294 EDITOR. 



all, of the offence he was giving. Miller was a man of 

 exquisite sensibility, and his life in Cromarty, the ad- 

 mired of all admirers, the delicious incense of Miss 

 D unbar 's worship ever in his nostrils, was not adapted 

 to fit him for those rough collisions of man with man 

 which are every-day occurrences in political and eccle- 

 siastical life. Not only was he personally sensitive, 

 he was filled with a devotion more than knightly to the 

 cause of the Church, and anything like a hint, direct or 

 indirect, that he had not served her efficiently wounded 

 him to the quick. Dr Candlish has lived in the eye of 

 the public for more than thirty years, and every one who 

 has either watched him or worked with him knows that, 

 in carrying out a public object, in giving effect to an 

 idea which has taken possession of him, he consults no 

 sensibilities, is reckless of minute proprieties, and hur- 

 ries to his mark in conspicuous disregard of the ribs 

 he may elbow or the toes he may crush. There can, 

 also, I think, be no doubt that the conception formed 

 by Dr Candlish as to what the Witness ought to be 

 and to do differed in essential particulars from Hugh 

 Miller's. Dr Candlish may never have said as much in 

 words, or even brought the thought to distinct conscious- 

 ness, but fundamentally his notion was that it should be 

 more exclusively a Church paper, and more emphatic- 

 ally a Whig paper, than its editor could or would make 

 it. Miller felt that he had a right to put his own image 

 and superscription on the Witness. Throughout Scot- 

 land he was identified with it ; the acclamation of Scot- 

 land justified him in the belief that the splendid success 

 which had attended it was due to him. Surely this was 

 no more than that honest pride, that manly independence, 

 which. prompts a colonel to resent interference with him 

 in fighting his regiment or a captain in sailing his ship. 



