28 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. Canongate.
the days that were no more. ?* No funeral hearse,?
says Lockhart, ?crept more leisurely than did his
landau up the Canongate ; and not a queer, tottering
gable but recalled to him some long-buried
memory of splendour or bloodshed, which, by a few
Most Noble Order of the Thistle, which he had
now [relerected, could not meet in St. Andrews?
church (z.e., the cathedral in Fife}, being demolished
in the Rebellion; and so it was necessary for them
to have this church, and the Provost of Edinburgh
SMOLLETT?S HOUSE, ST. JOHN?S STREET.
words, he set before the hearer in the reality of life.?
The Canongate church, a most unpicturesquelooking
edifice, of nameless style, with a species of
Doric porch, was built in 1688. The Abbey
chwh of Holyrood had hitherto been the parish
church of the Canongate, but in July, 1687, King
James VII. wrote to the Privy Council, that the
church of the Abbey ?? was the chapel belonging to
his palace of Holyrood, and that the knights of the
was ordained to see the keys of it given to them.
After a long silence,? says Fountainhall, ?the
Archbishop of Glasgow told that it was a mansal
and patrimonial church of the bishopric of Edinburgh,
and though the see was vacant, yet it
belonged not to the Provost to deliver the keys.?
Yet the congregation were ordered to seek
accommodation in Lady Yester?s church till other
could be found for them, and the Canongate
church was accordingly built for them, at the
expense, says h o t , of Az,400 sterling. A portion
of this consisted of zo,ooo merks, left, in 1649, by
Thomas Moodie, a citizen, called by some Sir
Thomas Moodie of Sauchtonhall, to rebuild the
church partially erected on the Castle -Hill, and
demolished by the English during the siege of 1650.
Two ministers were appointed to the Canongate
church. The well-known Dr. Hugh Blair and the
THE CANONGATE CHURCH.
splendid scabbard. This life is full of contrasts ; so
when the magistrates, in ermine and gold, took
their seats behind this sword of state in the front
gallery, on the right of the minister, and in the
gallery, too, were to be seen congregated the
humble paupers from the Canongate poorhouse,
now divested of its inmates and turned into a
hospital. Our dear old Canongate, too, had its
, Baron Bailie and Resident Bailies before the
late Principal Lee have been among the incumbents.
It is of a cruciform plan, and has the summit of
its ogee gable ornamented with the crest of the
burgh-the stag?s head and cross of King David?s
legendary adventure-and the arms of Thomas
Moodie form a prominent ornament in front of i t
? In our young days,? says a recent writer in a local
paper, ?the Incorporated Trades, eight in number,
occupied pews in the body of the church, these
having the names of the occupiers painted on them;
and in mid-summer, when the Town Council visited
it, as is still their wont, the tradesmen placed large
bouquets of flowers on their pews, and as our
sittings were near this display, we used to glance
with admiration from the flowers up to the great
sword standing erect in the front gallery in its
Reform Bill in 1832 ruthlessly swept them away.
Halberdiers, or Lochaber-axe-men, who turned out
on all public occasions to grace the officials, were
the civic body-guard, together with a body in plain
clothes, whose office is on the ground flat under
the debtors? jail.?
But there still exists the convenery of the Canongate,
including weavers, dyers, and cloth-dressers,
&c., as incorporated by royal charter in 1630,
under Charles I.
In the burying-ground adjacent to the church,
and which was surrounded by trees in 1765, lie
the remainsof Dugald Stewart, the great philosopher,
of Adam Smith, who wrote the ?Wealth of Nations
; ? Dr. Adam Fergusson, the historian of the
Roman Republic; Dr. Burney, author of the
