PROJECTS. 233 



' 4. I intend writing " The Chapel," a descriptive 

 poem. 



'5.1 intend writing " The Leper/ 5 a sacred poem. 



' 6. I intend new-modelling and completing " An 

 Hour at Eve," a moral poem. 



1 1. I intend writing an Ode to the Ness. 



' 8. I intend writing an Address to the Northern In- 

 stitution.' 



There are several things worth noting here. Ob- 

 serve, in the first place, the practical nature of the 

 scheme. Our stone-mason has high aspirings, but 

 he is no day-dreamer. Sketching, in the heyday of 

 early manhood, the tasks of the ensuing years, he begins 

 with a series of undertakings bearing directly upon the 

 calling by which he is to live. The basis of all his 

 activity is the attainment of a comfortable livelihood and 

 a creditable position as a hewer of stone. In the next 

 place, his literary activity centres in himself and his 

 local connections and interests. The two largest works 

 which he intends to produce in prose are to be about 

 himself, and it seems probable that in the series of 

 essays to be entitled The Egotist, he would be the 

 central figure. It is remarkable, in the third place, 

 that we find, in this summary of Hugh Miller's in- 

 tentions at the age of twenty-six, no trace of scientific 

 enthusiasm, no vestige of scientific ambition. Literature, 

 and those aspects of nature which delight the poet and 

 the painter, possess his heart. He is to execute many 

 drawings, but not one geological diagram. Lastly, we 

 may observe that, though the contrite anticipation of 

 partial failure in achievement was of necessity verified, 

 yet the correspondence between this chart of his voyage 

 and the course he actually pursued, was more than 



