378 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Greyfirs Church.
King?s Commissioner, the severity of these vile
persecutions was greatly lessened ; but in the northeast
corner of the burying-ground, the portion of it
long accorded as the place for the interment of
criminals, stands that grim memorial of suffering,
tears, and blood, known as the Martyrs?Monumznta
tall, pillared tablet, rising on a pedestal surmounted
by an entablature and pediment, and bearing the
following inscription :-
? Halt, passenger ! take heed what you do see-
This tomb doth show for what some men did die ;
Here lies interred the dust of those who stood
?Gainst perjury, resisting unto blood ;
Adhering to the covenants and laws,
Establishing the same ; which was the cause
Their lives were sacrificed unto the lust
Of prelatists abjured ; though here their dust
Lies mix?t with murderers, and other crew.
Whom justice justly did to death pursue.
But. as for them no cause was to be found
Worthy of death ; but only they were found
Constant and stedfast, zealous, witnessing
For the prerogatives of Christ, their King ;
Which truths were sealed by famous Guthrie?s head,
And all along to Mr. Renwick?s blood.
They did endure the wrath of enemies :
Reproaches, torments, death, and injuries.
But yet they?re those who from such troubles came,
And now triumph in glory with the Lamb I ?
?From May 27, 1661, that the most noble
Marquis of Argyle was beheaded, to the 17th
February, 1688, that Mr. James Rcnwick suffered,
were one way or other murdered and destroyed fo1
the same cause about eighteen thousand, of whom
were executed at Edinburgh about a hundred ol
noblemen aud gentlemen, ministers, and othersnoble
martyrs for Jesus Christ. The most of them
lie here.?
According to the Edinburgh Courant of 1728
this tomb was repaired in that year, and there was
added to it ?? a compartment, on which is cut a
head and a hand on pikes, as emblems of theii
(the martyrs?) sufferings, betwixt which is to be engraved
a motto alluding to both.?
The old church had been without a bell till
1681, when the Town Council ordered one which
had been formerly used in the Tron church ta
be hung in its steeple, or tower, at the west end.
The latter was blown up on the 17th May, 1718,
by a quantity of gunpowder belonging to the city,
which was deposited there and exploded by acci.
dent.
As the expense of its repair was estimated at
A600 sterling, the Town Council resolved to add
instead, a new church at the west end of the old,
and in the same plain, ungainly, and heavy style of
architecture, with an octagonal porch projecting
under the great window, all of which was accord.
ingly done, and the edifice, since denominated the
New Greyfriars, was finished in 1721, at the expense
of A3,045 sterling.
In this process the oIder church was shortened
by a partition wall being erected at the second
pillar from the west, that both buildings should
be of equal length. Many men of eminence
have been incumbents here ; among them, Robert
Rollock, the first Principal of the University of
Edinburgh, and Principal Carstares, the friend of
William of Orange.
In 1733, Robert Wallace, D.D., author of ?A
Dissertation on the Numbers of Mankind,? and
many other works, and one of the first projectors
of the Scottish Ministers? Widows? Fund, was appointed
one of the ministers of the Greyfriars, in
consequence of a sermon which he preached before
the Synod of Moffat, the tenor of which so pleased
Queen Caroline, when she read it, that she recommended
him to the patronage of the Earl of Islay,
then chief manager of Scottish affairs.
In 1736, however, he forfeited the favour of
Government by being one of the many clergymen
who refused to read from the pulpit the act
relative to the Porteops mob; but on the overthrow
of ,Walpole?s ministry, in 1742, he was
entrusted with the conduct of ecclesiastical affairs,
so far as related to crown presentations in Scotland
-a delicate duty, in which he continued to give
satisfaction to all. In 1744 Dr. Wallace was
commissioned as one of the royal chaplains in
Scotland, and in 1753 he published his ?? Dissertation??-
a work that is remarkable for the
curious mass of statistical information it contains,
and for its many ingenious speculations on the subject
of population, to one of which the peculiar
theories of the Rev. Mr. Malthus owed their origin.
Among many other philosophical publications,
he brought forth (? Various Prospects of Mankind,
Nature, and Providence,? in 1761, and died the
year after, on the 10th of July, leaving a son, who
is not unknown in Scottish literature.
But the most distinguished of the incumbents
was William Robertson, D.D., the eminent
historian, who was appointed to the Greyfriars in
1761, the same year in which, on the death of
Principal Goldie, he was elected Principal of the
University of Edinburgh, and whose father, the
Rev. William Robertson (a cadet of the Struan
family) was minister of the Old Greyfriars in 173 j.
Principal Robertson is so *well known by the
published memoirs of him, and by his many brilliant
literary works, that he requires little more
than mention here. ?Scott, who from youth to
Greyfriars Church.] DR ERSKINE. 379
I manhood was a sitter in the Old Greyfriars, and his
parents, Mr. and Mrs. Scott,? says an old tutor of
Sir Walter, writing to Lockhart, ? every Sabbath,
when well and at home, attended with their fine
young family of children and their domestic servants-
a sight so amicable and exemplary as
often to excite in my breast a glow of heart-felt
satisfaction.?
In ? Guy Mannering,? Scott introduces this old
church-now, with St. Giles?s, the most interesting
place of worship in the city-and its two most distinguished
incumbents. When Colonel Mannering
came to Edinburgh (where, as we have already
said, Romance and History march curiously side
from all quarters for the first service, a mass of
. blackened ruins. It has since been repaired at
considerable expense, adorned with several beautiful
memorial windows, the triplet one in the
south aisle being to the Scottish historian, George
Buchanan.
Among the ancient tombs within the church
were those of Sir William Oliphant, King?s Advocate,
who died in 1628 ; and of Sir David Falconer,
of Newton, Lord President of the Court of Session,
who spent the last day of his life seated on the
bench in court.
The antiquity of our Scottish churchyards, and the
care taken of them, greatly impressed Dr. Southey
strangely contrasted with a black wig, without a ?
grain of powder ; a narrow chest and stooping
posture; hands which, placed like props on each
side of the pulpit, seemed necessary rather to support
the person than to assist the gesticulation of
the preacher ; a gown (not even that of Geneva), a
tumbled band, and a gesture which seemed scarcely
voluntary, were the first circumstances which struck
a stranger.?
Dr. Erskine, previously minister of the New
Greyfriars, was the author of voluminous theological
works, which are known, perhaps, in Scotland
only. After ministering at the Greyfriars for fortyfive
years, he died in January, 1803, and was buried
in the churchyard
Principal Robertson pre-deceased him. He died
in June, 1793, in the seventy-first year of his age,
and was interred in the same burying-ground.
The Old Greyfriars was suddenly destroyed on
the morning of Sunday, 19th January, 1845, by a
fire, and presented to the startled people, assembling
greatest, grandest, and most renowned, who have
lived during a period of three hundred years.
In the year 1562 the Town Council made an
application to Queen Mary to grant them the site
and yards of the Greyfriars Monastery, to form a
a new burial-place, as ?? being somewhat distant
from the town.? Mary, in reply, granted their request
at once, and appointed the Greyfriars yard,
or garden, to be devoted in future to the use specified,
and as St Giles?s Churchyard soon after began
to be abandoned, no doubt interments here would
proceed rapidly ; all the more so that the other
burial-places of the city had become desecrated.
?? Before the Reformation,? says Wilson, ?there
were the Blackfriars Kirkyard, where the Surgical
Hospital or old High School now stands ; the
Kirk-of-Field-now occupied by the college,
Trinity College, Holyrood Abbey, St. Roque?s ?
and St. Leonard?s Kirkyards. In all these places
human bones are still found on digging to any
depth.?
