a dreadful night of it; I cannot face another such; I was impressed with the idea that my museum was attacked by robbers, and that I had got up, put on my clothes, and gone out with a loaded pistol to shoot them. Immediately after that I became unconscious. How long that continued I cannot say; but when I awoke in the morning I was trembling all over, and quite confused in my brain. On rising, I felt as if a stiletto was suddenly, and as quietly as an electric shock, passed through my brain from front to back, and left a burning sensation on the top of the brain, just below the bone. So thoroughly convinced was I that I must have been out through the night, that I examined my trousers to see if they were wet or covered with mud, but could find none.' He further said-'I may state that I was somewhat similarly affected through the night twice last week, and I examined my trousers in the morning to see if I had been out. Still, the terrible sensations were not nearly so bad as they were last night; and I may further inform you that, towards the end of last week, while passing through the Exchange in Edinburgh, I was seized with such a giddiness, that I staggered, and would, I think, have fallen, had I not got into an entry, where I leaned against the wall, and became quite unconscious for some seconds.' Dr. Balfour stated his opinion of the case; told him that he was overworking his brain, and agreed to call on him on the following day, to make a fuller examination. Meanwhile the quick eye of affection had noticed that there was something wrong, and on Monday forenoon Mrs. Milier came up to Edinburgh to express her anxiety to Professor Miller, and request that he would see her husband. 'I arranged,' says Professor Miller, 'to meet Dr. Balfour at Shrubmount (Mr. Hugh Miller's house), on the afternoon of next day. We met accordingly at half-past three on Tuesday. He was a little annoyed at Mrs. Miller's having given me the trouble, as he called it, but received me quite in his ordinary, kind, friendly manner. We examined his chest, and found that unusually well; but soon we discovered that it was head symptoms that made him uneasy. He acknowledged having been night after night up till very late in the morning, working hard and continuously at his new book, "which," with much satisfaction, he said, "I have finished this day." He was sensible that his head had suffered in consequence, as evidenced in two ways: first, occasionally, he felt as if a very fine poniard had been suddenly passed through and through his brain. The pain was intense, and momentarily followed by confusion and giddiness, and the sense of being "very drunk"-unable to stand or walk. He thought that a period of unconsciousness must have followed this-a kind of swoon, but he had never fallen. Second, What annoyed him most, however, was a kind of nightmare, which for some nights past had rendered sleep most miserable. It was no dream, he said; he saw no distinct vision, and could remember nothing of what had passed accurately. It was a sense of vague and yet intense horror, with a conviction of being abroad in the night wind, and dragged through places as if by some invisible power. "Last night,” he said, "I felt as if I had been ridden by a witch for fifty miles, and rose far more wearied in mind and body than when I lay down." So strong was his conviction of having been out, that he had difficulty in persuading himself to the contrary, by carefully examining his clothes in the morning to see if they were not wet or dirty; and he looked inquiringly and anxiously to his wife, asking if she was sure he had not been out last night, and walking in this disturbed trance or dream. His pulse was quiet, but tongue foul. The head was not hot, but he could not say it was free from pain. We came to the conclusion that he was suffering from an overworked mind, disordering his digestive organs, enervating his whole frame, and threatening serious head affection. We told him this, and enjoined absolute discontinuance of work-bed at eleven, light supper (he had all his life made that a principal meal), thinning the hair of the head, a warm sponging-bath at bed-time, &c. To all our commands he readily promised obedience, not forgetting the discontinuance of neckrubbing, to which he had unfortunately been prevailed to submit some days before. For fully an hour we talked together on these and other subjects, and I left him with no apprehension of impending evil, and little doubting but that a short time of rest and regimen would restore him to his wonted vigour.' It was a cheerful hour that was thus passed, and his wife and family partook of the hopeful feeling with which his kind friend, Professor Miller, had parted with him. It was now near dinner hour, and the servant entered the room to spread the table. She found Mr. Miller in the room alone. Another of the paroxysms was on him. His face was such a picture of horror, that she shrank in terror from the sight. He flung himself on a sofa, and buried his head, as if in agony, upon the cushion. Again, however, the vision flitted by, and left him in perfect health. The evening was spent quietly with his family. During tea he employed himself in reading aloud Cowper's "Castaway," the "Sonnet on Mary Unwin," and one of the most playful pieces, for the special pleasure of his children. Having corrected some proofs of the forthcoming volume, he went up stairs to his stndy. At the appointed hour he had taken the bath, but, unfortunately, his natural and peculiar repugnance to physic had induced him to leave untaken the medicine that had been prescribed. He had retired into his sleeping-room-a small apartment opening out of his study, and which, for some time past, in consideration of the delicate state of his wife's health, and the irregularities of his own hours of study, he occupied at night alone—and lain some time upon the bed. The horrible trance, more horrible than ever, must have returned, All that can now be known of what followed is to be gathered from the facts, and next morning his body, half-dressed, was found lying lifeless on the floor-the feet upon the study rug, and chest pierced with the ball of the revolver pistol, which was found lying in the bath that stood close by. The deadly bullet had perforated the left lung, grazed the heart, cut through the pulmonary artery at its root, and lodged in the rib in the right side. Death must have been instantaneous. The servant, by whom the body was first discovered, acting with singular discretion, gave no alarm, but went instantly in search of the doctor and minister; and on the latter the melancholy duty was devolved of breaking the fearful intelligence to that now broken-hearted widow, over whose bitter sorrow it becomes us to draw the veil. The body was lifted and laid upon the bed. We saw it there a few hours afterwards. The head lay back, sideways on the pillow. There was the massive brow, the firm-set manly features we had so often looked upon admiringly, just as we had lately seen them-no touch nor trace upon them of disease -nothing but that overspread pallor of death to distinguish them from what they had been. But the expression of that countenance in death will live in our memory for ever. Death by gun-shot wounds is said to leave no trace of suffering behind; and never was there a face of the dead freer from all shadow of pain, or grief, or conflict, than that of our dear departed friend. And as we bent over it, and remembered the troubled look it sometimes had in life, and thought what must have been the sublimely terrific expression that it wore at the moment when the fatal deed was done, we could not help thinking that it lay there to tell us, in that expression of unruffled majestic repose that sat upon every feature, what we so assuredly believe, that the spirit had passed through a terrible tornado, in which reason had been broken down; but that it had made the great passage in safety, and stood looking back to us, in humble, grateful triumph, from the other side. On looking round the room in which the body had been discovered, a folio sheet of paper was seen lying on the table. On the centre of the page the following lines were written-the last which that pen was ever to trace : Dearest Lydia.-My brain burns. I must have walked; and a fearful dream rises upon me. I cannot bear the horrible thought. God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ have mercy upon me. Dearest Lydia, dear children, farewell. My brain burns as the recollection grows. My dear, dear wife, farewell. HUGH MILLER. What a legacy of love to a broken-hearted family! and to us and all who loved him, how pleasing to observe that in that bewildering hour, when the horror of that great darkness came down upon that noble spirit, and some hideous shapeless phantom overpowered it, and took from it even the capacity to discern the right from the wrong, humility, and faith, and affection, still kept their hold-amid the ruins of the intellect, that tender heart remaining still unbroken! These last lines remain as the surest evidence of the mysterious power that laid his spirit prostrate, and of the noble elements of which that spirit was composed-humble, and reverent, and loving to the last. On Friday, at the request of friends, and under the authority of the procurator-fiscal, a post-mortem examination of the body took place. We subjoin the result : Edinburgh, Dec. 26, 1856. We hereby certify on soul and conscience, that we have this day examined the body of Mr. Hugh Miller, at Shrubmount, Portobello. The cause of death we found to be a pistol-shot through the left side of the chest; and this, we are satisfied, was inflicted by his own hand. From the diseased appearances found in the brain, taken in connection with the history of the case, we have no doubt that the act was suicidal, under the impulse of insanity. JAMES MILLER. A. H. BALFOUR, A. M. EDWARDS. How abrupt, how mysterious this adieu to earth. Nothing in the circumstances or position of the editor of the Witness foretokened the great darkness amid which he descended into the valley of the shadow of death. His life was no catalogue of abortive schemes, blighted hope, baffled ambition. His name was inscribed upon the noblest page of our modern history as the ablest literary defender of those ecclesiastical principles, and that ecclesiastical polity Scotland's sons received a spiritual heritage from the heroes of the Reformation; with a European reputation as the most eloquent living expositor of the profoundest truths of geological science. All this achieved while his eye is yet undimmed, and his natural force yet unabated, it might in the course of nature have been anticipated, that this man so greatly beloved would have been spared to the republic of letters, spared to the cause of science, and to the cause of religion for at least another decade; that so, in the gloaming of his years, he might have gathered up the fruits of his maturest knowledge and ripest wisdom into |