Scotland/Scots > Black's picturesque tourist of Scotland

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spot that we read in Scott’s Lady of the Lake-
Go wan’s Hospital is entered by a narrow entrance to the
left of Edmonstone’s path, and is connected with a quaint
building surmounted by a turret steeple. The statue of its
worshipful founder, cap in hand, looks down from his elevation
with a courtly and majestic dignity. The hospital was founded
in 1639 by John Cowan, for decayed Guild brethren, or privileged
city tradesmen. It possesses a very curious Hutch garden, still
trimmed in the old style, with its multiform clipped yew trees
and stone terrace, and has lately received an accession in a
finely stained window.
The Greyfriaks’ or Franciscan Church stands on the de¬
clivity of the castle rock. It was erected in 1494 by James IV.;
and some additions were made to the eastern portion of it by
Cardinal Beaton. It will be found on examination to be a fine
specimen of the later pointed Gothic. To the English eccle-
siologist it will be curious, as a type of architecture peculiar
to Scotland. Though dating from about the beginning of the
sixteenth century, and thus contemporary with the depressed
or perpendicular style of architecture in England, to the English
antiquary it might thus appear a century older than it is.
He will find the style of the structure a peculiarity often met
with in Scotland, where the later forms of English Gothic
architecture never were adopted. The Scots, in fact, preferred
the taste of their friends in France to that of their enemies in
England. In this church the Earl of Arran, regent of the
kingdom, abjured Romanism in 1543. It was also the scene of
the coronation of James VI. on the 29th of July 1597, when John
Knox preached the coronation sermon. Since the Reformation
it has been divided into two places of worship, called the East
and West Churches. The celebrated Ebenezer Erskine, founder
of the Secession Church, was one of the ministers of the latter.
Though Stirling boasts of a few suburban villas and neat
rows of modern houses, it has not been so much enlarged or
changed as materially to alter its character as an ancient town.