Salt-foot controversy

REPLY TO THE REMARKS. 89
Even had it been favourable, it were indeed ra-
ther humiliating, after the confident claims to bet-
ter evidence, to supplicate its aid ; Independantly of
being falsified by the very instances brought to sup-
port it,* the credit of tradition has long sunk in
points of fact, and genealogy, and has been rejected
by men of the greatest talents and discrimination.
" Much faith," says Dr Johnson, sneeringly, " is due
to tradition." — " Popular tradition, (observes Lord
Hailes,) is the most inaccurate of all histories, it re-
cords in Angus every particular of the last days of
Macbeth, and it points out the very spot where the
fabled Hays turned the chance of the imaginary
would seemingly be through an illegitimate channel. I do not
however, look upon these authorities as of much weight— I only
quote them to prove the fact of the tradition' — They certainly in-
fer a descent, de facto, from the branch of Casilemilk. The quib-
ble at p. 37, is not worth noticing ; nay, in fact, it is a palpable
Iricism.
* The tradition certainly too of some antiquity, and even
mentioned by our national historians of the descent of the Hamil-
tons from Sir Gilbert the English Exile, and the assassin of the
Spencer, is completely fabulous, and has long been exploded. In
like manner, that of the Douglases from the imaginary Sholto. —
As to the families of Cathcart and floss, there is nothing of the
kind strictly applicable to them, and all that can be asserted wjth
accuracy of any of their Pedigrees, or indeed of those of our
ordinary barons, may he found (for our Records are not so de-
fective) in legal documents, such as charters, seasines, and other
instruments, and extracts from the Chartularies of religious
Houses. For centuries backwards, their pedigiees may thereby
be instructed, without any of those wide chasms, as G. K. has
pretended.