lished in the Appendix to the seventeenth volume of the Statistical History, he says, "In my infancy, when I staid at New Hall, the chapel was in ruins, but the remains of the four walls were seen, and the east gable, with a pointed arched window, was pretty entire. On the west was a small piece of ground, which was called the Chapel Yard, on the north side of which was a broad grass-walk, shaded with a double row of fine old spreading beeches. I remem ber to have heard Mr Forbes say, that New Hall was a religious house. The lands of Spittal were hospital-lands, probably endowed for sustaining the hospital, under the care and management of the religious foundation of New Hall." In the Life of Sir John Clerk of Pennecuik, in the Scots Magazine for June 1802, apparently written by his youngest son, it is mentioned, that "the former name of the parish of Pennycuik was that of St Kentigern or Mungo, the same to whom the cathedral church of Glasgow was dedicated. A religious house, or hospital, near the site of the present New Hall, endowed,with considerable landed property, is supposed to have held most of the surrounding district."

As the monasteries of Glenluce, Dundrennan, New Abbey, Melross, Kelso, Newbattle, and Culross, founded by Malcolm M'Duff Earl of Fife, in which St Kentigern was a monk, belonged to the order of

Cistercians, who were extremely rich, through the religious profuseness of King, or, as he is commonly called Saint David, and others; the convent, where the house of New Hall now stands, was probably of the same fraternity, and, with the adjoining county of Peebles, within the diocese of the Archbishop of Glasgow. This religious order was founded in the eleventh century, by St Robert, a Benedictine. Their habit is a white robe in the nature of a cassock, with a black scapulary and hood, and is girt with a woollen girdle. They became so powerful, that they governed the greatest part of Europe, both in spirituals, and temporals. The Monk's Rig, northward, with the font-stone on its brow, and the top of the cross, formerly erected on its edge, lying at the bottom of the hill, which likewise served as a land-mark, at the side of the Monk's Road, is in view, commanding all the country to the south, and still ascertains the tract which the friars followed in passing to, and from, Edinburgh, or Queensferry. Besides being a receptacle for the sick, and aged, under the monastery; the 'Spital was a hospitium, or inn, and the Monk's Road with its crosses, accommodations, and guides for friars, and other travellers, in journeying from one cloister to another. The weary and benighted passenger is, still, considered as having a right to shelter at the 'Spital House, and one of the outbuildings, with some straw, is generally allotted for that

purpose. Monasteries were the stages, and inns of those days; and their situations were always well chosen. Mr Addison's observations on the cloisters of Italy, might, once, have been applied, 'with equal propriety, to our own. Says he, slily,

"One seldom finds, in Italy, a spot of ground more agreeable than ordinary, that is not covered with a convent."

No writings, on the conveyance of this place, exist, prior to the year 1529; when it was in the possession of a family of the name of Crichtoune, said to have been the ancestors of the Earls of Dumfries. Its hospital, or 'spital, remained undissolved, till the reformation from Popery in 1560 or 1567. On being secularized, alienated, and becoming a lay fee, it had got the name of the new hall-house of its lands; probably, in consequence of a new mansion, or hall, house, having been reared, on the site of the decayed convent, where the old hall, in which the courts for the tenants had been held, formerly stood. The word hall, is of Saxon origin. The hall-house, and the hall-rig, or leading ridge among the reapers, are, still, the usual marks of distinction, retained among the Lothian shepherds and farmers, with regard to a house of this description, and the objects connected with it.

While inhabited by the Crichtounes, the house of New Hall was in the form of an irregular castle. With its appendages, it covered the whole breadth of the point on which it stands; and likewise extended a considerable way, northward, up the brink of the eastern ravine, on the edge of which, besides several foundations, are still left two of its vaults, under the bottom of a round tower they had once supported. The ground-floor in the front half of the present building, made a part of one of its principal towers. It occupies the entire length of the body of the house. It is arched above, with slits widening inwards for defence, and its wall is so strong as, in one place, to have a closet cut out of its thickness. On the north-east slope of the ravine, at its lower extremity where it opens into the Washing Green, was the east garden; still marked out by the easter wall, and some of the fruit-trees. To the south-west, on a shoulder of the point, was the prison, still remembered to have been used for refractory colliers, with the chapel, and chapel-yard as described by Mr Tytler. From the south-west gable of the present double house, seen in the view, which looks up the glen of the Esk, a walk still remains, retiring round this protruding part of the point, encircling the chapel and chapel-yard, and forming, on the hither side of an old lime-tree, a noble terrace looking over the head of the "howm," to the mineral well near the

purpose. Monasteries were the stages, and in those days; and their situations were always chosen. Mr Addison's observations on the cl of Italy, might, once, have been applied, with propriety, to our own. Says he, slily,

"One seldom finds, in Italy, a spot of more agreeable than ordinary, that is not with a convent."

No writings, on the conveyance of this pla prior to the year 1529; when it was in the p of a family of the name of Crichtoune, sai been the ancestors of the Earls of Dumfries spital, or 'spital, remained undissolved, till mation from Popery in 1560 or 1567. secularized, alienated, and becoming a lay got the name of the new hall-house of its 1 'bably, in consequence of a new mansio house, having been reared, on the site of ed convent, where the old hall, in which for the tenants had been held, formerly word hall, is of Saxon origin. The hal the hall-rig, or leading ridge among the still, the usual marks of distinction, re the Lothian shepherds and farmers, wi house of this description, and the obj with it.