In the steeple of St Giles, there is a set of music bells, or carillons, which are played during an hour every forenoon; and a family performing the ordinary office of beadle, finds a dwelling somewhere in the recesses on the top of the church.
An aisle of this building is appropriated for the use of the General Assembly, which meets a few days in the month of May other parts are devoted to a police office, and the accommodation of a scrjeant's guard. Its uni formity is greatly impaired by every successive altera tion; as in one place is to be seen an attempt to restore or preserve the original architecture, which in another undergoes partial demolition; while a third presents what is altogether discordant with both.
The church of St Giles became a cathedral in 1633, on the restoration of Episcopacy, when Edinburgh was first constituted a bishop's sec.
Another church, of which the history can be better traced, was founded by Mary of Gueldres, widow of James II. soon after his decease, and is called the Tri nity College Church. It occupies part of the valley on the north of the city, and although unfinished, is an edi fice of the most genuine antiquity in Edinburgh. The original object of the pious founder was to endow a collegiate church for " a provost, eight chaplains, two boys; as also an hospital for the maintenance of thir teen paupers, and two clerks, who should be subser vient to the direction of the provost." The interior now presents a dull and gloomy aspect : it contains no striking monument of antiquity; and although the foundress lies interred in one of the aisles, her place of sepulture is unmarked by any memorial. The hos pital which stood !-outh-east of the church having be come ruinous, was transferred to a more convenient situation.
There are no other ancient churches now extant in Edinburgh, of many that were once devoted to religi ous purposes. Perhaps the oldest of all was St Cuth bert's, in the base of the castle rock, which is men tioned n the earliest records ; but it was renewed a few years ago, in a plain modern building, capable of con taining a large congregation, and decorated with a spire.
It stands on very low ground, amidst an extensive ce metery.
The churches of older erection in the city are the Greyfriars, Canongate, and Tron Church. The first of these stands near a spot that was the site of a monas tery of the same name, and contains two places of wor ship under one roof. A cemetery, equally extensive as the former, environs it, wherein are many monuments, recording the existence of celebrated characters. Al though this cemetery was probably used as such by the monks, it was not appropriated to receive the bodies of deceased citizens until the year 1561 ; and about 1612, the church called Old Greyfriars was erected. The New Greyfriars church adjoining, was built in 1721. Most of the children maintained in public hospitals sit in these churches, under the care of their respective in structors.
In the earlier part of the 17th century, a fund seetna to have been raised by voluntary contribution, for the purpose of erecting a church dedicated to Cnrist, which was founded near the castle, on the site of the present reservoir. But soon afterwards, the materials were transferred to a more convenient situation, and what is now called the Tron Church founded in 1637. In the year 1644, 16,000 pounds of copper were purchased in Holland to cover the roof; but this design being alter ed, lead and slates were substituted in its place. The whole exterior was lately renewed, and is at present a neat plain edifice, with a steeple and a clock. It ap pears that, in 1641, it was dedicated to Christ and the church, by the citizens or Edinburgh.
In the year 1647, Margaret Tier, Lady Yester, Baugh; ter of the first Earl of Lothian, founded a church, op posite to which the Royal Infirmary has since been erected. She not only gave a sufficient sum to the com munity to complete the building, but liberally devoted a farther endowment to provide for the clergyman. The church was finished in 1655 ; but a few years ago it was taken down, and a handsome edifice, after the antique, built almost exactly on the same site. It stands amidst a small cemetery, wherein patients dying in the infirmary are interred.