118 THE JOURNEYMAN. 



' But why should love demand my song 1 ? 



It breathed from Hammond's lyre. 

 On Cowley's page its meteors flashed, 

 On Moore's its wilder fire ; 



' "While I, who never proved its bliss, 



Ne'er proved its restless smart ; 

 Who have, though much the fair I prize, 

 A free, unbleeding heart ; 



1 Can paint, alas ! with little skill, 



The joy which love inspires, 

 Or tell of pangs I never proved, 

 Of hopes or fond desires.' 



On reading this, one begins to have misgivings as to the 

 intensity of Miller's poetic fire. 



4 All thoughts, all passions, all delights, 



Whatever stirs this mortal frame, 

 All are but ministers of Love, 

 And feed his sacred flame :' 



thus Coleridge struck the key-note when his theme 

 was love. ' The greatest bliss that the tongue o' man 

 can name/ sang Hogg, with lilting, lark-like melody, 

 giving his experience on the subject. ' I sit me down 

 to rhyme/ observes Miller, and, ' though much the fair 

 I prize/ I am not disposed to exaggerate their good 

 qualities. Miller does not, like Teufelsdrockh, find that 

 his ' feeling towards the queens of this earth ' is ' al- 

 together unspeakable/ Perhaps, however, his heart, 

 though cold to the many, may prove responsive to one, 

 and for him also there may bloom a paradise, ' cheered 

 by some fairest Eve/ We shall see. 



Rhyming or reasoning, courting or cogitating, Hugh 

 Miller, during this season at Gairloch, is worth looking 

 at. Not yet twenty-one, living in a hovel from which 

 water, a foot deep, has been drained off to render it habit- 

 able, his food oatmeal without milk, his companions stone- 

 masons, his employment manual labour, he bates no jot of 



