32 THE BOY. 



terrestrial fishermen. In the new edition, accordingly, 

 he remains until ' Aurora ' makes her appearance, 



* And clear and calm the billow roll'd, 

 With shade of green and crest of gold.' 



* 



The second of these lines is finely coloured. 



A moral now coronal opus in the tone of Scott's in- 

 troductions to his cantos. It turns on ' art and guile/ 

 ' vice attired in beauty's smile,' and other matters which 

 the reader may imagine. 



In the vigour of early manhood, Miller described 

 the adventure of the cave in his letter to Principal Baird. 

 He writes in prose, having estimated his talents with 

 the coolest judgment, and decided that, for the present, 

 he will quit poetry. The picture has become full in de- 

 tail and glowing in tint. ' The cave proved a mine of 

 wonders. We found it of great depth, and when at its 

 farthest extremity, the sea and opposite land appeared 

 to us as they would if viewed through the tube of a 

 telescope. We discovered that its sides and roof were 

 crusted over with a white stone resembling marble, and 

 that it contained a petrifying spring. The pigeons 

 which we disturbed were whizzing by us through the 

 gloom, reminding us of the hags of our story books, 

 when on their night voyage through the air. A shoal of 

 porpoises were tempesting the water in their unwieldy 

 gambols, scarcely an hundred yards from the cavern's 

 mouth, and a flock of sea-gulls were screaming around 

 them, like harpies round the viands of the Trojan. To 

 add to the interest of the place, we had learned from 

 tradition that, in the lang syne, this cave had furnished 

 Wallace with a hiding-place, and that more recently it 

 had been haunted by smugglers. In the midst of our 

 engagements, however, the evening began to darken ; and 



