EDITORIAL CAPACITY. 223 



and, mutatis mutandis, the provincial press, was never 

 attempted by Hugh Miller. Chalmers remarked of him 

 that, when he did go off, he was a great gun, and the re- 

 verberation of his shot was long audible, but he required 

 a deal of time to load. 



It was his delight to find the subject of an article 

 in some topic suggested by a friend, the more if old 

 and pleasant associations were recalled by it. When a 

 Danish corvette, for example, appeared in the Bay of 

 Cromarty, and Mrs Allardyce, widow of a Scottish 

 clergyman and one of Miller's valued friends, sent him 

 from his old home a few lines which she had written on 

 the occasion, the lines were at once felt to be too good 

 for the mere poetical corner, and were kept back until 

 they could be presented to the reader in the setting of 

 an editorial article. For days or weeks the thing would 

 dwell in Miller's thoughts, and at last the article, with 

 gossippy speculation as to the relationship between the 

 Danes and the Scotch, and a copious account of the 

 friendship of Cousin Walter and young Wolf, and one 

 more description of the Sutors and the Bay, would charm 

 all those and they were not few who took the Witness 

 for the sake of the editorial essays of Miller. 



The routine work of editing he never so completely 

 mastered as the routine work of banking ; rather, per- 

 haps, I should say that he never could feel or affect that 

 transcendent interest in the petty political questions of 

 the day, which beseems the man whose function it is to 

 keep others perpetually interested in them. On Church 

 questions he viewed things in his own way, and even 

 when there was no discrepancy of opinion between him 

 and the leaders, he was apt to surprise them by the 

 time and manner of his discussing questions or advocating 

 causes. During the few months preceding the Disrup- 



