(Vol. iv., pp. 7. 77.)
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 _Encyclopaedia 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."