by carved
stones taken from the adjacent ruins. Both Abbey and grounds are still
used for interments, together with the enclosure about the little
church of Killaghie on the neighbouring eminence--a church which
(like a few others) enjoys the reputation of being the smallest in the
kingdom.

[Footnote 11: The Muckross stone (No. 1) was overgrown with ivy which
quite covered up the inscription, but its date was probably about
1750. Of the two from Queenstown, No. 2 is to Mary Gammell, 1793, aged
53; and No. 3 to Roger Brettridge, 1776, aged 63.]

[Illustration: FIG. 90. BANGOR, IRELAND.]

[Illustration: FIG. 91. MUCKROSS AND QUEENSTOWN.]

I leave to the ethnologists the task of accounting for these abnormal
carvings in the South of Ireland, and associating them with the like
productions of the same period in the South of England. Or perhaps
I ought rather to excuse my insufficient researches, which, though
spread over a broad area, are yet confined to but a few of the many
spots available, and may very probably have passed by unexplored the
fruitful fields. But, in the words of Professor Stephens, the
apostle of Runic monuments, I claim for this work that it is "only
a beginning, a breaking of the ice, a ground upon which others may
build." My pages are but "feelers groping out things and thoughts for
further examination."

CHAPTER XI.

OLD GRAVESTONES IN SCOTLAND.

A very peculiar interest attaches to the old stones which survive
in the burial-grounds of Scotland. Regarded generally they are of a
description quite apart from the prevalent features of their English
and Irish prototypes. Taking the same period as hitherto in limiting
our purview of the subject, that is from the latter part of the
seventeenth to the early part of the nineteenth century, it may
perhaps be said that the Scottish headstones are tablets of Scottish
history and registers of Scottish character during a long and
memorable time. The one all-prevalent feature everywhere is indicative
of the severe piety and self-sacrifice of an age and a people
remarkable for one of the simplest professions of faith that has
ever existed under the Christian dispensation. The rigid discipline,
contempt for form, and sustained humility of the old Covenanters are
written deeply in the modest stones which mark the green graves of
their faithful dead during a period of fully two hundred years. The
vainglory of a graven stone to exalt the virtues of imp