I wish to communicate to you an account of a very curious manuscript which I have great hope may interest you as much as it has done me. It is entitled _Liber Vest[i]arium Scotia, otherwise clippit the Garderope of Scotland, Beand ane Mirrour to shewe the true Tertaynis of the principal Scottyshe famylies, be Schyr Richarde Urquharde Knychte_. The original belongs to Mr Allan Hay, father to the Messrs Hay, now residing at Logie House, within a mile of this place. It is written in beautifully clear and distinct black letter, and belonged to Lesly, Bishop of Ross, the historian, whose autograph is on it in the shape of a curious memorandum. To give you some idea of the style of the manuscript I shall copy the following commencement of the preface, in which the time when it was written is sufficiently marked by internal evidence:— Forasmeikle, &c. [The remainder of the quotation from the introduction is not written into the copy of Sir Thomas’s letter retained by him.] After this follows a dissertation on the rules for making tartan, which is prefaced thus:— First, for the manner of making and devising of tertennis, &c. [Here again the quotation stops short.] From this last quotation we are made aware of a fact of which I confess myself to have been always very sceptical hitherto. I mean that tartans were some centuries ago in use universally over Scotland, and accordingly the author of the manuscript, after giving us first descriptions of thirty-eight different tartans belonging to the principal Highland families, and eleven of the “terteinis of lesser famylies or houses, the quhilk be comand frae the cheff houses and original clannes,” goes on with “Here begynnethe off the Laich Cuntre Pairtes and Border clannes,” of which families he gives us the description of twenty-nine tartans. Among these last you may believe the tartan of the illustrious family of Scott is not forgotten. The descriptions are all so very particular that it is quite impossible to mistake them, and as I wished to possess myself of a copy of the manuscript (which I wrote out myself), Mr Charles Stuart Hay, with very great politeness, agreed to illuminate it for me, with drawings of all the tartans, a work which occupied him unceasingly for above three weeks, by which labour he has made me a most beautiful book. There is no printed copy of the manuscript, but the Messrs Hay, Junior, are in possession of a manuscript copy which is very old, and I have heard of another manuscript copy of it which did exist somewhere in Strathglass, but which has been ineffectually sought for as yet. The original came into the family of Mr Allan Hay from the unfortunate Prince Charles Stuart. So far as I know it is now the oldest and best authority (perhaps I should say the only authority) on the subject of tartans; and in these times of rage for tartans, when the most uncouth spurious modern “coats of many colours” are