MR ROBERTSONS RECOLLECTIONS. 387 



I was quite willing to forego, and he tried to educate 

 his companions by a little wholesome exposure and risk. 

 He underrated his powers to please by agreeable mam HT 

 and easy conversation, and chose to force admiration by 

 his courage and energy. 



' He affected (as I thought) indifference to gentle- 

 manly appearance and fashionable manners, and adhered 

 to a certain rusticity of aspect and style possibly 

 because he dreaded failure in any effort to become 

 perfectly polished. I at , first wondered at him, then I 

 was deeply interested in him, and finally I became much 

 attached to him. As our acquaintance became more 

 intimate, and our rambles longer and more numerous, I 

 admired his powers and his information more and more ; 

 whilst his character, which seemed to me at one time 

 harsh and even fierce and dangerous, dissolved into 

 romantic heroism and almost feminine tenderness. I 

 cannot pretend to have fathomed and mapped out Hugh 

 Miller's character thirty -five years ago, bat I can recollect 

 my sentiments towards him then, and what I attributed 

 to him as the justification to myself of my admiration 

 and affection. The soft, mellow radiance of piety and 

 youthful domestic virtue which enveloped him filled my 

 heart with an affection which has never grown cold.' 



In the letter to Miss Dunbar from which we took 

 our last quotation, Miller spoke in a tone almost of 

 sharpness of the infrequency of her letters, urging that 

 it was dispiriting to write without any hope of reply, 

 and adding, ' Must I have to say of you what the child- 

 ren sitting in the market-place had to say of their com- 

 panions, " We have piped to you, and ye have not 

 danced; we have mourned, and ye have not lamented"?' 

 This enables us to understand a passage in the following 



