MOONLIGHT FANCIES. 71 



of his imagination,' and hinting that his word-pictures 

 of the moment revealed more of poetical genius than 

 the formal productions either of his pencil or his pen. 

 ' There is in the vicinity of the town of Cromarty,' 

 writes Miller to Baird, giving him an illustration of 

 the kind of imaginative fantasia with which he used to 

 entertain his friend, ' a beautiful, thickly wooded dell, 

 through the bottom of which there runs a small stream- 

 let. This dell was one of our favourite night haunts. 

 In winter when the trees are bare of foliage, the moon- 

 beams, when the moon is at full, find their way to the 

 water, though the steep banks on either side are lost in 

 the shade. The appearance when viewed from some of. 

 the overhanging thickets is exceedingly beautiful, and 

 when contemplating it in the company of my friend, 

 I have in the wild extravagance of fancy compared the 

 little moonlight brook to, I know not how many 

 different objects, to a pictured flash of pale lightning, 

 to a stream of lava, to a rippling strip of the Aurora 

 Borealis. I have termed the little dell a dark oblong 

 mirror, and the bright streamlet in its centre, the 

 reflection of the milky way. I have described the 

 trunks of the trees and the stones which were relieved 

 by the light from the shade behind, as fays and spectres 

 by which the place was tenanted. I have even given a 

 minute detail of the particular expression of their 

 features, and the peculiarities of their attire/ 



Ross's advice to Miller on the whole was as follows : 

 ' Your drawings have but little merit, nor can I regard 

 them even as works of promise ; neither by any means 

 do you write good verses. And why, do you think, do I 

 tell you so ? Only to direct your studies to their proper 

 object. You draw ill because nature never intended that 

 you should do otherwise; whereas you write ill only 



