478 MAN OF SCIENCE. 



Yet, by his ear directed, guessed 



Something imprisoned in the chest, 



And, doubtful what, with prudent care, 



Resolved it should continue there. 



At length, a voice which well he knew, 



A long and melancholy mew, 



Saluting his poetic ears, 



Consoled him and dispelled his fears ; 



He left his bed, he trod the floor, 



He 'gan in haste the drawers explore, 



The lowest first, and without stop 



The rest in order to the top. 



For 'tis a truth well known to most, 



That whatsoever thing is lost, 



We seek it, ere it come to light, 



In every cranny but the right. 



Forth skipped the cat, not now replete 



As erst with airy self-conceit, 



Nor, in her own fond apprehension, 



A theme for all the world's attention, 



But modest, sober, cured of all 



Her notions hyperbolical, 



And wishing, for a place of rest, 



Anything rather than a chest. 



Then stepped the poet into bed 



With this reflection in his head : 



Beware of too sublime a sense 



Of your own worth and consequence. 



The man who dreams himself so great, 



And his importance of such weight, 



That all around in all that's done 



Must move and act for him alone, 



Will learn in school of tribulation 



The folly of his expectation.' 



The father reading and remarking the children 

 with happy faces and merry trills of laughter clustered 

 round his knee the mother tranquillized and hopeful 

 after her terrible anxieties of the preceding days such 

 is the spectacle which, on this Tuesday evening, two days 

 before Christmas, 1856, we behold in the home of Hugh 

 Miller. Mrs Miller was making tea, when she heard 

 his voice ' in tones of anguish ' reading The Castaway. 

 Here are a few of the verses. 



