RECOLLECTIONS BY A LADY. 351 



' He seemed to feel an increase of kindness to us, his 

 " lady-pupils," after that pleasant season. 



' My after-recollections of him at Stuart Street are 

 fragmentary; of sitting with him and Mrs Miller at 

 the fireside late one dark winter afternoon discussing 

 murderesses, from Lady Macbeth down to Mrs Manning, 

 whose trial had just taken place, and reading the 

 observations I had heard from him in the next Witness. 

 Again, looking over Johnston's Physical Atlas with 

 him, and, on my observing that Cromarty was coloured 

 with the Scandinavian tint, his assuring me with evident 

 satisfaction that most of his ancestors were of that 

 descent. Again, after his return from some visit to 

 the north, his speaking of Nature being an increasing 

 source of pleasure as we go on in life, unlike most other 

 things. At the same time he referred to an anecdote of 

 Thorwaldsen, who said to a friend, that his genius was 

 decaying, for now he felt satisfied with his works, while 

 formerly his idea had always gone far beyond what he 

 could execute. Hugh Miller said he had felt the same, 

 and felt, for the same reason, that he would never now 

 write anything better than he had done. 



' In the summer of 1856 there was an archaeologi- 

 cal collection exhibited in Edinburgh. In the beginning 

 of August I went there early the last day it was open, 

 and came upon Hugh Miller looking at the ethnograph- 

 ical department. He told me he had been ill, and was 

 then on his way home after a week's recreation. I 

 expressed surprise at this, as I thought I had noticed his 

 hand in the Witness during the past month. He said 

 I was right, but that he had written these articles 

 during the time of the Assembly. After looking with 

 him for a little at the stone and bronze weapons, I went 

 further to look at some portraits of Mary Stuart, and at 



