Comments in refutation of pretensions advanced for the first time, and statements in a recent work "The Stirlings of Keir and their family papers"

12 COMMENTS ON KEIR PERFORMANCE,
u( supra) to tlie house of Gadder" — denying, in fact, what the Keir, in 1818,
e converso, held or supported — while it is added, that " the Craighernard
family recognised the Stirlings of Keir as their chief;" by which again,
equally e converso, Glorat, wlio stands in the shoes of Craigbarnet, instead of
being the conceived chief of the Stirlings as formerly, must be now degraded
to a Keir vassal and subordinate. This, as too often happens in the work,
is without a particle of evidence in its support, and, by some strange mode of
ratiocination, is even made to infer an inferior Craigbernard and Glorat-
Cadder descent from Keir, as if he actually was the Cadder heir !
We are above insensibly, if we may be pardoned, reminded of the noted
Seville fruit, which, analogously, after ministering to our taste and refresh-
ment, is at once discarded in the remnant, and abandoned to the lower status
ofthe ground.
Wliat has preceded is but a jet or outline of the merits of the case, the
minute circumstances and evidences of which M'ill be given in tlie subsequent
chapters of the Exposition.
More than forty years have elapsed since these events affecting Drumpellier,
Keir, and Glorat, dm'ing all which time, under competent legal sanction and
authority, fortified, too, by the longest prescription that would validate i^er se
even a doubtful right, Drumpellier has held his status of heir and representa-
tive of Cadder, and his jus acquisitum here, without the sHghtest legal
challenge or opposition. And such being the fact, it is noM' impregnable and
unassailable, beyond the reach of competition a fortiori by Keir, who never
even, like Glorat, ventured to risk discussion, but always shrunk from and
eluded it when challenged thereto, as may be concluded, from an innate sense
of his own weakness and inability.
But strangely indeed, in these circumstances, and without the least sanction
wftiistami- ^f reason or evidence on their side, the Keir advisers or Triumvirate — irrespec-
foreciosuro tive of tliis Icgal foreclosurc in favour of Urumpelher — and not daunted by
iirumpd-" the former Keir's disasters and abandonment of his pretensions, have boldly,
Km- ver- iu their own empty hall or private tribunal, where, like ^-Eolus, they may of
ofitsoif, ' course blow, or rule as they choose, now actually arrogated to his representa-
adopting tive — for the first time too— the principal status both of heir-male and even
any legal
stop, heir-general, it may be said, of the house of Cadder. And this in the face
maintains ° "^
Hie Koir- ^f Drumpcllier's confessed riglit, while, moreover, no small uncertainty stiU
status; g^,gjj prevails in regard to tlie precise origin and descent of the Keir ftimily.
Novoi'tlie-