ECCLESIASTICAL ANTIQUITIES. 393
Externally, the recent alterations, though greatly injuring the Old Church in some parts,
and particularly in its 8out.h front towards the Parliament Close, have effected decided
improvements on others. Many of the buttresses had been injured or entirely removed to
make way for the booths erected against its walls, and most of the mullions and tracery of
the windows had disappeared, and been replaced by clumsy wooden sashes. In the year
1561 the western wall wm rebuilt by order of the Town CounciL It is probable that this
part of the building was originally characterised by the usual amount of ornament lavished
on the west fronts of cathedrals and collegiate churches, as canopied niches, gurgoils, and
other fragments of ornate ecclesiastical architecture were scattered in an irre,plar manner
throughout the rude masonry. When it was rebuilt, however, it was no doubt hemmed in
with buildings as it remained till 1809, so that there was little inducement to erect anything
more than a. substantial wall. Here, therefore, the architect found a fair field for
the exercise of his genius, and the result is at any rate an improvement on what preceded
it. The east end is also improved externally by the addition of buttressea, though at the
sacrifice of ‘‘ our ladie’s niche ; ” and the new work preserves an exact fac-simile of the
tracery of the great east window. On the north side of the choir the monument of the
Napier family forms a conspicuous and interesting feature, though recent investigations by
the late Professor Wallace are generally received as a confutation of the tradition that it
marks the tomb of the illustrious Inventor of Logarithms.’ It is exceedingly probable
that this monument indicates the site of St Salvator’s altar, to the chaplain of which
Archibald Napier of Merchiston, in 1494, mortified an annual rent of twenty merks out of
a tenement near the College Kirk of the Holy Trinity.’
The present graceful Crown Tower of St Giles’s, which forms so striking a feature not
only of the church but of the town, dates no further back th& the year 1648, when it was
rebuilt on the model of the older tower, which had then fallen iato decay. Of the four
bells, which seem to have formed the whole complement of the belfry in early times,
one, which bore the name of St May’s Bell, was taken down at the same time that St
Giles’s arm bone was cast forth aa a relic of superstition, and ‘‘ with the brazen pillars in
Archaeologia Scotica, vol. iv. p. 213 j where evidence is produced, derived from the writings of James Hume of
Qodscroft, a contemporary of Napier, to show that he was buried in St Cuthbert’s Church. The question, however, s t i l l
admits of doubt He remarks of the
Inventor of Logarithms :-“ I1 mourut l’an 1616, et fut e n t e d hors la Porte Occidentale d‘Edinbourg, dans l’Eglise
de Sainct Cudbert.” In this statement the wrong year is assigned for hb death, and other pasaages show that the
author was at least personally unacquainted with the Scottish philosopher. The stone in St Qilea’s Church is, after all,
the best evidence. But it is
surmounted with the arms and crest of Merchiston, along with the Wrychtishousis shield. The recent biographer of
Napier remarks (Mems. of Napier of Merchiston, by Mark Napier, Esq., p. 425), “ The stone has every appearance of
being much older than the time of the philosopher.” To us, however, it appears quite in the style of that period, the
best evidence of which is ita close resemblance to that of the rare title-page of the firat edition of the Logarithm4
published nt Edinburgh by Andrew Hart, A.D. 1614, a fac-simile of which adorns that interesting volume of biography.
The close intimacy between the Napiers of Merchiston and Wrychtishousis had been cemented by an alliance in 1513.
Its continuation in the time of the philosopher is shown by an application from his neighbour for a seat or d a k adjoining
his in the Parish Church of St Cuthbert, $0 that their possession of a common place of sepulture at the period of
his death is extremely probable. Add to this, the unvarying traditions among the descendants of Napier, as we are
assured by his biographer, all pointing to the Collegiate Church of St Oiles as the burial-place of the philosopher, where
his ancestors had founded a chantry, most probably above their own vault. Further evidence may yet be discovered
on this subject. The late Rev. Principal Lee informed us, that he possessed an abstract of documents proving the use
of the family vault in St Gilea’s Church at a later date than the death of the philosopher, which adds to the improbability
of hia being buried elsewhere.
Hume’s work, a Treatise‘on Trigonometry, was published at Paris in 1636.
The inscription simply bears :--8 . E . P. FAM . DE NEPEROBUY INTEBIUS HI0 BITUY EST.
Inventar of Piom Donations, M.S. Ad. Lib.
3 D
