and
that such fearlessness of assertion was either the sport of negligence,
or the refuge of ignorance.

If individuals are thus at variance with themselves, it can be no wonder
that the accounts of different men are contradictory. The traditions of
an ignorant and savage people have been for ages negligently heard, and
unskilfully related. Distant events must have been mingled together, and
the actions of one man given to another. These, however, are
deficiencies in story, for which no man is now to be censured. It were
enough, if what there is yet opportunity of examining were accurately
inspected, and justly represented; but such is the laxity of Highland
conversation, that the inquirer is kept in continual suspense, and by a
kind of intellectual retrogradation, knows less as he hears more.

In the islands the plaid is rarely worn. The law by which the
Highlanders have been obliged to change the form of their dress, has, in
all the places that we have visited, been universally obeyed. I have
seen only one gentleman completely clothed in the ancient habit, and by
him it was worn only occasionally and wantonly. The common people do not
think themselves under any legal necessity of having coats; for they say
that the law against plaids was made by Lord Hardwicke, and was in force
only for his life: but the same poverty that made it then difficult for
them to change their clothing, hinders them now from changing it again.

The fillibeg, or lower garment, is still very common, and the bonnet
almost universal; but their attire is such as produces, in a sufficient
degree, the effect intended by the law, of abolishing the dissimilitude
of appearance between the Highlanders and the other inhabitants of
Britain; and, if dress be supposed to have much influence, facilitates
their coalition with their fellow-subjects.

What we have long used we naturally like, and therefore the Highlanders
were unwilling to lay aside their plaid, which yet to an unprejudiced
spectator must appear an incommodious and cumbersome dress; for hanging
loose upon the body, it must flutter in a quick motion, or require one of
the hands to keep it close. The Romans always laid aside the gown when
they had anything to do. It was a dress so unsuitable to war, that the
same word which signified a gown signified peace. The chief use of a
plaid seems to be this, that they could commodiously wrap themselves in
it, when they were obliged to sleep