462 MAN OF SCIENCE. 



Miller sympathized with Mr Carlyle in his views as to 

 the necessity of subjecting to a rigorous discipline our 

 professional criminals, and the folly of leaving men 

 whom repeated conviction has proved to be incorrigible 

 to prey upon the community. He wrote upon the sub- 

 ject in the Witness, and it was much in his mind. A 

 slight circumstance was sufficient to give the matter a 

 personal turn, and to convince him that he was himself 

 exposed to danger. In a corner of the grounds at Shrub 

 Mount, Portobello, where he now resided, a building 

 had been reared under his direction for the accommoda- 

 tion of his beloved specimens, and he was impressed 

 with the idea that it might be broken into and robbed 

 by the prowling miscreants who were never absent 

 from his imagination. One evening his eldest boy, 

 having been in the garden after dark, returned with the 

 news that he had seen a lantern moving among the trees, 

 and had heard whispered voices. Miller went out to 

 survey the ground ; and though nothing appeared to be 

 amiss, the attention of the household was awakened, 

 and night after night the children and the servants had 

 tales to tell of mysterious sounds having been heard and 

 strange sights having been seen. All this influenced 

 his imagination, and pistol and sword were ever in 

 readiness to repel attack. 



At this time Mrs Miller and her husband occupied 

 different sleeping apartments. A severe illness had 

 almost deprived Mrs Miller of the use of her limbs, and 

 it was not without great pain that she could go up- 

 stairs. It was therefore necessary for her to have her 

 bed-room on the ground floor. For him, on the other 

 hand, the air of an upper apartment was considered best, 

 and he slept in a small room adjoining his study, on 

 the second floor. Every morning and evening, during 



