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Old and New Edinburgh Vol. IV

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374 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Greyfriars Church. and, forming a part of her volunteer forces, six battalions of infantry, two of artillery, and a corps of cavalry. On the night of the False AZam, on the evening of the 31st January, 1804, Scotland was studded with beacons-something on the system ordered by the twelfthparliament of JamesII. By mistake, that on Hume Castle was lighted ; other beacons blazed up in all directions ; the cry was everywhere that the I;rench had landed! All Scotland rushed to arms, and before dawn the volunteers were all on the march, pouring forward to their several rendezvous ; in some instances the Scottish Border men rode fifty miles to be there, without drawing bridle, says Scott ; and those of Liddesdale, fearing to be late at their post, seized every horse they could find, for a forced march, and then turned thein loose to make their way home. When, in 1806, new regulations were issued, limiting the allowance to volunteers, the First Edinburgh Regiment remained unaffected by them. ?I wish to remind you,? said the spirited Lieutenant- Colonel Hope, one day while on parade, ?that we did not take up arms to please any minister, or set of ministers, but to defend our native land from foreign and domestic enemies.? In 1820, when disturbances occurred in .the West Country, the volunteers garrisoned the Castle, and offered, if necessary, to co-operate with the forces in the field, and for that purpose?remained a whole night under arms. SOOA after the corps was disbanded, without thanks or ceremony. Northward of the hospital, but entering from the Grassmarket, we find the Heriot brewery, which we must mention before quitting this quarter, a being one of those establishments which have long been famous in Edinburgh, and have made the ancient trade of a ?brewster? one of the mosl important branches of its local manufacturing in. dustry. The old Heriot brewery has been in operation for considerably over one hundred years, and foi upwards of forty has been worked by one firm, the Messrs. J. Jeffrey and Co., whose establishmeni gives the visitor an adequate idea of the mode in which a great business of that kind is conducted, though it is not laid out according to the more recent idea of brewing, the buildings and work: having been added to and increased fmm time tc time, like all institutions that have old and small beginnings; but notwithstanding all the nurnerou: mechanical appliances which exist in the diiTeren1 departments of the Heriot brewery, the manu? services of more than 250 men are required then daily. In Gordon?s map of 1647, the old, or last, Greynars Church is shown with great distinctness, the ,ody of the edifice not as we see it now on the outh side, but with a square tower of four storeys .t its western end. The burying ground is of ts present form and extent, surrounded by pleasant ows of trees j and north-westward of the church is species of large circular and ornamental garden #eat. Three gates are shown-one to the Candlenaker Row, where it still is ; another on the south o the large open field in the south-east angle of the :ity wall ; and a third-that at the foot of the ROW, ofty, arched, and ornate, with a flight of steps zscendiq to it, precisely where, by the vast accumuation of human clay, a flight of steps goes downward Over one of these two last entrances, but which le does not tell us, Monteith, writing in the year 1704, says there used to be the following inscripion :- low. ?? Remember, man, as thou goes by : As thou art now, 50 once was I. As I am now, so shalt thou be ; Remember, man, that thou must die (a?ee).? The trees referred to were very probably relics Df the days when the burial-place had been the Sardens of the Greyfriary in the Grassmarket, at the foot of the slope, especially as two double rows of them would seem distinctly to indicate that they had shaded walks which ran soutli and north. Writing of the Greyfriq, Wilson says, we think correctly :-? That a church would form a prominent feature of this royal foundation can hardly be doubted, and we are inclined to infer that the existence both of if, and of a churchyard attached to it, long before Queen Mary?s grant of the gardens of the monastery for the latter purpose, is implied in such allusions as the following, in the ? Diurnal of Occurrents,? July 7th, 157 I. ? The haill merchandis, craftismen, and personis renowned within Edinburgh, made thair moustaris in the Grey Frear Kirk Yaird;? and again, when Birrel, in his diary, April ~ 6 t h ~ 1598, refers to the ?work at the Greyfriar Kirke,? although the date of the erection of the more modem church is only 1613.? In further proof of this idea Scottish history tells that when, in 1474, the prince royal of Scotland, (afterwards James IV.) was betrothed, in the second year of his age, to Cecilia of England, and when on this basis a treaty of peace between the nations was concluded, the ratification thereof, and the betrothal, took place in the church of the Greyfriars, at Edinburgh, when the Earl of Lindesay
Volume 4 Page 374
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