[659] Archæol. vol. xxx. Plates VI. VII. IX. X.
[660] Ruskin's Seven Lamps of Architecture, p. 179.
[661] Hope's Historical Essay on Architecture, p. 458.
[662] Registrum Episcopatus Glasguensis, vol. i. p. 166.
[663] It is so described in the "Ecclesiological Notes on the Isle of Man," &c., an interesting and intelligent note-book, (p. 96); but no reader would ever guess from the description, that excepting in some of the minor details, it bears no resemblance to any known specimen of English First-pointed work.
CHAPTER VIII.
ECCLESIASTICAL ANTIQUITIES.
Notwithstanding the systematic eradication of every relic associated with the rites or dogmas of the old faith, carried on by the Scottish Reformers of the sixteenth century, ecclesiastical remains are still preserved in sufficient number to furnish out a much ampler list than the limits of this work can embrace. The recumbent effigy, for example, is to be met with in many districts of Scotland, sometimes mutilated and defaced, but not unfrequently still exhibiting evidences of refined taste and delicacy of manipulation pertaining to the best epoch of medieval art. Perhaps no work of the period is more characteristic of the change from the age of the tumulus builders than the recumbent effigy of the Christian knight. It is one of the most significant memorials of the mild influences of a purer faith on the arts and sepulchral rites of the race. The armour and weapons of war are indeed still there, but the sword is in its sheath; the position is that of repose; and not unfrequently the hands are clasped in the attitude of devotion, the symbol of prayer. The majority of these medieval monuments belong to the fifteenth century, and some of those which occur in Iona and the Hebrides are altogether peculiar in costume and style of art. There is little, however, to distinguish the greater number of the Scottish from the English recumbent effigies, unless one peculiarity be worth noting, seemingly characteristic of a national luxuriousness which is little applicable to the rude barons of the Scottish middle ages. The crested tilting helmet, which is the most frequent pillow of the recumbent English knight, is of rare occurrence in Scotland, being more generally replaced by a richly sculptured cushion. It is needless, however, to multiply illustrations of a point involving no more than a conventional formula of art.[664] Sepulchral brasses, though now almost unknown in Scotland, may once have been little less abundant than the recumbent effigy. The "Oxford Manual" mentions only one, that of the Stuarts of Minto, in the nave of Glasgow Cathedral; bearing the date 1605. To this solitary example, however, one or two additions can still be made. The "restorations" of the collegiate church of St. Giles at Edinburgh in 1829, compassed, among other lamentable defacements, the destruction of the tomb of "The Good Regent," including the brass engraved with the figures of Justice and Faith, and the epitaph from the pen of George Buchanan.[665] The brass has fortunately been rescued, and is preserved in the possession of the Hon. John Stuart, one of the lineal descendants of the Regent, James Earl of Moray, by whom steps have been recently taken with a view to its restoration. A charter granted by the city of Edinburgh to William Preston of Gortoun, in 1454, in acknowledgment of his father's invaluable gift of "the arme bane of Saint Gele," preserves the record of at least one other brass that once adorned the same ancient church, though long since gone, with so many other of its most interesting features. It is described as "a plate of brase, with a writ specifiand the bringing of that relik be him in Scotland, with his armis." A small mural brass still remains in part of the church of St. Nicholas, Aberdeen, known as Drum's Aisle, bearing two shields of arms—the one bearing the three banded bunches of holly leaves for Irvine; and the other three pales for Keith. It surmounted the recumbent effigy of Alexander Irvine, third of the ancient family of Drum, who fell at the battle of Harlaw in the year 1411, and of his wife Elizabeth Keith, daughter of the Lord Robert de Keith. The knight is in full armour, but crowned with a chaplet of flowers, and his feet resting on a lion; while the lady's feet are supported by a dog. The monument has obviously been executed during their lifetimes, from the blanks still remaining on the brass, which tell, amid all the pomp of these anticipatory sepulchral honours, that no pious hand was found to grave the few simple additions requisite to have made of the dumb tablet a true memorial of the dead. The imperfect inscriptions are,—
Hic sub ista sepultura jacet honorabilis et famosus miles dns Alexander de Irvyn Secund qdz dns de Droum de Achyndor et Forglen qui obit. ... die mens ... anno dni MCCCC..