shington brandishing a tomahawk, and girt with a string of
scalps. At length this fashion reached a point beyond which it was not
easy to proceed. The last British King who held a court in Holyrood
thought that he could not give a more striking proof of his respect for
the usages which had prevailed in Scotland before the Union, than by
disguising himself in what, before the Union, was considered by nine
Scotchmen out of ten as the dress of a thief.

Thus it has chanced that the old Gaelic institutions and manners have
never been exhibited in the simple light of truth. Up to the middle of
the last century, they were seen through one false medium: they have
since been seen through another. Once they loomed dimly through an
obscuring and distorting haze of prejudice; and no sooner had that
fog dispersed than they appeared bright with all the richest tints of
poetry. The time when a perfectly fair picture could have been painted
has now passed away. The original has long disappeared: no authentic
effigy exists; and all that is possible is to produce an imperfect
likeness by the help of two portraits, of which one is a coarse
caricature and the other a masterpiece of flattery.

Among the erroneous notions which have been commonly received concerning
the history and character of the Highlanders is one which it is
especially necessary to correct. During the century which commenced with
the campaign of Montrose, and terminated with the campaign of the young
Pretender, every great military exploit which was achieved on British
ground in the cause of the House of Stuart was achieved by the valour
of Gaelic tribes. The English have therefore very naturally ascribed to
those tribes the feelings of English cavaliers, profound reverence for
the royal office, and enthusiastic attachment to the royal family. A
close inquiry however will show that the strength of these feelings
among the Celtic clans has been greatly exaggerated.

In studying the history of our civil contentions, we must never forget
that the same names, badges, and warcries had very different meanings
in different parts of the British isles. We have already seen how little
there was in common between the Jacobitism of Ireland and the Jacobitism
of England. The Jacobitism of the Scotch Highlander was, at least in the
seventeenth century, a third variety, quite distinct from the other
two. The Gaelic population was far indeed from holding the doctrines of
passive obed