[20] The Migration of Symbols: Archibald Constable & Co., Westminster, 1894.
[21] Introduction, pp. ix-xv.
[22] Preface, 3.
[23] P. 12.
[24] At p. 4 of his work on the Round Towers.
[25] General Vallancey’s literary remains are preserved in seven octavo volumes, entitled Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicis, of which a complete set is rather difficult to obtain. The portions specifically relating to the round towers will be found in vols. ii., iii., and vii. As regards the other source of plagiarism to which Moore refers in his article above quoted,—“the remarkable work called Nimrod,”—it has been already shown, without any attempt at contradiction, that the leading idea of Nimrod was that the round towers were fire-altars, and that (to quote the writer’s words) “O’Brien’s theory is not to be found in any page of it.”
[26] According to “Father Prout” (“Rogueries of Tom Moore”), it was probably suggested to him by the study of Lucian. See p. 90 of Mr. Kent’s edition of “The Works of Father Prout.”
[27] Alluded to in the Charmides of Plato.
[28] This statement is subject to a qualification. Certain structures—one at Peel in the Isle of Man, and another at Hythe in Kent—are supposed, on grounds of which the validity is more or less questioned, to be round towers.
[29] Vide p. 514. General Vallancey had made a similar remark: “Nor are they always annexed to churches. There are many in the fields, where no traces of the foundations of any other buildings can be discovered around them” (Collect. iii. 492, cited at p. 17 of Dr. Petrie’s work). Dr. Lanigan avowed the same; but Dr. Petrie declares “they are, without a single exception, found near old churches, or where churches are known to have existed”; though, as Mr. Keane points out, he assumes buildings to be “churches” which have no claim to that title.