II. THE LORD OF THE ISLES: HUNTING
BRODIE.
It is not known when this design was originally adopted; but, though the pattern cannot be traced in early paintings, it nevertheless possesses internal evidence of some antiquity, since many of the oldest tartans are variations of the red and black check, popularly styled the Rob Roy,[105] with the addition of narrower lines of various hues, as in the present instance. The beginning of the century witnessed its use, as it is included in several collections of the hard tartans produced at the time; and since then it has always figured in the pattern-books and the lists both of connoisseurs and of manufacturers. Certainly, it has been regarded as the true Brodie by makers as far back as business records or traditions extend. Of late a green tartan has been sold as undress or hunting Brodie, but it seems unsupported by any remote authority. The pattern illustrated as the Huntly district tartan (Plate X.) was also known as Brodie seventy years ago; it was so called because many Brodies who belonged to the districts occupied by the Gordons, Forbeses, and others wore it in early times as the district tartan, and more recently in some instances adopted it as their family pattern.
III. BRODIE
CAMPBELL OF BREADALBANE.
The specimen here presented is a careful reproduction of the tartan of Campbell of Breadalbane, as worn by the Fencibles of that district from their embodiment in 1793 to their disbandment in 1802. The authority is a portion of the regimental uniform of Major Campbell, one of the officers, whose descendants now treasure it as a precious relic. Wherever the tartan occurs in early collections, dating from before 1790 down to 1840, the pattern agrees with the accompanying illustration. The later date, however, witnessed the inception of a delusion that has prevailed even to the present day; for a tartan similar in some respects, which appears in certain early collections under the simple designation of “fancy,” began about that time to usurp the title of Breadalbane Campbell, and is now received as the correct design. But the existence of this regimental dress now a century old, the uninterrupted record of the pattern to 1840, and the proved genesis of the spurious variety, afford the amplest justification for including the earlier pattern in the present work. It is the only Campbell tartan included in the collection made by the Highland Society of London in 1816-17. It is doubtful if any of the so-called Campbell tartans as worn at the present time were in use earlier than the middle of last century, while several are of more recent introduction. The early Campbell portraits at Langton and Loudoun show designs entirely unlike any Campbell tartans now in use, being chiefly red.
