Page:Books Condemned to be Burnt - James Anson Farrer.djvu/199

Rh wisdom of Parliament saw fit to punish by fire.

The first order of this sort was dated November 16th, 1700, and sentenced to be burnt by the hangman at Mercat Cross His Majesty's High Commission and Estates of Parliament.

In the same way was treated A Defence of the Scots abdicating Darien, including an Answer to the Defence of the Scots Settlement there, and A Vindication of the same pamphlet, both by Walter Herries, who was ordered to be apprehended. More interesting to read would doubtless be a lampoon, said to reflect on everything sacred to Scotland, and burnt accordingly, which was called Caledonia; or, the Pedlar turned Merchant.

Dr. James Drake, whose Memorial of the Church of England was burnt in England in 1705, published a work two years earlier which stirred the Scotch Parliament to the same fiery point of indignation. This was his already mentioned Historia Anglo-Scotica: an impartial History of all that happened between the Kings and Kingdoms of England and Scotland from the beginning of the Reign of William the Conqueror to the Reign of Queen Elizabeth (1703). This stout volume of 423 pages Drake printed without any date or name,