IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 319 



named as not greatly inferior ; but I shall not do wrong 

 to the memory of an ingenious young man, cut off just 

 as he had mastered his powers, by naming him again in 

 a connection so perilous. He, at least, was guiltless of 

 the comparison ; and it would be cruel to involve him 

 in the ridicule which it is suited to excite. Bacon is as 

 exclusively unique as Milton, and as exclusively English ; 

 and though the grandfather of Newton was a Scotch- 

 man, we have certainly no Scotch Sir Isaac. I question, 

 indeed, whether any Scotchman attains to the power of 

 Locke ; there is as much solid thinking in his Essay on 

 the Human Understanding, greatly as it has become the 

 fashion of the age to depreciate it, and notwithstanding 

 its fundamental error, as in the works of all our Scotch 

 metaphysicians put together.' Few people, to whatever 

 school of philosophy they belong, would now agree with 

 Miller in setting Locke above Hume ; but we cannot 

 read these words without feeling that, though he loved 

 Scotland much, he loved truth more. 



An apology may, perhaps, be thought necessary for 

 quoting from a book which you see, beside the popular 

 novels of the day, at London Railway Stations ; but 

 Miller's acknowledgment of what he owed to the litera- 

 ture of England, suggested by his visit to Poet's Corner 

 in Westminster Abbey, is so beautiful and so strictly auto- 

 biographic, that I must take liberty to insert it. ' I had 

 no strong emotions,' he says, with signal honesty, 'to 

 exhibit when pacing along the pavement in this cele- 

 brated place, nor would I have exhibited them if I had.' 

 But the reader will feel that deep and true emotion per- 

 vades the words which follow. ' There was poor Gold- 

 smith ; he had been my companion for thirty years ; I 

 had been first introduced to him through the medium of 

 a common school collection, when a little boy in the 



