222 EDITOR. 



man-at-arms, were occasionally so severe, the castigation 

 he administered so stinging, and the fury it awakened 

 so conspicuous, that he conceived it possible that he 

 might be personally assaulted, and, with that constitu- 

 tional timidity or constitutional pugnacity which charac- 

 terized him, took means to guard against such a con- 

 tingency. One evening Mr Carruthers had called for 

 him in company with a friend at his house in Sylvan 

 Place, and, not finding him at home, was returning in 

 the thick dusk by the road across the Meadows. Sud- 

 denly Miller strode past without recognizing them, and 

 Mr Carruthers turning round exclaimed with mock fero- 

 city, ' There goes that rascally editor of the Witness! 

 Hugh at once faced round and presented a pistol. 

 Another word and glance of course revealed the mis- 

 take, and Miller excused himself by saying that it would 

 not surprise him to be attacked any day. As Mr Car- 

 ruthers and his friend resisted Miller's request to return 

 with him, he accompanied them to their hotel, and they 

 spent one or two pleasant hours together. 



Miller never became what printers and newspaper 

 proprietors call a ready editor. To receive at mid- 

 night proof-sheets of the report of a long Parliament- 

 ary debate, or to sit to a still more advanced hour with 

 attention fixed upon every tedious or wandering speaker 

 who has taken part in it, an exercise exhaustive and 

 distressing in the last degree to soul and body, and 

 then to take pen in hand and strike off, as fast as the 

 letters can be traced, an analysis of the discussion, with 

 examination of the principal arguments and judgment 

 upon the whole, in clear and forcible language, garnished 

 with historical allusions, pointed illustrations, and a 

 spicing of eulogy or banter, this feat, accomplished 

 fifty times a session by practised hands on the London 



