West Churqh. SIR HENRY WELLWOOD MONCRIEFF. I35
and gloomy vault ; ?a memorial alike of the demolished
fane and the extinct race,? says Wilson
in 1847. ?When we last saw it the old oak
door was broken in, and the stair that led down
. to the chamber of fhe dead was choked up with
rank nettles and hemlock-the fittest monument
that could be devised for the old barons of Dean,
the last of them now gathered to his fathers.?
One of the most interesting tombs here is that
of Thomas de Quincey, the eccentric ?English
opium-eater,? who was the friend of Prqfessor
Wilson, and died at Edinburgh on the 8th of
December, 1859. It is reached by taking the first
pathway upward to the right at the Lothian Road
entrance.
On one of the south walls here, where for more
than fifty years it hung unnoticed and forgotten,
is a piece of monumental sculpture, by Flaxman,
of very rare beauty-a square architectural mural
monument, of a mixed Roman and Grecian style,
of white and black marble, which was erected to
commemorate the death of three infant children.
Two families-the Watsons of Muirhouse, and
the Rocheids of Inverleith-retained the right
of burial within the new church, under the steeple,
which is 170 feet in height. Its bell, which is
inscribed ?George Watt fecit, St. Ninian?s Row,
Edin : 1791,? was hung in that year.
In the west lobby of the church a handsome
tablet bears the following inscription, removed, probably,
from the older edifice :-? Here lyes the
corpse of the Honble. Sir James Rocheid of Inverkith,
who died the 1st day of May, 1737, in the
7 1st year of his age.?
The last incumbent of the ancient church, Mr.
Stewart, having died in April, 1775, was succeeded
by the famous Sir Henry Wellwood Moncrieff, D.D.,
who for more than half a century was one of the
greatest ornaments of the Scottish Church.
At St. Cuthbert?s he soon became distinguished
for his devoted zeal and fidelity in the discharge of
his ministerial duties, for the mildness and benevolence
of his disposition, for his genius, eloquence,
and great personal worth. He soon became the
leader of the Evangelical section of the church,
and in 1785 was unanimously chosen Moderator
of the General Assembly. He was appointed
collector of the fund for the widows and children
of the clergy, and filled that important situation
till his death, and received annually the thanks
of the Assembly for forty-three years. He was
author of several sermons, and the funeral oration
preached at his death by Dr. Andrew Thomson, 01
St. George?s, was long remembered for its power
pathos, and tenderness. He died in 1827 of a
lingering illness, in the 78th year of his age and
57th of his ministry.
In its greatest length, quoad civiZia, in 1835, the
parish measured upwards of five miles, and in its
yeatest breadth three and a half. But in 1834
territories were detached from it and formed into
ihe quoad sacra parishes of Buccleuch, St. Bemard?s,
Newington, and Roxburgh. It was partly landward
and partly town ; but, as regards population,
is chiefly the latter now. Each of its two ministers
has a manse.
Before quitting the church of St. Cuthbert a
reference must be made to its old poor-house, a
plain but lofty edifice, with two projecting wings
:standing on the south side of what was latterly
:alled Riding School Lane), and now removed.
At an early period a tax of LIOO sterling hac
been laid on the parish to preclude begging, ? and
maintain those who had been ?accustomed to live
3n the charity of others.? In 1739, at a meeting
3f heritow and the Session, the former protested
against the levy of this old impost, on the plea
?that the poor?s funds were sufficient to maintain
the poor in the landward part of the parish, with
whom only the heritors were concerned ; while the
poor living in Pleasance, Potter Row, Bristo, West
Port, &c., fell to be maintained by the town in
whose suburbs they were.?
The assessment was thus abandoned, and an
ancient practice was resorted to : the mendicant
poor were furnished with metal badges, entitling
them to solicit alms within the parish. The
number furnished with this unenviable distinction
amounted to fifty-eight in 1744, and the number
of enroIled poor to 220, for whose support A200
sterling were expended. In 1754 the Kirk Session
presented a nikmorial to the magistrates, craving a
moiety of the duty levied on ale for the support of
their poor, whereupon a wing was added to the
city workhouse for the reception of St. Cuthbert?s
mendicants.
In June 1759 a subscription was opened for
building a workhouse in the West Kirk. parish j
the money obtained amounted to A553 sterling
for the house, and A196 8s. of annual subscrip
tions for the support of its inmates-a small proof
that the incubus or inertia which had so long
affected Edinburgh was now passing away ; and the
building was commenced on the south side of a
tortuous lane, St. Cuthbert?s, that then ran between
hedgerows from opposite the churchyard
gate towards the place named the Grove. It was
completed by the year 1761, at a cost of about
L1,565 sterling. The expenses of the house were
defrayed partlv hv collections at the church doors
