HUGH MILLER. 



Latin. I was a great reader, he said ; and he found that 

 when I missed a word in my Enghsh tasks, I almost ahvays 

 submitted a synonym in the place of it. And so, as Uncle 

 James had arrived, on data of his own, at a similar conclusion, 

 I was transferred from the English to the Latin form, and, 

 with four other boys, fairly entered on the Rudiments. I 

 laboured with tolerable diligence for a day or two ; but there 

 was no one to tell me what the rules meant, or whether they 

 really meant anything ; and when I got on as far as pe7ina, a 

 pen, and saw how the changes were rung on one poor word, 

 that did not seem to be of more importance in the old language 

 than in the modern one, I began miserably to flag, and to long 

 for my English reading, with its nice amusing stories and its 

 picture-like descriptions. The Rudiments was by far the dullest 

 book I had ever seen. It embodied no thought that I could 

 perceive : it certainly contained no narrative ; it was a perfect 

 contrast to not only the Life and Adventures of Sir William 

 Wallace, but to even the voyages of Cook and Anson. None 

 of my class-fellows were by any means bright : they had been 

 all set on Latin without advice of the master ; and yet, when 

 he learned, which he soon did, to distinguish and call us up 

 to our tasks by the name of the " heavy class," I was, in most 

 instances, to be found at its nether end. Shortly after, how- 

 ever, when we got a little further on, it was seen that I had 

 a decided turn for translation. The master, good simple 

 man that he was, always read to us in English, as the 

 school met, the piece of Latin given us as our task for the 

 day ; and as my memory was strong enough to carry away 

 the whole translation in its order, I used to give him back 

 in the evening, word for word, his own rendering, which 

 satisfied him on most occasions tolerably well. There were 



