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

216 COMMENTS ON KEIR PERFOEMANCE,
same purport, the absurdity of the attempt is thus shown in the most
glaring colours, to the undoubted prejudice and injury of the honourable
Member for Perthshire.
Necessary After a protracted interval (more than forty years since 1818, the date of
ongin of _
the present the hxst Drumpellicr legal occurrences), the writer was again " summoned to
Exposition r & /' to
j^? March arms" by the present worthy Drumpellier representative in March 1859.
He had the honour then of being requested to undertake the duties of his
counsel, as upon the former remote occasion, and to defend his gentihtial
rights, including the Cadder representation, so unduly assailed, and bestowed
upon another by the Keir Performance. Although the writer has not for
long laid himself out for much practice, and, somewhat like Horace's gladiator,
unwilling again to encounter legal turmoil and contention, had rather put
his arms aside — after being engaged in analogous antiquarian combats, cer-
tainly of no small account — ^lie yet, in the peculiar circiimstances of the case,
and out of regard to old estimable clients, coidd not resist the appeal,
and has accordingly complied therewith, though considerably off the ii'ons, as
may be apparent by the Exposition, for which he duly apologises.
He hence bent his attention to the subject with renewed care and inves-
tigations ; and he is happy to state that, good and valid as the Drumpelher
case was Ib 1818, it has thereby, in his mind, been strengthened and corro-
borated, through further material facts and conclusions (independently of
what may even transpire and result from those in the Keir Performance), and
which correct impressions on some secondary points he had entertained, but
now recalls. At the same time, they can be backed, he conceives, by legal
doctrine and apposite and relevant illustrations — the whole to the advantage
of Drumpellier, and humbly submitted in the Exposition.
Other considerations, too, and impressions, naturally present themselves to
the writer. If he may be pardoned for alluding to private incidents — to use
Buchanan's words,
" Si inihi private fas indulgere dolori " —
he cannot but recur, as not wholly foreign either to the case, but rather
irradiating it, to the happy days he formerly spent in the society of
talented individuals so intimately connected, and who were then more or less
interested in its phases and progress, as the facts gradually developed them-
selves. These were Mr WUHam Stirling, younger of Drumpellier (who has
well figured in the controversy). Sir William Hamilton, and John Gibson