| Travellers usually take a guide from Ballycastle to Fairhead; but, when fully aware of what is to be seen, I prefer exploring for myself. I accordingly set out to walk to this celebrated promontory by the bay. The Bay of Ballycastle is small, but it certainly is the most remarkable in character I had yet seen in Ireland. At both points it is bounded by a wall of perpendicular cliffs, and in front lies the island of Rathlin, built, as one might suppose, on a regular mass of white rocks. Fairhead, however, a precipice about six hundred feet high, was the grand attraction; and thither I directed my steps. Mr. Inglis unwillingly admits, if he admits at all, the sublimity of this object. He is not disposed to confess that // any admixture of awe is produced by an elevation of not more than six hundred feet. This is a great mistake, and arises from a very prosaic calculation, depending more upon the foot-rule than upon the instinctive laws of taste and nature. It must be in the experience of every observer, that when an object reaches the altitude of a few hundred feet, its pretensions to the character of sublimity depend entirely upon its form and aspect. If Fairhead were in the shape of a rounded hill, it might be beautiful but could be nothing more; but as it is, a naked precipice, rising from a chaos of shapeless rocks, it is sublime. Why do we so often give the name of mountains to elevations that scarcely de serve that of hills? We do so, unconsciously, from the impressions produced by their form and aspect. On the opposite page the reader will see the promontory of Fairhead as it exists in reality; and, if he will only rear it, in imagination, on the iron-bound coast I am attempting to describe, surrounded by the various adjuncts of mountains, wilds, and tumbling waters, he will easily conceive that such an object must partake largely of the sublime. The traveller, however, expects to see in Fairhead something more than the sublime. He expects to see this colossal wall built in the form of a regular colonnade, the pillars close even to touching, and two hundred feet in length. This he will not see. Let him examine the annexed view attentively, and disengage his mind from the impressions // derived from guide-books, and the reports of travellers who make a point of seeing everything therein set down, — and he will then be able to visit Fairhead without risk of disappointment. The columns, it is true, which are very irregular, and therefore unsightly, polygons, may be detected on close examination; and a portion of the summit, bare of turf, presents the appearance of a pavement formed by the heads of the shafts; but this is not apparent to the eye when the object is viewed as a whole; and it, of course, has nothing to do with the effect produced. [Vol. II, p. 91-93] |
