DEDICATION TO SWANSON. 241 



task which bound him to earth accomplished, speedily 

 followed. ' My hope of salvation is in the blood of 

 Jesus. Farewell, my sincerest friend.' These were the 

 closing words of William Ross's last letter to Miller, 



The Journeyman's Poems were dedicated to John 

 Swanson, the name disguised in asterisks. In a dedi- 

 catory epistle to his friend, written in prose, Miller de- 

 clares him to be ' the best scholar and truest philosopher 

 he ever knew,' and avows his gratitude to him for ' hav- 

 ing convinced one who possibly might have done some 

 mischief as an infidel, that the Religion of the Bible is 

 not a cunningly devised fable.' Of his own book, he 

 ventures to state the opinion ' that a spirit of poetry may 

 be found in it, wrestling with those improprieties of 

 language consequent on imperfect education, just as the 

 half-formed animals of the Nile, that are warmed into 

 life by the beams of the sun, struggle to free themselves 

 from the mud and slime in which they are enveloped.' 

 He virtually takes the blame, however, of whatever de- 

 fect of education the volume may display upon himself, 

 confessing that, in the present age, ' ignorance implies 

 rather want of mind than want of opportunity for culti- 

 vating the mental faculties/ True words ; and specially 

 brave and modest from the lips of a poetical mechanic. 



