compelling of him to fulfill the foirsaid contract and decreit, efter the forme and tenor therof, schewin and producit before the saidis Lordis. The said Jhone Halden of Glennegas compeirand be Maister Alexander Mauchane, his procurator, and the said Archibald Naper of Merchamstone, be Master Jhone Abircrumby, his procurator, and that lettres be direct to the effect forsaide in forme, as effeirs."

It cannot be conceded to the author of the Tracts, that by the first entry quoted, "We are thus presented with part of the original contract in 1485." By the fragment in question, it is not proved that such a contract ever existed, or at least, that John Napier and his spouse had ever become parties to it; and the whole circumstances under which the fragment appears tend rather to the conclusion, that the existence of such a contract and decree in 1485 was never proved by better evidence than the allegation of the party in the year 1562. Mr Riddell himself informs us, that, " After due examination, nothing further has transpired, nor in any register or quarter whatever, has more been detected of the original contract." The object of that process was simply and solely to transfer into the person of the laird of Gleneagles in 1562 whatever right to pursue for fulfilment of the alleged contract might have been in the person of the laird of Gleneagles in 1485. There is something peculiar, too, in the double entry. The first simply, "Transferris the contract and appunctment and decreit;" the second only transfers, with consent of parties, ane contract allegit maid." But it does not appear that, even in 1562, the original contract and decreit were either produced and verified, or admitted.

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Neither can it be conceded to the author of the Tracts

that there is any thing in this inconsequential process of transference from which it can be inferred, that the procurator acting for Merchiston admitted, upon their part, "the fact involved in the words eldest portionaris, applied to the Haldanes.” Mr Riddell seems inclined, by a cautious but somewhat distorted mode of expression, to rear some such admission as an ingredient in his case for Gleneagles. The fact of primogeniture involved in the words of the contract, he says, " in a manner may be acquiesced in by Napier." But every one acquainted with the nature of this process of transference (which merely connected Haldane with his ancestor in that matter) will at once perceive that no such inference can be drawn ; and Mr Riddell's not very intelligible qualification, “in a manner may be,” really seems to imply that learned gentleman's own suspicion that no such acquiescence was involved.

It is remarkable that all the most plausible evidence in support of the primogeniture of Agnes Menteith, Haldane's lady, when viewed closely, leads to the opposite inference, namely, that she was younger than her sister Elizabeth. Haldane's long and pertinacious litigation with Dernely at first sight appears to argue that he stood forward as in the right of the leading coheiress of the earldom of Lennox. But the details, as we have shown, are irreconcilable with that theory, and substantiate nothing, unless it be this, that the parties contending were the second and the last of three interests, the first not being in the field. In like manner, this new piece of evidence will bear no inspection in support of the primogeniture of Agnes Menteith, and will even be found to afford a contrary inference.

So far as we obtain any view of this contract, it simply provides the ordinary disposal of the messuages in

the case of a division between coheiresses. If Haldane's lady was really the eldest, there could be no question that she or her representatives were entitled to the principal messuages, nor could there have been the slightest difficulty in making good this right against Napier and his lady, Elizabeth Menteith. The proper form in such cases was to take out a brieve of division, directed to the Sheriff of the district, who impannelled a jury on the matter, and their decision was put in form "of ane rolment and decrete of the said inquest," upon which proceeded the Sheriff's precept to put the parties in possession. And this accordingly appears to have been the very course of procedure adopted in the case of the coheiresses of Orchardton, with which Mr Riddell illustrates his argument. What, then, was the meaning of the contract in this case, wherein John Haldane consents, grants, and admits, that particular mode of division which was to recognize him and his as eldest portioneris? If he were not eldest portioner, an abortive attempt to effect a contract recognizing him as such is conceivable; but upon the supposition that he was the eldest, why he urged his claim of primogeniture by way of this very unilateral-looking contract; and, moreover, why he was so unsuccessful that all he or his descendants ever could make of it was another unsuccessful attempt,-when, nearly a century afterwards, they try to raise this alleged contract from the dead,--is utterly unintelligible.

The strong inference against the primogeniture of Agnes Menteith afforded by the peculiarity of Haldane's pleas in his litigation with Dernely, we find to be strikingly confirmed by the relative position of the young ladies' names in the Great Chamberlain Roll. Let us look then for some other independent fact to support

the inference extracted, in like manner, against Gleneagles, from the very process of transference produced in his favour. The strongest corroboration that could be demanded under the circumstances would be this,produce positive evidence that Elizabeth Menteith did in point of fact possess the messuages which this alleged contract appears to claim for Gleneagles, and that her descendants continued to possess them even after the act of transference in 1562.'-Now it happens that this demand can be most amply satisfied, not only by the record of the Great Seal, but by a host of original parchments still preserved in the Merchiston charter-chest. From the many title-deeds of the Rusky estates in that family, it is proved beyond question that Elizabeth Menteith obtained, along with her share of her father's baronies in the Menteith, all the messuages, that her son enjoyed these by right of inheritance, and that they descended by inheritance, through the lineal male representatives of Elizabeth Menteith, down to the Inventor of Logarithms and his descendants, long after the date of the act of transference of the alleged contract. Nay more, to render this evidence complete, it can be proved from the contemporary titles of the Gleneagles share, that Agnes Menteith did not succeed to any messuages. This important fact the author of the Tracts was himself the first to observe in the public records; and it is difficult to understand how he could, under these circumstances, for a moment entertain the idea that any "great consequences, in reference to the claim to the earldom of Lennox," could result from his new evidence. deed it is clear, upon an attentive perusal of his argument, that the learned gentleman has, after all, instituted a stronger pleading for Merchiston than for Gleneagles, and, with every anxiety in this publication to turn

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the scale in favour of the latter, from whom he hints that justice has been withheld, the grand result of his discovery, and summing up of the evidence, is " a kind of puzzle that is perplexing."*

Before proceeding to illustrate the valuable evidence for Merchiston derived from the charters of Rusky, I shall throw some further light upon the conduct of Gleneagles in reference to this succession, from which it will appear that, even supposing that the contract of 1485, mentioned in the process of transference 1562, ever existed, which, however, is not proved, there can be no stress whatever laid upon the circumstance that John Haldane claimed the rights of the eldest coheiress of Rusky.

If that gentleman actually maintained such a pretension, it would be nothing remarkable to find that he had done so in the face of the utmost notoriety that Merchiston's lady was the elder of the two sisters. He was at the very time learning a lesson of the kind from Dernely, and there is abundant evidence that Haldane was in like manner pursuing a violent course of usurpation against John Napier and Elizabeth Menteith, and that nothing is more likely than that he should have framed, and attempted to induce that branch of the succession to adopt, some arrangement prejudicial to their just rights.

1. Among the Merchiston papers I find the following document under the privy-seal and sign-manual of James III.

* Tracts, p. 109.

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