204 EDITOR. 



In Mr Paul's letter to Miller on this occasion the 

 inevitable pamphlet of the Dean turns up. Mr Cun- 

 ningham, Mr Candlish, Mr Dunlop, and Dr Chal- 

 mers have set about replying to it. ' The whole sleep' 

 remarks Chalmers, ' will be overturned upon the Dean/ so 

 that, as Mr Paul hopefully adds, ' he will be absolutely 

 stung to death.' It may be stated for the information of 

 curious readers, that the production of which Miller 

 spoke so contemptuously, but which raised so fierce and 

 general a buzz in the non-intrusion hive, was entitled 

 ' A Letter to the Lord Chancellor, on the claims of the 

 Church of Scotland in regard to its jurisdiction, and on 

 the proposed changes in its polity, by John Hope, Esq., 

 Dean of Faculty.' It has been described as ' a very 

 leviathan among pamphlets, extending to no fewer than 

 290 pages.' This fact will, I trust, be accepted as my 

 apology for not having made its closer acquaintance, or 

 attempted to estimate the effect of the stings inflicted 

 by the aforesaid bees upon its extensive surface. 



It more concerns us to note that Miller is at last 

 ready to take flight for Edinburgh. The name suggested 

 by him for the paper has been discarded, and that of The 

 Witness adopted in its stead. On the 23rd of Decem- 

 ber he once more writes to Mr Dunlop from Cromarty, 

 in answer to a note from that gentleman telling him that 

 all difficulties have been vanquished, and that the sooner 

 he appears in Edinburgh the better. ' I still,' he says, 

 ' feel occasional shrinkings of heart when I think of the 

 untried field on which I am so soon to enter. " Tremble 

 thus the brave ? " asks one of Ossian's heroes when on 

 the eve of his first battle. But I think of the past 

 and take courage, of the past in my country's history, 

 with its clear unequivocal bearing on the cause in which 

 1 am to be engaged, on the past, too, in my own expe- 



