Fintan’s years I could say much.’”
Well, “to make a long story short,” this same Fintan, who was converted into a salmon, for the sole purpose of accounting for his appearance on the same theatre with St. Patrick, is introduced to the saint, when, after a very diverting episode upon his submarine adventures, a miracle, of course, is to be wrought; and, anon, we have the contemporary of Noah, and of Patrick, at once a salmon, a dolphin, and a man, renouncing his attachment to the waters and to the boat, and devoutly embracing Christianity!!!