‘Between eight and nine in the morning, there was an earthquake which made all the north parts of Scotland to tremble; Kintail, Ross, Cromarty, Mar, Breadalbane, &c. A man in St Johnston [Perth] laying compts with his compters, the compts lap off the buird; the man’s thighs trembled; one leg went up, and another down.’--_Cal._ This earthquake happening at the time when King James ‘interrupted Mr Robert Wallace and undid the ministry of St Andrews,’ James Melville likens it to that which God sent to punish Uzziah, king of Judah, for usurping the priestly office--which rent the Temple of Jerusalem, and caused a beam to hurt the king in the face, the beginning of a leprosy with which he was afflicted. He adds what he calls a _Dix-huitaine_ on the subject, concluding in the following strain: ‘King James the Saxt, this year thou fast aspires O’er Christ his kirk to compass thy desires. Oh, weigh this weel, and here exemple tak; Lest Christ, wha this year shook thy north-wast parts, And with eclipsed sun amazed the hearts For kings to come thee just exemple mak.’ * * * * * [Sidenote: AUG. 6. 1597.] ‘The pest began in Leith’ (_Bir._), and soon ‘infected sundry parts about Edinburgh, so that many fled out of the town.’--_Cal._ It raged during this year in England, 17,890 persons being carried off in London alone. A fast was held in Edinburgh on account of this visit of the pestilence, from the 7th of August till the end of harvest, when it ceased. Notwithstanding the scarcity of food from October 1595 down almost to this time, the mortality in Scotland does not appear to have been great--a result probably owing in the main part to the abundant harvest of the present year. * * * * * [Sidenote: AUG. 27.] ‘Ane trouble betwixt certain servants of the Drummonds and Oliver Young, then one of the bailies of Perth, within the Hie Gait [High Street] of the said burgh; when the greatest number of the pursuers leapt the town’s walls, and so few number of them as escapit came to the Tolbooth. The agreement was made in the South Inch, the 1st of September thereafter.’--_Chron. Perth._ * * * * * [Sidenote: NOV. 3.] ‘The Earl of Cassillis marries Dame Jean Fleming, wha was wife to the last chancellor [Lord Thirlstane], ane very unmeet match, for she was past bairns-bearing, and he was ane young man not past twenty-three years or thereby, and his lands unheired. The king and court mockit the same marriage, and made sonnets in their contempt; and specially his majesty took his pastime of that sport.’--_C. K. Sc._ * * * * * [Sidenote: NOV. 7.]