priately accommodated in churches adapted to our mode of worship, climate, and habitudes,-is now restored to its pristine condition, and remains the pride and ornament, not alone of the capital of the west, but of Scotland. It is notorious that many ancient ecclesiastical edifices are now no more, or exist but in ruins. This need not have been, had not the people, some centuries back, in the fury of their zeal, destroyed partially, or altogether, those grand and costly erections, which we might yet have retained as noble appendages of an ancient and munificent nation. What hand the leading reformers-men to be honoured in many respects-had in this work we need not inquire. Such language as the "ruffians of reformation," proceeding from Dr. Johnson, we do not much regard. The best and most enlightened members of the Church of Scotland will deplore the misguided fanaticism which sought to render the overthrow of superstition complete by the devastation or disfigurement of churches and cathedrals. Dr. Bryce, in his recent work on the Secession, has spoken manfully out on this wanton and irreparable wrong. Let us not hear a man of sanity, not to say good sense, repeating the sentiment that the nests being destroyed the rooks would fly away. Popery fell because the Bible was opened to the people, and the Gospel preached throughout the length and breadth of the land. The loss of any part of the machinery of a Church is certainly a serious weakening of its power. But this result would not of itself have annihilated the Church of Rome in Scotland, had it not been for the operation of forces altogether positive. In New South Wales, the Popish clergy, without cathedrals, are fast acquiring an alarming ascendancy. Reverting to the adage just quoted, it is, if we may descend into a region so homely, untrue that rooks will leave a favourite station because their nests are removed. Those daring persevering socialists will build again. And coming to test the value of the notion, as embodied in an aggression against architectural magnificence, it may be replied, that where the nests of the hated rooks were left standing, they became a refuge to birds of a different feather. For generations, the cathedrals of Glasgow, of Kirkwall, and other religious buildings-the churches of St. Giles, and of Trinity, Edinburgh -and numberless Popish places of worship, accommodated the congregations of the reformed faith. There was no heresy in the stone walls, and the niches containing holy-water basins only served for colonies of spiders. We can well believe the remanent cathedrals and churches of the old priesthood saved many a troublesome negociation with heritors, and many a suit before the tribunal charged with the plantation of kirks and similar business. It is not irrelevant here to note, that of late a small sum has been occasionally voted by the House of Commons for keeping in repair the prelatial and ecclesiastical edifices of Scotland. The money is most properly bestowed, and is well merited by a country which pays so much into the public treasury, and takes so little out of it. A coarse economist like Mr. Williams may carp at the dole conceded us in this way; but to such utilitarian partizans no manner of regard should be shewn. Will ever the imperial government pay back even an instalment of what it has received out of the ancient ecclesiastical property of Scotland? We trow not. And it may well keep in repair the

buildings with which its profits are connected in a historical way. It is shameful to think that such impropriations were secured; that the revenues of the Church were diverted by the law of dominant power into the consolidated fund, while ministers of the national establishment were left without the customary wages of an artizan. Those who know something of what stipends were some eighty years back will appreciate the justice of this reproach.

To the architectural relics of Scotland much justice has now been done by historians. We need scarcely refer to Pennant, and Grose, and Chalmers, and many other names of able industrious investigators. This was a department of literature peculiarly suited to Sir Walter Scott. Enthusiastic as an antiquary, he had the eye and heart of a poet. He could describe as a historian, but the ancient ruin appeared before him radient with associations of the past. He could abstract himself from the times with which he was contemporary, and recall, as in a vision, the days of chivalry and of religious pomp-of belted knights-of grim seneschals-and fierce men-at-arms-of bishops, friars, monks, and nuns -the conspicuous characters of an age unlike our own, to its advantage we hold. The picturesque manner in which this wonderful man depicts the ancient strongholds of baronial power, is known to all who have perused his glowing romances. The Castle of Wolfscrag, and the House of Tully-veolan, may be suggested as examples of his power in this department of writing. We are only sorry that he should have dissolved a part of the mystic spell which fascinated his readers, and which stimulated to curious comparisons betwixt his graphic pictures and existing edifices, by letting the world know that all was imaginary. The elements in his descriptions were necessarily drawn from ancient styles of architecture, but the construction, as it were, of the edifice, was his own. The architecture in its laws was a real thing, its application by the novelist produced but a myth, having simply its verisimilitudes in existing concretes. On reading his prefaces to the Abbotsford edition of the Waverley Novels, some people would have felt like the worthy alderman, who really did not thank the busy-body who divulged to him first of all, that Robinson Crusoe was but a tale of imagination. The localities of Caledonia, in their features, physical, agricultural, archaeological, and otherwise, have had admirable historians in the clergy of Scotland, whose valuable contributions make up the first and second statistical accounts of this country,-monuments of industry, intelligence, and learning, we should suppose unparalleled in the history of European literature. We have now before us a work devoted wholly to the ecclesiastical and baronial antiquities of Scotland. It is truly worthy of the name of a national work. In every point of view the execution is admirable. The letterpress descriptions are written with painstaking minuteness, not alone as regards architectural details, but antiquarian lore. The plates are splendid. We never saw any thing like them in such a work. We have, as it were, the scenes brought vividly before the eye in their most trivial accessories. We need not say that the work should be in every library in Scotland. This, however, we would suggest, that all, who can afford the cost, should make it a kind of heir loom in their families. And to Scotsmen

resident abroad-far from the scenes of their childhood, and the country of their birth-antiquities here so vividly represented, would be ever suggestive of home history and home associations, at least would bring before the eye the more conspicuous and valuable of those relics of ancient art which still adorn our soil and delight the pilgrim.*

A few specimens of the historical matter contained in this grand work may be acceptable to our readers.

The Cathedral of Kirkwall has been ably described in this Magazine, by Mr. Vedder, among his Orcadian Sketches. The Cathedral of Glasgow is still entire. Its critical fortunes at the time of the Reformation are thus related :

-:

"At the period of the Reformation, the Cathedral was in the same unfinished state in which it now remains; the northern transept carried no higher than the level of the chancel, and the western extremity of the aisles incomplete. In the wide destruction of the Scottish ecclesiastical edifices at this epoch, the Cathedral of Glasgow was comparatively fortunate, and those who occupied themselves in the work of demolition were contented with throwing down the images and altars, as symbols offensive to the new creed, and with stripping the roof of its leaden covering. The latter, which was a serious injury, by leaving the interior exposed to the inclemency of the weather, would, in the course of time, have caused the effectual destruction of this noble edifice, if the public spirit of the citizens had not prompted them to save it. On the 21st of August 1574, the Provost and Council, with the Deans of the Crafts, and others, met in the Tolbooth,- and having respect and consideration to the great decay and ruin that the High Kirk of Glasgow is come to, through taking away of the lead, slate, and other graith thereof, in this troublous time bygone, so that such a great monument will all utterly fall down and decay, without it be remedied; and because the keeping thereof is so great, and will extend to more than they may spare ; and that they are not addebted to the upholding and repairing thereof by law; yet of their own free will uncompelled, and for the zeal they bear to the Kirk, by mere alms and liberality; all in one voice consented to a tax and imposition of two hundred pounds money, to be taxed and paid by the township and freemen thereof, for helping to repair the said Kirk, and holding of it waterfast.' In 1579, the citizens assessed themselves in a further sum of 600 merks for the repair of the ruin.

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According to Spottiswoode, the citizens of Glasgow had in the meantime the merit of protecting the edifice, of which they were so justly proud, from a new danger. The period referred to is the year 1578. He says, 'In Glasgow there happened a little disturbance by this occasion. The magistrates of the city, by the earnest dealings of Mr. Andrew Melvil and other ministers, had condescended to demolish the cathedral, and build with the materials thereof, some little churches in other parts, for the ease of the citizens. Divers reasons were given for it, such as the resort of superstitious people to do their devotion in that place; the huge vastness of the Church, and that the voice of a preacher could not be heard by the multitudes that convened to the sermon; the more commodious service of the people; and the removing of that idolatrous monument, (so they called it) which was,

We cannot here help denouncing indignantly the vile conduct of certain parties, criminals in a peculiar sense, who, admitted into pleasure grounds or scenes of interest, have abused what was strictly matter of privilege and kindness, by their depredations or bad conduct otherwise. Such combined Vandalism and dishonesty is a public evil, as it tends to render the possessors of spots, all would wish to visit, inexorably resolute in refusing the coveted license to the public.

of all the cathedrals in the country, only left unruined, and in a possibility to be repaired. To do this work, a number of quarriers, masons, and other workmen was conduced, and the day assigned when it should take beginning. Intimation being given thereof, and the workmen, by sound of drum, warned to go unto their work, the crafts of the city, in a tumult, took arms, swearing, with many oaths, that he who did cast down the first stone, should be buried under it. Neither could they be pacified till the workmen were discharged by the magistrates. A complaint was hereupon made, and the principals cited before the Council for insurrection; where the King, not as then thirteen years of age, taking the protection of the crafts, did allow the opposition they had made, and inhibited the ministers (for they were the complainers) to meddle any more in that business, saying that too many churches had been already destroyed, and that he would not tolerate more abuses in that kind.'

"Dr. M'Crie, in his Life of Melville, doubts the truth of this statement, and states that in all his researches he found nothing to confirm it.

"After the restoration of Episcopacy in 1606, Bishop Spottiswoode is said to have repaired the Cathedral, and to have begun the re-covering of the roof with lead, leaving the restoration to be completed by his successor, Archbishop Law, who died in the year 1632. The next memorable incident is the meeting within the Cathedral of the General Assembly of 1638, by which the bishops were deposed,--Episcopacy abolished, and, after a long and exciting discussion, the new form of church polity established. This was a scene very different from those which, whether under the Papal or Protestant system, had previously been witnessed within the walls of this solemn edifice. Men brought together with their minds strung for the accomplishment of a great political conflict,-met not to revere, but to overturn the past, and to prepare a new system for the future,-were not likely to treat the building in which their fathers worshipped with much reverence; and we find one of their number, the celebrated Principal Baillie, whose extensive learning led him to sympathise with other times, and with different opinions from those which might be immediately engaging his active attention, reproachfully commemorating the scene in his journal. In January 1641, in obedience to an act of the General Assembly, the Kirk-Session appointed delegates to destroy all superstitious monuments in the Cathedral; but they found very few remains answering to this description. They removed however, an Agnus Dei, and a legend invoking the prayers of St. Mungo.

"From the middle of the seventeenth century to the present day, the history of the Cathedral affords no remarkable incidents. In 1829 Dr. Cleland drew attention to its dilapidated state, and the practicability of its repair and completion; and a subscription, which was subsequently interrupted, was then commenced for the repair of the nave. Two eminent physicians having declared, in 1835, that the Church was, on sanatory principles, unfit for a place of worship, the state of the edifice was immediately taken into consideration by the Commissioners of Woods and Forests. Under the superintendence of their architect, Mr. Nixon, the crypt has been cleared out and opened up; and more recently, under other directions, the ends of the transepts with their lofty windows have been entirely reconstructed, and the consistory house has been removed. The interior of the nave, and the roof, are undergoing repair; and it is understood too, that the western entrance is to be repaired, the gallery of the choir removed, and the belfry taken down."

St. Anthony's hermitage, a conspicuous though small ruin on Arthur Seat, Edinburgh, is thus described :

"The site of this small building is so happily adapted to picture que effect, and it harmonises so finely with the mountain group of Arthur's Seat, from many points of view, that a stranger would be inclined to believe it a fictitious ruin, designed and placed by some master of the art of landscape grouping. The hermits who inhabited the adjoining cell must have had such opportunities of meddling with the busy haunts of men' as rarely falls to the inhabitant of the peaceful hermitage.' Beneath him lay the crowded city, stretching downward from the Castle rock to the king's dwelling. At greater distance appeared the cheerful woods and fields of Mid-Lothian, and the Frith of Forth, with the sea edging the distant horizon. Such was the view the hermit might contemplate on the one side; on the other arose a chaotic mass of black volcanic crags; and he had but to step a few paces from the brow of the rock on which his cell and chapel stood, to immure himself in such a grim mountain solitude, as Salvator Rosa might have thought an appropriate scene for the temptations of the Saint of the Desert, to whom the chapel was dedicated.

"The architecture of St. Anthony's Chapel is simple, and it would be difficult to assign a precise date to the structure. There are no known records that throw any light on the erection or endowment of this building, standing in the centre of a tract which has for many centuries been a royal park. It has been casually, and without any authority, spoken of as a cell of the neighbouring Abbey of Holyrood, but no reference to it has been found in the muniments of that establishment, which have lately been accurately investigated. The question, whether the King's Park, in which the chapel stands, or any part of it, had ever been ecclesiastically within the parish which was for some time called the Parish of Holyrood, was once the subject of an important litigation, in connection with which elaborate antiquarian researches were made. It would have materially aided the cause of one of the parties, to have been able to shew that the Chapel and Hermitage of St. Anthony were connected with the Abbey, but no evidence could be adduced to that effect.* There was in Leith a convent dedicated to St. Anthony, with which it is probable that this Hermitage was connected. By one tradition, it is said to have been merely established for the guardianship of the sacred fountain in its vicinity; by another it is said to have been a post for watching the vessels, from the imposts on which the Abbey of Holyrood derived part of its revenue, and to have thus formed a sort of ecclesiastical custom-house station. Grose attributes its erection to more pious, if not more disinterested motives, saying The situation was undoubtedly chosen with an intention of attracting the notice of seamen coming up the Frith, who, in cases of danger, might be induced to make vows to its titular saint.'t The Hermitage, of which there are now no remains, is described by Maitland, in 1752, as of the length of sixteen feet eight inches, in breadth twelve feet eight, and in height eleven feet. The eastern end, and north-eastern corner, are built on the rock, which rises within two feet of the roof or arch which covers it. There are few readers who cannot recall to their memory the picturesque incidents associated with this wild spot, in the 'Heart of Midlothian." The small fountain, St. Anthony's Well, which still bubbles up at the foot of the rock, is affectingly alluded to in an old ballad, the plaintive simplicity of which made it a favourite of Scott:

"Now Arthur's Seat sall be my bed;

The sheets sall ne'er be warmed by me;
Saint Anton's Well sall be my drink,
Since my true love 's forsaken me."

• Pleadings in the case of Ross v. Hamilton, chiefly prepared by John Riddel,

Esq. Advocate.

+ Antiquities, I. 41.

History of Edinburgh, 152.