HUGH MILLER. 131 



Border Tales. This brought him about £,2^. The publica- 

 of his Scenes and Legends had established his fame as a writer 

 of vigorous prose. Leigh Hunt and Robert Chambers each 

 spoke well of it in their respective journals ; and Dr. Hether- 

 ington ' made it the subject of an elaborate and very friendly 

 critique in the Presbyterian Review.^ His life at this time 

 he thus described in a letter to Mr. Robert Chambers ; — ' I am 

 leading a quiet and very happy life in this remote corner, 

 with perhaps a little less time than I know what to do with, 

 but by no means over-toiled. A good wife is a mighty 

 addition to a man's happiness ; and mine, whom I have been 

 courting for about six years, and am still as much in love 

 with as ever, is one of the best. My mornings I devote to 

 composition ; my days and the early part of the evening I 

 spend in the bank ; at night I have again an hour or two to 

 myself; my Saturday afternoons are given to pleasure — some 

 sea excursion, for I have got a little boat of my own, or some 

 jaunt of observation among the rocks and woods ; and Sunday 

 as a day of rest closes the round.' Here he wrote several 

 articles for Chambers's Journal. One or two of his sketches 

 having been returned to him by the Scottish Christian Herald, 

 he thus moralizes, in the style of Dr. Arnold, regarding the 

 Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge : ' I would fain 

 see a few good periodicals set agoing of a wider scope than 

 either those of the world or of the Church — works that would 

 bear on a broad substratum of religion the objects of what 

 I may venture to term a week-day interest. I can cite no 

 book that better illustrates my beau-ideal of such a work than 

 the Bible itself.' One of his own future coadjutors on the 

 Witness newspaper, the late Dr. Andrew Cameron, helped to 

 carry this wish into practice by originating the Christian 



