J. T. Stuart Hay.
Sir Thomas Dick Lauder considered this refusal to be quixotic; but it was absolute. He addresses himself at great length to the task of proving the high character for veracity of the Messrs Hay, and he adds:—
I cannot for a moment believe that the brothers Allan Hay could be guilty of the fraud of attempting to foist a forged manuscript upon me. And, indeed, for what purpose should they attempt so base a thing? Not, certainly, from a thirst for publication, because they never entertained the idea of printing it until repeatedly urged to do so by myself and some other friends who happened to see it, not through any ostentation of theirs, but more as matter of accident than anything else, for they did not seem to set any great value on their old copy.
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.
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.