I can assure A LOWLANDER that the reviewer's story is quite true, it being gathered from Sir John Sinclair, who, in a letter to Mr. Pinkerton, dated in May, 1796, says: "It is well known that the philibeg was invented by an Englishman in Lochabar, about sixty years ago, who naturally thought his workmen would be more active in that light petticoat than in the belted plaid; and that it was more decent to wear it than to have no clothing at all, which was the case with some of those employed by him in cutting down the woods in Lochabar."--See Pinkerton's _Correspondence_, vol. i. p. 404. I never understood that there was any presumed antiquity about the philibeg or kilt. In the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ it is described as a "modern substitute" for the lower part of the plaid. Presuming, that I have settled this point, I will pass to the original Query of a JUROR, p. 7., still quoting Pinkerton: "There is very little doubt but that the 'Tartan' passed from Flanders (whence all our articles came) to the Lowlands in the fifteenth century, and thence to the Highlands. It is never mentioned before the latter part of that century. It first occurs in the accompts of James III., 1474, and seems to have passed from England; for the 'rouge tartarin' in the statutes of the Order of the Bath in the time of Edward IV. (apud Upton de Re Milit.) is surely red tartan, or cloth with red stripes of various shades." Again-- "As to the plaid, there is no reason to believe it more ancient than the philibeg. In the sixteenth century Fordun (lib. ii. cap. 9.) only mentions the Highland people as 'amictu deformis,' a term conveying the idea of a vague savage dress of skins. "In the book of dress printed at Paris in 1562, the Highland chief is in the Irish dress wearing a mantle. The woman is dressed in sheep and deer skins. Lesley, in 1570, is the first who mentions the modern Highland dress, but represents the tartan as even then being exclusively confined to the use of people of rank. "Buchanan, 1580, mentions the plaids, but says they are _brown_; even as late as 1715 the remote Highlanders were only clothed in a long coat buttoned down to the mid-leg; this information was derived from the minister of Mulmearn (father of the Professor Ferguson), who said 'that those Highlanders who joined the Pretender from the most remote parts, were not dressed in party-coloured tartans, and had neither plaid nor philibeg.'" So much for the assumed antiquity of the Scottish national costume. More interesting matter on this subject will be found in Pinkerton's _Correspondence_, vol. i. pp. 404-410. BLOWEN. THE CAXTON MEMORIAL. (Vol. iv., pp. 33. 69.)