as founded into a bishopric by David I. about 1150. At the Reformation its revenues amounted in money and kind to £700 per annum; but after that event they were miserably reduced by various grants, and mainly by the alienation of lands and tithes, by Alexander Campbell, the first Protestant bishop, to his chieftain the Earl of Argyll. In 1572 James VI, with consent of John Earl of Morton, Regent, founded an hospital in the burgh. "Mr George Buchanan, pensioner of Crossragwell," is one of the witnesses to the grant, which was ratified by his majesty in 1587, when he attained majority. The magistrates and council are patrons of this charity, from which they give a small weekly allowance to the poor, no hospital apparently having ever been erected. William de Brechin founded a chapel in 1256, called Maison de Dieu Albinius, bishop of Brechin in the reign of Alexander II, was witness to the grant. Parts of the walls of the chapel still remain in the Maison Dieu Vennel, a little west of the High Street, and prove that the chapel had originally been an elegant little building. The house itself, and the property about it, with the superiority of some other lands, are generally gifted by the crown to the rector of the grammar-school during his incumbency, who hence takes the title of preceptor of Maison-dieu. The cathedral, which is now used as the parish church, was originally a handsome Gothic building; but its appearance has been much injured by modern "improvements." The steeple attached is a noble-looking square tower, with an octagon spire, rising to the height of 128 feet. Close to the church stands the round tower, one of those singular structures which are generally supposed to have been places of look-out belonging to the Picts, although their real use has long baffled the research of antiquaries. These towers are peculiar to North Britain and Ireland; in the latter they are frequent, in the former only two at this time exist, one at Brechin and another at Abernethy. There is no stair in the Brechin tower, and the only access to the top is by means of six ladders placed on wooden semicircular floors, which rest on circular projections within the tower. The height from the ground to the roof is eighty-five feet, the inner diameter within a few feet of the bottom is eight feet, and the thickness of the wall at that part four feet two inches, so that the whole diameter is nearly sixteen feet; the circumference is very near forty-eight feet; the inner diameter at top is six feet seven inches, the thickness of the wall two feet ten inches, and the circumference thirty-eight feet eight inches. These proportions give the building an inexpressible elegance. The top is roofed with an octagonal spire eighteen feet high, which makes the whole height of the building 103 feet. Certain it is, that during strong winds this tower has often been observed to vibrate. A stone built into the wall of the church-yard, evidently modernized, but most probably copied from an older stone, records, in not inelegant Latin, that during 1647 six hundred persons died of the plague in Brechin in the course of four months.

Within the burgh there is a house said to have been a Hospitium of the knights templars, now appropriately used as an inn. These knights seem to have had some lands in the neighbourhood, as there is a piece of ground close by Brechin bearing the title of Temple Hill of Bothers. A little to the north of this last-mentioned place is Huntly Hill, remarkable for the battle fought there between the Earls of Huntly and Crawford, 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 Huntly; who has hence given his name to the ground.

Brechin Castle, the seat of Lord Pannure, stands on the brink of a perpendicular rock overhanging the South Esk, a little to the south of the town. This castle was