town of Scotland, in the county of Angus, situated in E. Long. 2.18. N. Lat. 56.40. It consists of one large handsome street, and two smaller; and is seated on the side of a small hill, washed by the river Southesk, over which there is a stone-bridge of two large arches. At the foot of the town is a long row of houses independent of it, built on ground held in feu from the family of Northesk. It is a royal borough, and, with four others, sends a member to parliament. In respect to trade, it has only a small share of the linen manufacture. It lies at no great distance from the harbour of Montrose: and the tide flows within two miles of the town; to which a canal might be made, which perhaps might create a trade, but would be of certain service in conveying down the corn of the country for exportation.

Brechin was a rich and ancient bishopric founded by David I. about the year 1150. At the Reformation, its revenues, in money and in kind, amounted to 700l. a-year; but, after that event, were reduced to 150l. chiefly by the alienation of lands and tythes by Alexander Campbell, the first Protestant bishop, to his chieftain the earl of Argyle.—The Culdees had a convent here. Their abbot Leod was witness to the grant made by king David to his new abbey of Dunfermline. In after times, they gave way to the Mathurines or Red Friars. The ruins of their house, according to Maitland, are still to be seen in the College Wynd.—Here was likewise an hospital called Maison de Dieu, founded in 1256, by William de Brechin, for the repose of the souls of the kings William and Alexander; of John earl of Chester, and of Huntingdon his brother; of Henry his father, and Juliana his mother. Albinus bishop of Brechin, in the reign of Alexander II. was witness to the grant. By the walls which are yet standing, behind the west end of the chief street, it appears to have been an elegant little building.

The cathedral is a Gothic pile, supported by 12 pillars; is in length 166 feet, in breadth 61: part is ruinous, and part serves as the parish-church. The west end of one of the aisles is entire: its door is Gothic, and the arch consists of many mouldings; the window of it neat tracery. The steeple is a handsome tower, 120 feet high; the four lower windows in form of long narrow openings; the belfry windows adorned with that species of opening called the quatrefoil: the top battlemented, out of which rises a handsome spire.—At a small distance from the aisle stands one of those singular round towers whose use has so long baffled the conjectures of antiquaries. These towers appear to have been peculiar to North-Britain and Ireland: in the last they are frequent; in the former, only two at this time exist. That at Brechin stood originally detached from other buildings. It is at present joined near the bottom by a low additional aisle to the church, which takes in about a fifth of its circumference. From this aisle there is an entrance into it of modern date, approachable by a few steps, for the use of the ringers: two handsome bells bells are placed in it, which are got at by means of six ladders placed on wooden semicircular floors, each resting on the circular abutments withinside of the tower. The height from the ground to the roof is 80 feet; the inner diameter, within a few feet of the bottom, is 8 feet; the thickness of the wall at that part, 7 feet 2 inches; so that the whole diameter is 15 feet 2 inches; the circumference very near 48 feet; the inner diameter at top is 7 feet 8 inches; the thickness of the walls, 4 feet 6 inches; the circumference, 38 feet 8 inches; which proportion gives the building an inexpreffible elegance: the top is roofed with an octagonal spire 23 feet high, which makes the whole 103. In this spire are four windows placed alternate on the sides, resting on the top of the tower; near the top of the tower are four others facing the four cardinal points: near the bottom are two arches, one within another, in relief; on the top of the outmost is a crucifixion: between the mouldings of the outmost and inner are two figures; one of the Virgin Mary; the other of St John, the cup, and lamb. On each corner of the bottom of this arch is a figure of certain beasts; one possibly the Caledonian bear; and the other, with a long snout, the boar. The stone-work within the inner arch has a small flit or peep-hole, but without the appearance of there having been a door within any modern period; yet there might have been one originally; for the filling up consists of larger stones than the rest of this curious rotund. The whole is built with most elegant masonry, which Mr Gough observed to be composed of 60 courses.—This tower hath often been observed to vibrate with a high wind.

The learned among the antiquaries are greatly divided concerning the use, as well as the founders, of these buildings. Some think them Pictish, probably because there is one at Abernethy the ancient seat of that nation; and others call them Danish, because it was a custom of the Danes to give an alarm in time of danger from high places. But the manner and simplicity of building, in early times, of both these nations, was such as to supersede that notion; besides, there are so many specimens left of their architecture, as tend at once to disprove any conjecture of that kind: the Hebrides, Caithness, and Ross-shire, exhibit relics of their buildings totally different. They could not be designed as belfries, as they are placed near the steeples of churches, infinitely more commodious for that end; nor places of alarm, as they are often erected in situations unfit for that purpose. The most probable opinion therefore seems to be that of the late Mr Peter Collinson, viz., that they were Inclusoria; et artil inclusori ergaftula, the prisons of narrow inclosures: that they were used for the confinement of penitents; some perhaps constrained, others voluntary, Duncald o Braoin being said to have retired to such a prison, where he died A.D. 987. The penitents were placed in the upper story: after undergoing their term of probation, they were suffered to descend to the next; after that, they took a second step, till at length, the time of purification being fulfilled, they were released and received again into the bosom of the church. Mr Collinson says that they were built in the 10th and 11th centuries. The religious were in these days the best architects, and religious architecture the best of any. Ireland being the land of sanctity, Patria Sanctorum, the people of that country might be the original inventors of these towers of mortification. They abound there; and, in all probability, might be brought into Scotland by some of those holy men who dispersed themselves to all parts of Christendom to reform mankind.

The castle of Brechin was built on an eminence, a little south of the town; but no vestige of it is now left. It underwent a long siege in the year 1303; was gallantly defended against the English under Edward III.; and, notwithstanding all the efforts of that potent prince, the brave governor Sir Thomas Maule, ancestor of the present earl of Panmure, held out this small fortress for 20 days, till he was slain by a stone cast from an engine on the 20th of August, when the place was instantly surrendered.—Brechin is also remarkable for a battle fought near it, in consequence of the rebellion raised in 1452, on account of the murder of the earl of Douglas in Stirling castle. The victory fell to the royalists under the earl of Huntly. The malecontents were headed by the earl of Crawford, who, retiring to his castle of Finhaven, in the frenzy of disgrace declared, that he would willingly pass seven years in hell, to obtain the glory which fell to the share of his antagonist.