Leith Wynd.] THE TRINITY HOSPITAL. 307
was abandoned. At length, as stated, Robert
Pont, in. 1585, resigned all his rights and interests
in the establishment, for the sum of 300 merks
down, and an annuity of A160 Scots.
In 1587 an Act was passed revoking all grants
made during the king?s minority, of hospitals,
Maiso?ss Dieu, and ? lands or rentis appertaining
thereto,? the object of which was, that they might
be applied to this original purpose-the sustentation
of the poor, and not to the aggrandisement of
mere individuals ; and in this Act it was specially
ordained, that the rents of the Trinity College,
? quhilk is now decayit,? be .assigned to ? the new
hospital1 erectit be the Provest, Baillies, and
Counsall;? and thus it became for ever a corporation
charity, for which a suitable edifice was found
by simply repairing the ruinous buildings, occupied
of old by the Provost and prebends, south of the
church, and on the west side of the wynd.
It was a fine specimen of the architecture and
monastic accommodation of the age in which it
was erected. It was two storeys high, and formed
two sides of a square, and though far from ornamental,
its air of extreme antiquity, the smallness
and depth of its windows, its silent, melancholy,
and deserted aspect, in the very heart of a crowded
city, and latterly amid the uproar and bustle of the
fast-encroaching railway, seldom failed to strike the
passer with a mysterious interest.
Along the interior of the upper storey of the
longer side there was a gallery, about half the
width of the house, lighted from the west, which
served alike as a library (consisting chiefly of
quaint old books of dry divinity), a promenade, and
grand corridor, winged with a range of little rooms,
some whilom the prebends? cells, each of which had
a bed, table, and chair, for a single occupant The
other parts of the building were more modem
sitting rooms, the erection of the sixteenth century,
when it became destined to support decayed
burgesses of Edinburgh, their wives and unmarried
children, above fifty years of age. ?Five men
and two women were first admitted into it,? says
h o t , ? and, the number gradually increasing,
amounted AD. 1700 to fifty-four persons. It was
found, however, that the funds of the hospital
could not then support so many, and the number
of persons maintained in it,has frequently varied.
At present (?779) there are within the hospital
forty men and women, and, there are besides twentysix
out-pensioners. The latter have E 6 a year,
the former are maintained in a very comfortable
manner. Each person has a convenient room.
The men are each allowed a hat, a pair of breeches,
a pair of shoes, a pair of stackings, two shirts, and
two neckcloths, yearly; and every other year a
coat?and waistcoat The women have yearly, a
pair of shoes, pair of stockings, two shifts; and
every other year a gown and petticoat. For buying
petty necessaries the men are allowed 6s. Sd.,
the women 6s. 6d., yearly. Of food, each person
has a daily allowance of twelve ounces of household
bread; and of ale, the men a Scots pint each,
the women two-thirds of a pint. For breakfast
they have oatmeal-porridge, and for dinner, four
days in the week, broth and boiled meat, two days
roast meat, and each Monday, in lieu of flesh, the
men are allowed zd., the women rid. apiece.?
Such was this old charity towards the close of
the eighteenth century. The inmates were of a
class above the common, and whom a poor-house
life would have degraded, yet quarrels, even riots,
among them were 80 frequent, that the attention of
the governors had more than once to be called
to the subject, though they met only at meals
and evening worship. Yet, occasionally, some
belonged to the better classes of society. Lord
Cockburn, writing in 1840, says:-?One of the
present female pensioners is ninety-six. She was
sitting beside her own fire. The chaplain shook her
kindly by the hand, and asked her how she was.
? Very weel-just in my creeping ordinary.? There
is one Catholic here, a merry little woman, obviously
with some gentle blood in her veins, and delighted
to allude to it. This book she got from Sir John
Something ; her great friend had been Lady something
Cunningham ; and her spinet was the oldest
that had ever been made ; to convince me of which
she opened it, and pointed exultingly to the year
I 776. Neither she nor the ninety-six-year-old
was in an ark, but in a small room. On overhearing
my name, she said she was once at Miss Brandon?s
boarding-school, in Bristo Street, with a Miss
Matilda Cockburn, ? a pretty little girl.? I told her
that I remembered that school quite well, and that
the little girl was my sister ; and then I added as a
joke, that all the girls at that school were said
to have been pretty, and all light-headed, and given
to flirtation ; the tumult revived in the vestal?s veins.
Delighted with the imputation, she rubbed her
hands together, and giggled till she wept.? The
octogenarian he refers to was a Miss Gibb, and
the last nearly of the old original inmates.
By 1850 the revenues amounted to about
#,ooo per annum.
At its demolition, in 1845, forty-two persons
were maintained within the hospital, who then
received pensions of A26 each. Those elected
since that period receive L20 yearly each; one
hundred and twenty others have an annual allowance
