This comet is also remarkable as the only one, besides another in
1607, which was observable by the naked eye in the first half of the
seventeenth century; whereas in other spaces of time of the same
extent, as many as thirteen have been detected. The comet of 1607,
which is the same with that seen in 1682, 1759, and 1835, and usually
known as Halley’s comet, is not mentioned by any of our contemporary
chroniclers as having been visible in Scottish skies.
Christmas was observed in Edinburgh at the command of the king, and
two churches opened for service; but the attendance was scant. ‘The
Great Kirk was not half filled, notwithstanding the provost, bailies,
and council’s travels.... The dogs were playing in the flure of the
Little Kirk, for rarity of people, and these were of the meaner
sort.... Mr Patrick [Galloway] denounced judgments ... famine of the
word, deafness, blindness, lameness, inability to come to the kirk
to hear and see, to fall upon those who came not to his Christmas
sermon.’--_Cal._
A few weeks afterwards, Richard Lawson, James Cathkin, and John Mean,
merchants, were obliged to appear before the Court of High Commission,
accused of ‘not coming to the kirk on Christmas-day, for opening of
their booth-doors, walking before them in time of sermon, dissuading
others from going to the kirk, and reasoning against preaching on
that day. They answered they did nothing of contempt; they reasoned
to receive instruction, and to try what warrant others had. They were
dismissed, with an admonition to be modest in their speeches and
behaviour in time coming.’--_Cal._
On Christmas-day 1621, there was service in the Old Kirk in St Giles,
which the magistrates and state officials attended; but no other
church was open, and Calderwood informs us that ‘one hundred and six
booth-doors or thereby stood open’--a proof of the general disregard of
the festival.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1618.]
Patrick Anderson, doctor of physic, and who is usually said to have
been physician to Charles I., published a tract on the ‘Cold spring of
Kinghorn,’ its admirable properties for the cure of sundry diseases. He
took care to draw a distinction between the simply natural efficacy of
this well and ‘the superstitious mud-earth wells of Menteith, or our
Lady Well of Strathern, and our Lady Well of Ruthven, with a number of
others in this country, all tapestried about with old rags, as certain
signs and sacraments, wherewith they arle the devil.’[391] He further
assured the public that the ‘clear and delicate cauld water’ of this
spring, being drunk in great quantity, ‘is never for all that felt in
the belly.’ Modern physiologists, it may be remarked, admit the rapid
absorption of saline waters by the stomach; and the drinking of nine
tumblers before breakfast is at this day not uncommon at Airthry.
Dr Patrick Anderson was the inventor of a pill of aloetic character,
which long had a great celebrity in Scotland, and is still in such
repute that an agency-office for its sale may be found in both
Edinburgh and London. He is the more entitled to some notice here, as
our work has been somewhat indebted to a History of Scotland by him, to
be found in manuscript in the Advocates’ Library.
* * * * *
At this time, one Thomas Milne was a maker of virginals in Aberdeen--a
calling, however, ‘but lately put in practice in the burgh.’ The
trade must have been tolerably encouraged, as John Davidson, who had
served an apprenticeship under Milne, now proposed to set up for
himself. On his exhibiting a pair of virginals of his own making as his
‘master-stick’ before the Council, they gave him the freedom of the
burgh without a fee, which he was too poor to pay.--_Ab. C. R._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1619.