X. HUGH MILLER. 



to protest against the intiaision, and to declare " that the blood 

 of the people of Nigg would be required at their hands, if they 

 settled a man to the walls of that church." Tradition has 

 represented him as a seer of visions, and a prophesier of pro- 

 phecies ; but whatever credit may be given to stories of this 

 kind, which have been told also of Knox, Welsh, and Ruther- 

 ford, this ancient champion of Non-Intrusion was a man of 

 genuine piety, and the savour of his ennobling beliefs and his 

 strict morals has survived in his family for generations. If 

 the child of such parents did not receive the best education 

 which his native town could afford, it was not their fault, nor 

 that of his teacher. The fetters of a gymnasium are not 

 easily worn by the adventurous youth who has sought and 

 found his pleasures among the hills and on the waters. They 

 chafe the young and active limb that has grown vigorous 

 under the blue sky, and never known repose but at midnight. 

 The young philosopher of Cromarty was a member of this 

 restless community ; and he had been the hero of adventures 

 and accidents among rocks and woods, which are still remem- 

 bered in his native town. The parish school was therefore 

 not the scene of his enjoyments ; and while he was a truant, 

 and, with reverence be it spoken, a dunce, while under its 

 jurisdiction, he was busy in the fields and on the sea-shore in 

 collecting those stores of knowledge which he was born to dis- 

 pense among his fellow-men. He escaped, however, from 

 school, with the knowledge of reading, writing, and a little 

 arithmetic, and with the credit of uniting a great memory 

 with a little scholarship. Unlike his illustrious predecessor, 

 Cuvier, he had studied Natural History in the fields and 

 among the mountains ere he had sought for it in books ; 

 while the French philosopher had become a learned natu* 

 ralist before he had even looked upon the world of Nature. 

 This singular contrast it is not difficult to explain. "With a 

 sickly constitution and a delicate frame, the youthful Cuvier 



