died in his house, Lower Mount Street, 18th
August, 1812, aged 82 years.

His _Collectanea_, and his discourses in the Royal Irish Academy, of
which he was an original member, spread far and wide his oriental
theories. He was an amiable and plausible man, but of little learning,
little industry, great boldness, and no scruples; and while he
certainly stimulated men's feelings towards Irish antiquities, he has
left us a reproducing swarm of falsehood, of which Mr. Petrie has
happily begun the destruction. Perhaps nothing gave Vallancey's follies
more popularity than the opposition of the Rev. Edward Ledwich, whose
_Antiquities of Ireland_ is a mass of falsehoods, disparaging to the
people and the country.

FIRE TEMPLES.

Vallancey's first analogy is plausible. The Irish Druids honoured the
elements and kept up sacred fires, and at a particular day in the year
all the fires in the kingdom were put out, and had to be re-lighted
from the Arch-Druid's fire. A similar creed and custom existed among
the Parsees or Guebres of Persia, and he takes the resemblance to prove
connection and identity of creed and civilisation. From this he
immediately concludes the Round Towers to be Fire Temples. Now there is
no evidence that the Irish Pagans had sacred fires, except in open
spaces (on the hilltops), and, therefore, none of course that they had
them in towers round or square; but Vallancey falls back on the
_alleged existence of Round Towers in the East similar to ours, and
on etymology_.

Here is a specimen of his etymologies. The Hebrew word _gadul_
signifies _great_, and thence a tower; the Irish name for a round
tower, _cloghad_, is from this _gadul_ or _gad_, and _clogh_, a
_stone_: and the Druids called every place of worship _cloghad_. To
which it is answered--_gadul_ is not _gad_--_clogh_, a _stone_, is not
_cloch_, a _bell_. The Irish word for a Round Tower is _cloich-theach_,
or bell-house, and there is no proof that the Druids called _any_ place
of worship _cloghad_.

Vallancey's guesses are numerous, and nearly all childish, and we shall
quote some finishing specimens, with Mr. Petrie's answers:--

"This is another characteristic example of Vallancey's mode of
quoting authorities: he first makes O'Brien say that _Cuilceach_
becomes corruptly _Claiceach_, and then that the word _seems_ to be
corrupted _Clogtheach_. But O'Brien does not say that _Cuilceach_
is corruptly _Claiceach_, nor has h