LETTER FROM HUGH MILLER. 471 



half an hour to the work of reply, and to say- 

 how thoroughly sensible I am of the honor 

 you propose doing me. It never once crossed 

 my mind when, in writing my little volume, 

 the " Footprints," I had such frequent occa- 

 sion to refer to my master, our great author- 

 ity in ichthyic history, that he himself would 

 have associated his name with it on the other 

 side of the Atlantic, and referred in turn to 

 its humble writer. 



In the accompanjdng parcel I send you two 

 of my volumes, which you may not yet have 

 seen, and in which you may find some mate- 

 rials for your proposed introductory memoir. 

 At all events they may furnish you with 

 amusement in a leisure hour. The bulkier of 

 the two, " Scenes and Legends," of which a 

 new edition has just appeared, and of which 

 the first edition was published, after lying sev- 

 eral years beside me, in 1835, is the earliest 

 of my works to which I attached my name. 

 It forms a sort of traditionary history of a dis- 

 trict of Scotland, about two hundred miles 

 distant from the capital, in which the char- 

 acter of the people has been scarce at all 

 affected by the cosmopolitanism which has 

 been gradually modifying and altering it in 

 the larger towns ; and as it has been fre- 



