A truer remedy for the alleged extortions of the butchers was soon after hit upon by the Privy Council, in allowing meat to be brought into town by ‘landward men’ not of the corporation. ‘Some,’ adds Fountainhall timidly, ‘think that all [should be] permitted to bring in bread every day,’ being the same case with that of the maltmen, who were forbidden to form a deaconry.
Nov. 24.
The usual rule of the government in the two last reigns against unlicensed printing, was now very rigorously enforced, in order to prevent the issue of controversial pamphlets against the Catholic religion. James Glen, bookseller in Edinburgh, was imprisoned by an order from the Chancellor, for publishing a brochure called The Root of Romish Ceremonies, designed ‘to prove popery to be only paganism revived.’ It was a remarkable step for the government to take, while an uncontrolled popish printer was at constant work in the palace. Perhaps Lord Perth, who had become a Catholic (some say to please his wife, some to please the king, no one to please himself), felt sore at a bon mot of Glen, which Fountainhall has thought worthy of being preserved. The Council having (January 1686) issued an edict against the selling of books reflecting on popery, and their macer having brought this to Glen amongst others, he quietly remarked that ‘there was a book in his shop which condemned popery very directly—namely, the Bible—might he sell that?’
1688. Jan.
At this time, so unpropitious to literature, an attempt was made to establish a periodical work of a kind which we only expect to see arising when the affairs of the learned republic are at a comparatively advanced stage. Mr John Cockburn, minister at Ormiston, in Haddingtonshire, printed the first number of a work containing ‘the monthly transactions and an account of books out of the Universal Bibliotheque and others.’ The Chancellor, finding in it some passages reflecting on the Roman Catholic Church, at once suppressed the publication.—Foun. Dec.
1688. Jan. 19.
Copious periwigs, with curls flowing down to the shoulders, were now in vogue, both at home and abroad. There being an active exportation of hair for the foreign peruke-makers, the article was found to have become dear, and the native artists began to complain. On their petition, the Privy Council forbade the exporting of hair.—Foun.
It may give some idea of circumstances attending this fashion, that at a date not long subsequent to the period under our attention, a female living in a town in the south of Scotland was accustomed to dispose of her crop of yellow hair to a travelling merchant at fixed intervals, and always got a guinea for it.