of Dunkeld, Dunblane, Galloway and Argyle, were assigned as suffragans of the new Archbishop. This change of rank was met by considerable opposition, both from the clergy of his own diocese, and the senior metropolitan of St. Andrews. The first Archbishop, Robert Blackader, built the great stair leading from the crypt to the nave, and formed the southern transept which still bears his name. He was much occupied in state affairs-was a great traveller, and died in a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1508.*

The building of the structure still proceeded, during the period occupied by the four archbishops who immediately preceded the Reformation, but little is known of the several steps towards its present state. As in England, the progress of one of the metropolitans through the province of the other seems to have created clamorous and violent disputes about precedency, similar questions appear to have occurred in Scotland. In June 1545, one of these conflicts, occurring within the walls or close to the entrance of the Cathedral, between the followers of Cardinal David Beaton, Archbishop of St. Andrews, and those of Gavin Dunbar, Archbishop of Glasgow, was a matter of great exultation to Knox, the description of which, in his own peculiar manner, thus concludes:

Cuming furth, or ganging in (all is ane) at the Queir dure of Glasgow Kirk, begane stryving for stait betwix the twa croce beiraris; sa that fra glouming they came to schouldring, from schouldring they went to buffetis, and fra dry blawis be neiffis and nevelling; and than for cherities saik, thay cryit Dispersit, dedit pauperibus, and assayit quhilk of the croces war fynest mettell, quhilk staf was strongest, and quhilk bearar could best defend his Maisteris pre-eminence; and that thair sould be na superioritie in that behalf, to the ground gangis bayth the croces. And than begane na littill fray; bot yit a mirrie game, for rocketis war rent, tippetis war torne, crounnis war knypsit, and syd gounis mycht have bein sein wantonelie wag fra the ae wall to the uther."+

At the period of the Reformation, the Cathedral was in the same unfinished state in which it now remains; the northern transept carried no higher than the level of the chancel, and the western extremity of the aisles incomplete. In the wide destruction of the Scottish ecclesiastical edifices at this epoch, the Cathedral of Glasgow was comparatively fortunate, and those who occupied themselves in the work of demolition, were contented with throwing down the images and altars as symbols offensive to the new creed, and with stripping the roof of its leaden covering. The latter, which was a serious injury, by leaving the interior exposed to the inclemency of the weather, would in the course of time have caused the effectual destruction of this noble edifice, if the public spirit of the citizens had not prompted them to save it. On the 21st of August, 1574, the Provost and Council, with the deans of the crafts and others met in the tollbooth," and having respect and consideration to the great decay and ruin that the High Kirk of Glasgow is come to, through taking away of the lead, slate, and other graith thereof, in this troublous time bygone, so that such a great monument will all utterly fall down and decay, without it be remedied; and because the helping thereof is so great and will extend to more nor they may spare; and that they are not addebted to the upholding and repairing thereof by law, yet of their own free will uncompelled, and for the zeal they bear to the kirk, of mere alms and liberality; all in one voice consented to a tax and imposition of two hundred pounds

*The above statement has been compiled from "Annales Ecclesiæ Cathedralis Glasguensis," in the course of preparation for the Maitland Club by Joseph Robertson, Esq.: with occasional references to "Liber Collegii Nostræ Dominæ Glasguensis," edited by the same gentleman, and to "Registrum Episcopatus Glasguensis," and "Origines Parochiales" (in the press) by Cosmo Innes, Esq. + History of the Reformation, p. 51. See the outline of the incident confirmed in Diurnal of Occurrents, p. 30.

money, to be taxed and payed by the township and freemen thereof, for helping to repair the said kirk, and holding of it waterfast."* In 1579, the citizens assessed themselves in

further

sum of 600 merks for the repair of the ruin.† According to Spottiswood, the citizens of Glasgow had, in the mean time, the merit of protecting the edifice, of which they were so justly proud, from a new danger. The period referred to is the year 1578. He says: "In Glasgow, the next spring, there happened a little disturbance, by this occasion. The magistrates of the city, by the earnest dealings of Mr. Andrew Melvil and other ministers, had condescended to demolish the cathedral, and build, with the materials thereof, some little churches in other parts, for the ease of the citizens. Divers reasons were given for it, such as the resort of superstitious people to do their devotion in that place; the huge vastness of the Church, and that the voice of a preacher could not be heard by the multitudes that convened to sermon ; the more commodious service of the people; and the removing of that idolatrous monument (so they called it) which was, of all the cathedrals in the country, only left unruined, and in a possibility to be repaired. To do this work, a number of quarriers, masons, and other workmen was conduced, and the day assigned when it should take beginning. Intimation being given thereof, and the workmen, by sound of a drum, warned to go unto their work, the crafts of the city, in a tumult, took arms, swearing, with many oaths, that he who did cast down the first stone, should be buried under it. Neither could they be pacified till the workmen were discharged by the magistrates. A complaint was hereupon made, and the principals cited before the council for insurrection; where the king, not as then thirteen years of age, taking the protection of the crafts, did allow the opposition they had made, and inhibited the ministers (for they were the complainers) to meddle any more in that business, saying that too many churches had been already destroyed, and that he would not tolerate more abuses in that kind."‡

Dr. McCrie, in his Life of Melville, doubts the truth of this statement, and states that in all his researches he found nothing to confirm it.§

After the restoration of episcopacy in 1606, Bishop Spottiswood is said to have repaired the cathedral, and to have begun the re-covering of the roof with lead, leaving the restoration to be completed by his successor, Archbishop Law, who died in the year 1632.|| The next memorable incident is the meeting within the cathedral of the General Assembly of 1638, by which the bishops were deposed, episcopacy abolished, and, after a long and exciting discussion, the new form of church polity established. This was a scene very different from those which, whether under the Papal or the Protestant system, had previously been witnessed within the walls of this solemn edifice. Men brought together with their minds strung for the accomplishment of a great political conflict—met, not to revere, but overturn, the past, and to prepare a new system for the future—were not likely to treat the building in which their fathers worshipped with much reverence; and we find one of their number, the celebrated Principal Baillie, whose extensive learning led him to sympathise with other times, and with different opinions from those which might be immediately engaging his active attention, reproachfully commemorating the scene in his Journal.¶ In January, 1641, in obedience to an act of the General Assembly, the Kirk Session appointed delegates to destroy all superstitious monuments' in the cathedral; but they found very few remains answering to this description. They removed, however, an Agnus Dei, and a legend invoking the prayers of St. Mungo.

* Burgh Records of Glasgow. Presented to the Maitland Club by John Smith, LL.D.

+ Memorabilia of Glasgow, p. 33-34.

§ Vol. I. p. 84.

History of the Church and State of Scotland, p. 304.

Keith's Catalogue, pp. 263, 264.

Baillie's Letters and Journals, vol. I. p. 124.

From the middle of the seventeenth century to the present day the history of the cathedral affords no remarkable incidents. In 1829 Dr. Cleland drew attention to its dilapidated state, and the practicability of its repair and completion; and a subscription, which was subsequently interrupted, was then commenced for the repair of the nave. Two eminent physicians having declared, in 1835, that the church was, on sanatory principles, unfit for a place of worship, the state of the edifice was immediately taken into consideration by the Commissioners of Woods and Forests. Under the superintendence of their architect, Mr. Nixon, the crypt has been cleared out and opened up; and more recently, under other directions, the ends of the transepts, with their lofty windows, have been entirely reconstructed, and the consistory house has been removed. The interior of the nave and the roof are undergoing repair; and it is understood that the western entrance is to be repaired, the gallery of the choir removed, and the belfry taken down.

In the preceding notices of Glasgow Cathedral, written nearly six years back, justice has hardly been done to its merits, on many heads, for each division of the building is worthy of separate illustration. We have therefore considered it as a duty to call attention to our omissions, and at the same time to notice the changes which, in the brief time stated, have been worked upon the chief object of antiquity now remaining in Scotland. It is a building full of interest, both in general feature and in detail. What can be more dignified than the simple and graceful interior of its eastern end, or more quaint and appropriate than the little arcade ornaments of the spandrils of the arches? But all round the edifice the evidences of inventive ability, and singularity in adaptation, abound. Witness the germ of our tracery forms (from one of the choir windows), by the adaptation

of the compartments of an arcade, similar to those delineated between the arches of the choir in our view. We say our germ, because geometric tracery was used as a common ornament by Eastern nations, especially China, long before Britain was even civilised. Then, again, what can be more interesting than the arrangement and development of mouldings and foliated ornament at Glasgow? In the lower Church there is a fair mixture of both; but in the nave there is not such a thing as a piece of foliage on either capital or bracket. We see there the admirable effect produced by mere mouldings. In the choir, on the contrary, mouldings are comparatively scarce; but there appears instead, one of the most beautiful collections of early foliated capitals in Britain. Here the triumph of the imitator of nature-of the masonic artist, is as complete as that of the mechanic in the elaborated mouldings of the

nave.

Taking the ground at the west end as the floor of the Cathedral, we find that towards the east

is a rapid descent of the ground on which it stands, rendering supplemental foundations necessary, and hence the crypts, as they are usually called, were constructed. Properly speaking, they are not crypts; they are not underground vaults; but the whole series forms one great lower church, in every respect as perfect as the upper Cathedral. It is true, that the continual additions of human and other earth, both within and without, for almost three centuries, had nearly made the name correct; but now that these recent formations have been removed, the under Church is again complete, and Glasgow may be fairly described as possessing two Cathedrals.

To the artist and to all lovers of the picturesque, the lower Church, in its variations of columnar and vaulting process, presents an interminable field for consideration. Rickman, in his Essay on Gothic Architecture, states that Glasgow "had not been studied as it ought to be," and we fully concur in his opinion, for twenty plates instead of two would but meagerly illustrate the interior of its lower Church. The light shafts and elegant foliated decorations which cling to the gigantic piers