The Scottish printers were not long at work ere their labours were viewed with apprehension. The Scots Parliament, jealous, doubtless, of the power of the press, early instituted a press-censorship. On 1st February, 1551-52, it ordained— “That na Prentar presume, attempt or tak upone hand to prent ony bukis _ballatis_, _sangis_, _blasphematiounis rymes_, or tragedies, outhir in Latin or Englis toung in ony tymes to cum, unto the tyme the samin be sene, vewit, and examit be sum wyse and discreit persounis depute thairto ... and thaireftir ane licence had and obtenit ... under the pain of confiscatioun of all the Prentaris gudis, and banisshing him of the Realme for ever.” Notwithstanding these restrictions, the art of printing developed in many directions. As time went on, education became more general and broadsides more numerous. The single sheet was the vehicle by which many authors sought to reach the public. Ballads and songs, old and new, genuine and fictitious, made their appearance in broadside form, and thus ceased to be dependant on oral tradition for their existence. It is not too much to suppose that these broadsides circulated among all classes. Their cost could not have been great, and if they were vended at fairs and markets, as is not unlikely, they may be accepted as the earliest form of our chapbook literature. In many ways they resembled the productions common in later times, and as Mr. T. F. Henderson says in his _Scottish Vernacular Literature_,[9] “they indicate the existence in Scotland, in the seventeenth century or earlier, of a great variety of forgotten lyrics, most of them coloured with the ingenuous indelicacy which, more or less, tinges all our early literature, and some of them very much akin to the ditties collected by Burns.” This, the vulgar literature of an earlier age, would seem to have met at the hands of our fathers a fate similar to that which we have awarded to the chapbook literature of later times, and which our children may mete out to the cheap ephemeral publications of these days. During the seventeenth century and down to the time of Allan Ramsay, broadsides were in general circulation, and by their means popular interest in our national song was kept alive. Many of our most widely-known lyrics appeared originally in song-sheets. The earliest version of “Auld Lang Syne” was so published, and so also was “Maggie Lauder,” “The Blythesome Bridal,” and numberless others. Habbie Simpson, the famous piper of Kilbarchan, was immortalised by Robert Sempill of Beltrees and the broadside press; and thousands all over Scotland learned how— “At fairs he played before the spear-men All gaily graithed in their gear, man: Steel bonnets, jacks, and swords so clear, then, Like ony bead:” and then, with the author, asked— “Now, wha will play before such weir-men, Sen Habbie’s dead?”