Donald William Stewart

“ By the way, they cut holes in their brogues, though new made, to let out the water, when they have far to go and rivers to pass: this they do to preserve their feet from galling.
Few besides gentlemen wear the trowze,—that is, the breeches and stockings all of one piece, and drawn on together; over this habit they wear a plaid, which is usually three yards long and two breadths wide, and the whole garb is made of chequered tartan, or plaiding: this, with the sword and pistol, is called a full dress, and, to a well-proportioned man, with any tolerable air, it makes an agreeable figure ”

“ The common habit of the ordinary Highlanders is far from being acceptable to the eye: with them a small part of the plaid, which is not so large as the former, is set in folds and girt round the waist, to make of it a short petticoat that reaches half way down the thigh, and the rest is brought over the shoulders, and then fastened before, below the neck, often with a fork, and sometimes with a bodkin or sharpened piece of stick, so that they make pretty nearly the appearance of the poor women in London when they bring their gowns over their heads to shelter them from the rain. ”

“ The pattern of Menzies tartan, signed and sealed by the chief of that day, in the collection formed by the Highland Society of London in 1816-17, is an arrangement of red, green, blue, and white, and an example of last century date in the Editor’s collection is identical in sett. The use of the red and white Menzies tartan as a design for hose was common throughout the Highlands, as the ancient portraits of various families prove, and this use of the sett is probably of earlier date than its special adoption as the Clan Menzies wear. ”

“ Those who inhabit Scotland to the south of the Grampian chain, are tolerably civilized and obedient to the laws, and speak the English language; but those who inhabit [12] the north are more rude, homely, and unruly, and for this reason are called savages [or Wild Scots.] They wear, like the Irish, a large and full shirt, coloured with saffron, and over this a garment hanging to the knee, of thick wool, after the manner of a cassock. ”

“ The men wear theirs after another manner; especially when designed for ornament, it is loose and flowing, like the mantles our painters give their heroes. Their thighs are bare, with brawny muscles. Nature has drawn all her strokes bold and masterly; what is covered is only adapted to necessity; a thin brogue on the foot, a short buskin of various colours on the legg, tied above the calf with a striped pair of garters. ”

“ How far any critic could presume to form a judgment upon any “transcript,” especially an imperfect “part,” of a work, we leave to the experience of those accustomed to the criticism of old writings. But the reviewer has farther concealed the nature of the “transcript” said to have been exhibited to Sir Walter Scott. After the originals of the Vestiarium were in the possession of its editor, there never was made more than one “transcript,” that alluded to by the reviewer as “a transcript obtained by a gentleman in the north.” ”

“ The art of imitating ancient writing has got to a considerable perfection, and it has been the bane of Scottish literature and disgrace of her antiquities that we have manifested an eager propensity to believe without inquiry and propagate the errors which we adopt too hastily ourselves. The general proposition that the Lowlanders ever wore plaids is difficult to swallow. They were of twenty different races, and almost all distinctly different from the Scoto-Irish, who are the proper Scots, from which the Royal Family are descended. ”

“ As civilization advanced, a shirt, with a tunic, or short jacket, was introduced; the plaits of the feile were rendered permanent by sewing, and the plaid, to be used either as a mantle or blanket, was added. The kilt, feilebeg (little feile) , or petticoat, now worn, has succeeded to the folded-up ends of the original blanket; it is all that remains of the ancient costume, and was reduced to its present form some time in the beginning of the last century. The bonnet, or flat, blue thrum cap, is of a very modern date, and was introduced from the Lowlands. ”

“ As to the ancient form of the dress, nothing could be more simple: the gentlemen, having less frequent occasion to use their full suit as a blanket, wore a yellow shirt, a vest, trowsers, and mantle, of the same fashion as their neighbours. In Ireland, a few centuries ago, the lower class seldom encumbered themselves with dress of any kind within doors; and there is every reason to suppose that this was also the case among their brethren in Scotland. ”

“ There are, however, traces of the Latin word being used in a wider sense to mean a loose flowing garment. Bishop Leslie here applies it to the plaid or tartan, and, as it would seem, on the ground of the variegated colours expressed by the Gaelic breac. This is felt even in the use of the Latin word. We find braccæ described as pictæ and virgatæ, coloured and striped. Perhaps the original braccæ, which so took the attention of the Romans when they met the Gauls, were striped and parti-coloured, and so gave rise to the name. In Irish breacan still means a plaid. ”

“ The stocking rises no higher than the thick of the calf, and from the middle of the thigh to the middle of the leg is a naked space, which, being exposed to all weathers, becomes tanned and freckled, and the joint being mostly infected with the country distemper, the whole is very disagreeable to the eye. This dress is called the quelt; and, for the most part, they wear the petticoat so very short, that in a windy day, going up a hill, or stooping, the indecency of it is plainly discovered....
Various reasons are given both for and against the Highland dress. ”

“ Their dress was as antique as the rest; a cap on their heads, called by them a bonnet, long hanging sleeves behind, and their doublet, breeches, and stockings, of a stuff they called plaid, striped across red and yellow, with short cloaks of the same. These fellows looked, when drawn out, like a regiment of merry-andrews, ready for Bartholomew Fair. They are in companies all of a name and therefore call one another only by their christian names, ... and they scorn to be commanded but by one of their own clan or family.... ”

“ The minutes of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland for that period are yet in existence. They are kept with a careful, even a tedious minuteness; and is it possible to suppose that the series of events detailed in the Quarterly Review of June 1847 as having taken place “about twenty years ago,” involving questions of such importance to antiquaries, especially to Scottish antiquaries, could have been entirely omitted from them? Yet they are. No mention whatever of the circumstances stated by Professor Skene to have occurred “about twenty years ago” appears. ”

“ It is urged against it, that it distinguishes the natives as a body of people distinct and separate from the rest of the subjects of Great Britain, and thereby is one cause of their narrow adherence among themselves, to the exclusion of all the rest of the kingdom; but the part of the habit chiefly objected to is the plaid (or mantle) , which, they say, is calculated for the encouragement of an idle life, in lying about upon the heath, in the day-time, instead of following some lawful employment ”

“ Solid colours are generally rendered adequately by lithography, but when the most important and intricate portion of the design—viz., the representation of the interweaving of different shades—is in question, none of the processes of colour printing yet invented does justice to the great beauty of the actual fabric. The method adopted in the present work has been to weave the tartan to be represented in its proper colours in fine silk. The shades required for each specimen having been dyed, the weaving was executed by the hand-loom in exact proportion to the original. ”

“ In 1747, when I first knew Edinburgh, nine-tenths of the ladies still wore plaids, especially at church. By this time, however, silk or velvet cloaks of one form or another were much in request among people of fashion. And so rapidly did the plaid wear out, that when I returned to Edinburgh in 1752 one could hardly see a lady in that piece of dress. [64]
Of the extensive manufacture of tartans in Scotland during the eighteenth century some evidence may be obtained from a reference to the newspapers of the period. ”

“ By permission of the Countess of Seafield, coloured drawings of these have been made, and comparison discovers a variety of design well-nigh as great as would be the case in an equal number of examples selected at random from as many different families. In one particular alone do they agree, and that is in the absence of any completely dark-coloured sett, such as is usually designated “uaine” or green. It is not till after the ’45 that there is an instance of any member of the clan wearing the so-called undress Grant tartan, now the familiar “Forty-Second” or Black Watch pattern. ”

“ The Costume of the Clans, by John Sobieski Stuart and Charles Edward Stuart, contains a presentment of the painting which, though professedly coloured from the original, is nevertheless extremely inaccurate. It may be added that the tartan, which is that usually worn by H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, who bears the title of the Lord of the Isles, has never hitherto been faithfully delineated in any previous work nor properly reproduced in any textile fabric of modern manufacture. ”

“ In the sharp Winter weather the Highland Men wear close trowzes, which cover the Thighs, Legs, and Feet. To fence their feet they put on Rullions or raw leather shoes. Above their Shirt they have a single Coat, reaching no farther than the Navel. Their uppermost Garment is a loose Cloke of several Ells, striped and party colour’d (the tartan plaid) , which they gird breadth-wise with a Leathern Belt so as it scarce covers the knees, and that for the above-mention’d Reason, that it may be no Lett to them, when on a Journey or doing any Work. ”

“ From and after the first day of August one thousand seven hundred and forty-seven, no man or boy within that part of Great Britain called Scotland, other than such as shall be employed as officers and soldiers in his Majesty’s forces, shall, on any pretence whatsoever, wear or put on the clothes commonly called Highland Clothes (that is to say) the Plaid, Philibeg, or little Kilt, Trowse, Shoulder belts, or any part whatsoever of what peculiarly belongs to the Highland garb; and that no Tartan or party-coloured plaid or stuff shall be used for great coats, or for upper coats ”

“ Of the many valuable relics of the ’45 treasured by the Murray-Threipland family at Fingask, few possess greater interest than the cloak of Prince Charles Edward, whence the present representation is taken. It escaped the vandalism of the soldiery engaged in suppressing the rising, and it has since been jealously guarded, so that it is an unusually well-preserved example of the tartan manufactured in the early and middle portions of last century. In the notes on the Drummond of Perth, attention is directed to the fact that, save for one fine line, that design is the same as this one. ”

“ A round target on their backs, a blew bonnet on their heads, in one hand a broadsword, and a musquet in the other, perhaps no nation goes better armed; and I assure you they will handle them with bravery and dexterity, especially the sword and target, as our veteran regiments found to their cost at Gille Crankee. [52]
In the closing years of the seventeenth century the Western Isles of Scotland were visited by a traveller, who has left the most complete account of the people and their manner of life which had been written up to that date. ”