' MY SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLMASTERS: 5 



penetrated with reverence for God and for the revelation 

 which God has made of Himself in nature, providence, 

 and Christ, full of brotherly sympathy, of candour, 

 intelligence, and affection. A reputation thus founded 

 is not likely to prove ephemeral ; and the name of Hugh 

 Miller, we may safely presume, will be his most enduring 

 monument. How the son of a sailor's widow came to 

 address and retain an audience as wide as the world of 

 culture, how the Cromarty stone-mason qualified him- 

 self for achieving a European reputation, is a question 

 fitted to interest wise curiosity, and deserving an explicit 

 and careful reply. 



Hugh Miller, as all the world knows, was the author 

 of an autobiographic work entitled, My Schools and 

 Schoolmasters, and it may have occurred to some that 

 he thus anticipated and superseded biography. But 

 there are no good grounds for this opinion. The book 

 which has been named, recognized by all judges as one 

 of the most captivating and able of the author's per- 

 formances, has a place in English literature from which 

 it cannot be moved; but it is no substitute for the 

 biography of Hugh Miller. In the first place, it deals 

 with but one portion of its author's career, and that 

 the portion which preceded his emergence into public 

 life. In the second place, a considerable amount of 

 biographic material relating to Hugh Miller, unen- 

 croached upon in the Schools and Schoolmasters, is in 

 existence. From early boyhood he was fond of jotting 

 down particulars connected with his personal history, 

 and for many years previously to his being harnessed to 

 steady literary toil, he took great delight in letter- 

 writing. In the third place, it will hardly be disputed 

 by any one who reflects upon the subject, that biography 

 is necessarily a different matter from autobiography, and 



