II Certain Delusions of the North Britons 307 



Irish wore the petticoat, when they had nothing 

 better to wear, Hke all savage nations, and the wear- 

 ing of which by the French peasants of the baser 

 sort did get them the name of sa7is culottes, or 

 men so low and brutal that they had not the inven- 

 tion of breeches. And it were as wise for the Duke 

 of Vallombrosa to walk on the boulevards of Paris 

 without his pantaloons, imagining he was in the 

 garb of his ancestors, as for a Scottish gentleman to 

 go into society in either the kilt or belted plaid. 

 Nay, even wiser v/ould it be for an ancient Irishman, 

 like my Lord Dunraven (who loveth his ancestry 

 and hath done much for their history), to go to 

 court in a saffron shirt and a thick shock of hair, 

 and nothing else,^ than for a Campbell (Italian, Di 

 Campobello), a Drummond (Hungarian), a Sinclair 

 (Norman, Saint Clair), or a Gower (English), to wear 

 the invention of an Englishman, deeming it the garb 

 of his ancestors and of his ancient nation. 



It were curious to note ^ how the ' stocken,' so 

 often mentioned by our author, shows an awakening 

 in the brains of these Northern Irish, though not 

 sufficiently extended to cause him to stitch his 

 petticoat between his legs, and so form the first 



1 ' The ancient " glibbe " 



Montrose wore the trais. ' — Grant, 

 2 ' It is curious to mark,' to use our author's phrase, the difierence 

 between the putting on of the female and the male petticoat. The 

 former, I am told, is always first placed over the head and so down- 

 wards, while the Highlander got into his from the feet, and drew it 

 upwards, as if he had some foreshadowing of its future transformation 

 into breeches. — Ed. 



