VIEW FROM ENTRANCE.
venerable remains which terminated both, perfect enough to form the perspective, yet broken enough to destroy the regularity, the eye was above measure delighted with the beauty, the grandeur, the novelty of the scene.”
The inner walls of the church are nearly entire; most of the elegant and massive columns, as already noticed, which separated the nave from the south aisle are yet standing; and the four lofty and magnificent arches which formerly supported the central tower are nearly perfect. The columns that divided the nave from the north aisle have fallen; but their bases still occupy the ground, showing their number, shape, and dimensions.
Windows.—The magnificent windows are little altered by time: and though somewhat obscured by a luxuriant and graceful drapery of ivy, the tendrils of which twine in their tracery, creep along the walls, encircle the columns, and form natural wreaths around the capitals, the forms of the principal objects are still so far preserved as to be easily discriminated. The tracery of the western window, as already observed, is exquisite; while the eastern window,[49] high and graceful, and occupying nearly the whole breadth of the choir, with its slender umbilical shaft rising to a height of fifty feet, and diverging at the top into rich flowery traces, has quite a magical effect. The other windows, though less ornamented, are all in character, and have the same elegant design and finish.[50]
The floor, originally covered with encaustic tiles, is now enveloped in a thick smooth matting of grass, trimmed like a bowling-green, and here and there spotted with little heaps of mutilated sculpture, and striped with flat tombstones—all thrown open to the winds of heaven.
The effigy of a knight in chain armour, a pavache shield, and crossed legs, is supposed to be that of Strongbow, first Earl of Pembroke, already noticed, but more probably that of Roger Bigod, as Strongbow is historically known to have been buried in Dublin. This interesting relic, that had escaped the ravages of time and the hostile spirit of resolution, was at last, as Mr. Thomas informs us, wilfully mutilated by a native of the village.[51]
The next relic is a group of the Madonna and Child, much disfigured, but with sufficient evidence of its having been the work of a skilful artist. Mr. Bartlett considered it to be of very graceful design and execution.
Near the eastern window is the sculptured head of a friar, with the tonsure, but otherwise quite disfigured.
In the centre, between the transepts, is another broad stone slab, supposed to cover the ashes of the founder; but the fall of the tower, and the continual dropping of loosened fragments—until the ruin became an object of interest and consideration—have not left one of the sepulchral tablets or inscriptions entire. Many fragments may be discovered among the rubbish, but to reunite the scattered members were a very hopeless task. In the southern aisle is the only sepulchral antiquity that bears a legible inscription. It is elaborately carved in black or slate marble, with a cross finely sculptured on its surface longitudinally, and near its base three trouts,[52] so entertwined as to form the symbolic triangle, with the figure of a salmon on the right and left. The inscription, in black letter, along the top of the cross, is simple—