HYMN.
Spirit of God, thyself the Lord,
Out of the depths I call on thee.
Above, I view thy gleaming sword.
Around, thy works of love I see.
Spirit of God, that hovering high
Didst watch the primal waters roll,
Brood o'er my heart, and verify
The turbid chaos of my soul!
Spirit of God, oh! bid me fear,
That blessed fear thy love can calm;
Transfix me with thy shining spear
And heal me with thy holy balm!
Spirit of God, oh! fill my breast,
And sear me with the sign of heaven.
The glorious brand of sin confessed,
The glorious seal of sin forgiven.
F.A.R.
From the Irish Industrial Magazine
THE INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF OUR ANCESTORS.
BY M. HAVERTY, ESQ.
That the early inhabitants of Ireland possessed sundry kinds of manufacture is a point that can scarcely be disputed; for, besides frequent passages in ancient and authentic historical documents referring to the matter, we have satisfactory evidence in those specimens of the manufactured articles themselves which have been preserved to the present day, and which bear testimony to the skill and industry that produced them.
A visit to the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy must convince us of the excellent workmanship of the ancient Irish bronze swords, and other weapons, and of certain ancient gold ornaments--both bronze and gold articles belonging to a date anterior to the introduction of Christianity into Ireland. From the early Christian ages we have received many of the old ecclesiastical ornaments that have been preserved; and some of them exhibit that peculiar and exquisite kind of interlaced ornamentation which began at a remote period to be known as opus Hibernicum, or the Irish style.
We know that the ancient Irish were skilled in the manufacture of their musical instruments, as well as in the use of them; and in the preparation of parchment, as well as in the almost unrivalled beauty of penmanship of which that parchment has preserved so many specimens. Then we must return to much more ancient times for the manufacture of gold and silver goblets, and, above all, for those beautiful fibulae, or brooches, which have afforded models for some of the most graceful and costly articles of female decoration at the present day. We may very naturally conclude that these charming fibular were not employed to hold together mantles of the coarsest possible manufacture, or, rather, that there was some proportion between the texture of the cloth and the beautiful workmanship of the brooch which clasped it round the person of the wearer; and, in a word, we are justified in presuming that some manufactures, besides those of which specimens were durable enough to have been preserved to the present day, existed in the country.
The incessant warfare of the Danish period, and of the centuries following the Anglo-Norman invasion, must have been destructive to the industrial arts; yet we meet occasionally with some external evidence of their existence even then. Some eighty years ago, the Earl of Charlemont lighted on a curious passage relating to the subject in an Italian poem of the fourteenth century. From this and other authorities he was able to show, in a paper published in the first volume of the "Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy," that Ireland produced a fine woollen fabric called serge, which enjoyed an European reputation at the very time the Flemish weavers were brought over by Edward III. to establish the woollen manufacture in England, and consequently before it could have been introduced here from the latter country. The investigation of such scattered facts as these would be interesting, and no doubt would flatter national vanity. It may, perhaps, occupy us on some future occasion; but for the present we shall confine our inquiry to a somewhat more modern epoch, and more tangible evidences.
Strangely enough, the first writer we have had on the natural history and industrial resources of Ireland happens [{550}] to have been a Dutchman. Dr. Gerard Boate--a resident of London, though by birth, it appears, a Hollander--obtained the post of state physician in Ireland from the Commonwealth, in 1649 and having purchased, as an adventurer, a few years earlier, some of the forfeited lands in Leinster and Ulster, applied himself to the subject of his book, with a view originally to the improvement of his own property. His information, however, was obtained, not from personal experience, but from Irish gentlemen whom he had met in London, such as Sir William and Sir Richard Parsons; and from his brother, Dr. Arnold Boate, who had practiced as a physician in Dublin for many years; but he himself, unfortunately, died a few months after his arrival in Ireland to enter on the duties of his office, before he was able to carry out more than half the original design of his work, which, though written in 1645, was not published until some years after his death. He collected his information and wrote while the great civil war was still raging, and when all his feelings and interests must have been strongly enlisted against the native race, so that we are not to be surprised at the acerbity of some of his expressions about them. Our concern is, not with his feelings or opinions, but with the facts which he relates, and the descriptions and statistics which he supplies.