90
RIDDELLS OF GRANTON, SCOTLAND.
-and not of Scotland and England only, but of foreign nations,-— which
determined the value and regulated the application of the facts ever
present before his mental eye. It was from this lofty eminence of prin-
ciple and precedent that he was enabled to survey the length and breadth
of Scottish genealogical antiquity; assign its limits to undue family pre-
tensions; recall forgotten rights of representation to public recognition,
and point out in many instances through which unsuspected or neglected
hereditary honors might be legally claimed and vindicated. And it was
from the full concurrent perception of the extent of the difficulty always
attending on such processes, more especially before the House of Lords,
that, acting under the impulse of that honesty which is always allied with
the love of truth, as well as in accordance with his chivalric sense of honor,
and his extreme disinterestedness on the point of professional remunera-
tion, he carefully and distinctly, before engaging in such undertakings,
pointed out the adverse considerations likely to attend upon them, which
through deficiency of evidence, or irregular and fluctuating procedure
in the tribunal where the claim must necessarily be prosecuted anxious
ever that his client should not commit himself to the pursuit without full
warning of what it might entail upon him. But when once engaged in
it he gave his whole soul to the object before him; and it was beautiful
and inspiring to witness the play of his thoughts during the evolution of
his argument; the historical breadth of his views, and their ready conver-
gence to the required focus, however minute the particular; his subtlety
of legal discrimination; his fertility in illustration; his extraordinary
readiness of resource; his untiring patience and industry in working out
his results, contrasting with the eager impetuosity of utterance which ac-
companied their birth; and lastly, the genuine professional courage spring-
ing again, as before, from his manly honesty and love of truth, with which
he never evaded, but boldly faced and combated every difficulty. I speak
to all this from my own experience during the prosecution of the minute
and complicated Peerage claims.
"I have seldom witnessed more touching examples of that beautiful
humility which is generally the sister of mental strength and moral dignity,
than in Mr. Riddell. His pride was far more in the fame of his great
predecessors in the same studies, and in that of the historical families of
Scotland,* more especially those with whom he had become professionally
related, than in his own reputation. He was as unselfish in that respect
as he was disinterested in regard to the remuneration of his labours.
66
Everything he wrote was stamped with the power bestowed by pro-
found legal knowledge and a boundless command of facts, and his works
will continually be resorted to as a store-house of information on matters
of genealogy and Peerage law by future generations."
Such are Earl Crawford's views of his great professional acquirements
and character. Mr. Riddell died issueless. The epitaph on his tomb in
the Dean cemetery is as follows:-
AMIGER.
JOHANNES RIDDELL, Esq.
Jurisconsultus, vir cojuscunque Etatis Numbutus
Literis; Qui in Antiquitate
Et ea Præcipue Quæ Ad Originis Gentilitias Pertinet
* THE GRANTON RIDDELLS are connected by marriage with the Glassfords, Gil-
christs, Homes, Dares, Pringles, Stephens, Fosters, Trevalyans, Smiths, Palmers,
Laws, Constables, Campbells, Seaton-Karrs, and other old and distinguished Scot-
tish families.
