glorious consummation of the work Wallace had so gloriously begun.

After some twelve months' instruction from the old lady who taught the alphabet in the antique style, young Miller was duly transferred from the dame's school to the grammar school of Cromarty. The master of that seminary was, what not seldom happens, a good scholar, but by no means an energetic instructor; at college he had distinguished himself in mathematics and the languages, and if a boy wished to learn he could certainly teach him; but if a boy wished to do nothing, he was not required to do more than he wished. He was in the habit of advising the parents or relations of those whom he deemed his clever lads, to give them a classical education; and, meeting one day with uncle James, he urged the worthy harness-maker to put his nephew into Latin. Uncle James, on data of his own, having arrived at a similar conclusion to that of the schoolmaster, his protegé was transferred from the English to the Latin form. In the Latin class, however, it would appear Hugh Miller had either forgotten his axiom about the art of reading, or thought the story of Old Rome not worth the trouble of mastering a language to know. The account he has given of his progress in acquiring the Roman tongue is quite explicit enough to show that, even with greater perseverance, he was not likely to have become a rival to Cardinal Mezzofante, "I laboured," says he, "with tolerable diligence for a day or two, but there was no one to tell

me what the rules meant, or whether they really meant anything; and when I got as far as penna, a pen, and saw how the changes were rung on one poor word that did not seem to me of more importance in the old language than the modern, I began miserably to flag and to long for my English reading, with its amusing stories and picture-like descriptions. The Rudiments was by far the dullest book I had ever seen-it embodied no thought that I could perceive, and certainly it contained no narrative. None of my class-fellows were by any means bright; and yet when the class, which the master very soon learned to distinguish as the heavy class, was called up, I was generally found at its nether end." Thus was thrown away Miller's only chance of acquiring the tongue of Cicero and Cæsar. In "Memorials of His Time," Lord Cockburn tells us that, when at school, the beauty of no Roman word, or thought, or action, ever occurred to him; nor did he fancy Latin was of any use except to torture boys. In youthhood the future geologist and the future judge seem to have thought very much alike on this matter. Nor were their fates very different. If Miller was generally at the nether end of his class, Cockburn never got a prize, and (a more humiliating reminiscence than any the stone-mason has recorded) once sat boobie at the annual public examination. Some critics have lamented Miller's inaptitude for Latin, as having left his style destitute of the majesty and rhythmic cadence of Milton, Gibbon, and Macaulay. In reply to such regrets, we

have to say that we should not desire to have seen his style other than it is. We admire-who does not admire? -that illustrious triad of English classics; but we certainly should not have more, but less admired Hugh Miller, had we discovered in his pages either the cadences of Cromwell's Latin secretary, the balanced antithesis of the "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," or the sonorous rhetoric of the historian of England. Style, it should not be forgotten, consists quite as much in knowing exactly what to say, as in the excellence with which it is said. That delicate taste, which spontaneously rejects a false word with the same unerring instinct that the musician rejects a false note, is something native, not something acquired. How else could we account for the multitude of eminent linguists who yet remain through life the most indifferent English writers, and whose styles, so far from being musical, are in a very special degree destitute of that mingled strength and beauty, that rythmic cadence, which the admirers of the classics suppose the masterpieces of antiquity pre-eminently bestow?

Some of the wealthier inhabitants of Cromarty, dissatisfied with the small progress their boys were making under the parish teacher, got up a subscription-school, to which their children were transferred; and uncle James, sharing the general impatience, sent his protegé thither also. Unfortunately, though rather a clever young man, this teacher proved quite as unsteady as he was clever. Getting rid of him, a licentiate of the

in

church was procured, who promised well; but getting immersed in the Baptist controversy, he resigned his charge. A third teacher was got; but he too soon lost health and heart, and in a labyrinth of perplexity also gave up. Young Miller's opportunities for rambling the coasts, and exploring the caves of Cromarty, were, consequence of these mishaps, quite as great as before. The many wanderings in which he indulged at this time, besides permanently forming his taste for the study of natural science, and laying the foundation of that very extensive and accurate knowledge of the marvels of nature, which remain for ever unknown to unanointed eyes, have enabled us to catch a glimpse of what was the condition of the Highlands before the Highland lairds had made the very notable discovery of how much a sheep was better than a man, or had hushed the hum of humanity in the glens of the north by the cry of the curlew and the wail of the plover. Hugh Miller's recollections of excursions into the interior made by him at this early period, lift the veil which, during fifty years now, has been falling over northern society, and discover to us somewhat of the condition of the Gael ere the march of modern improvement had transformed "the land where Fingal fought and Ossian sang" into sheep walks and deer forests. In these reminiscences, shadowy and imperfect as they may seem, are not wanting traces of the germs of a transition-erathe bloom of a new civilization loomed on the future of that interesting people; but all has been suddenly and,

we fear, for ever arrested by a ruthless political economy, which, during the last forty years, has realized itself in the clearance system.

Schoolmaster, number four, has now been appointed to the subscription-school of Cromarty—a combination, it would appear, of the coxcomb and the pedant, and being such, naturally enough soon became obnoxious to his pupils. Throughout life as little as possible of either pedant or coxcomb, it is not surprising that Hugh Miller did not keep long on the most amicable terms with the new teacher. The antique pronunciation of the alphabet, which he had learned at the dame's school, still clung to him, and in spelling he had to translate the old Scotch into English sounds; thus rendering the operation not only somewhat painful, but tedious. Neither had he been originally taught to break the words into syllables. The result of this neglect was a serio-comic termination of his school career. "When required one evening," says Hugh Miller, "to spell the word awful, I spelt it word for word without break or pause, as a-w-f-u-l. 'No,' said the master, 'a-w-aw, f-u-l, awful; spell again.' This seemed preposterous spelling; it was sticking in an a, as I thought, into the middle of a word where I was sure no a had a right to be; and so I spelt it as at first. The master recompensed my supposed contumacy with a sharp cut thwart the ears with his tawse, and again demanded the spelling of the word. I yet again spelt it as at first; but, on receiving a second cut, I refused to spell it any more." A fight