I cannot believe there is any copy of such a work among the Cardinal Duke of York’s papers. I am one of the commissioners for examining these papers, which are to a certain extent already catalogued. I will, however, keep a look out for the work of Master Urquhart, which I think his name is. To suppose Lowlanders to be Highlanders we must suppose that they spoke the Gaelick, and held the system of clanship. Without this there could be no occasion for wearing clan tartans. Now, every law or regulation concerning clanship is limited to the Highlands and to the Borders, who seem to have it as a tie of communion calculated to bind a tribe strongly together. But we are now required to believe that there was none of that distinction of dress at all, and if not of dress, why should there have been any difference of language or laws? A nation’s dress is much more easily changed than its manners and language; but here the dress alone remains, the manners and language that associated with it are totally gone. The idea of distinguishing the clans by their tartans is but a fashion of modern date in the Highlands themselves; much less could it be supposed to be carried to such an extent in the Lowlands as the manuscript pretends. Tartan itself is unquestionably a Lowland word, and the stuff “tiretain” fetched from Flanders, and I suspect the Highlander wore a frieze mantle like the Irish chief, without what we now call the bracken. To this letter Sir Thomas replied on 29th November 1829. By that time the terrible calamity, of which he gives so vivid a picture in the _Moray Floods_, had happened to Relugas, and he appears to have had little heart to write about anything else. But he makes an allusion to the _Vestiarium_; and a very striking one it is. With all deference to the very distinct expressions of opinion by his distinguished correspondent, he observes:— I confess I am still a believer. What do you think of the facsimile of old Leslie’s handwriting? By-the-bye, I will thank you to send it me in Mr Hay’s parcel,[90] to save me from sending to London for another. I have examined the old copy of the manuscript in my possession,[91] and find the water-mark of the paper to be ante-Union, the supporters to the arms being two unicorns.