But although you may be very ready to acquit the Allan Hays of being the impostors, yet it must be admitted that the MS. may nevertheless be a forgery. But if the Allan Hays be acquitted and their story be believed, we then establish that, if there be forgery at all, it must be a forgery of some antiquity. Now, in trying this alternative I confess I think it much more difficult to believe that any one could have undertaken so tedious and fruitless a labour in times when MSS. were much less cared about than they are now, than to believe that the MS. in question really is what it pretends to be. And I do think that the internal evidence of the manuscript itself is very strongly in its favour, and that it is extremely unlikely that any one could have constructed a cheat with so many genuine characters about it. With all this, I must also own that the mere circumstance that Sir Walter Scott doubts is enough to shake the firmest opinion. To Sir Thomas Dick Lauder’s letter of 20th July Sir Walter Scott replied on 19th November, and that portion of his reply which relates to the _Vestiarium_ is in the following terms:— As for the _Vestiarium_, without pretending to know how it may have been got up, it is not, as Audrey says, a true thing, and, allowing the ingenuity of your arguments, one is obliged to allow so many extremely improbable circumstances and mere possibilities, that if any single one of them is not so weighty as to break down the whole system, their combined influence certainly will do so.