134 RISE A BY PERSEVERANCE. 



number of readers. And during the course of the first three 

 years my employers doubled my salary. I am sensible, how- 

 ever, that these are but small achievements. In looking back 

 upon my youth, I see, methinks, a wild fruit tree, rich in leaf 

 and blossom ; and it is mortifying enough to mark how few of 

 the blossoms have set, and how diminutive and imperfectly 

 formed the fruit is into which even the productive few have 

 been developed. A right use of the opportunities of instruc- 

 tion afforded me in early youth would have made me a scholar 

 ere my twenty-fifth year, and have saved to me at least ten of 

 the best years of my life — years which were spent in obscure 

 and humble occupations. But while my story must serve to 

 show the evils which result from truant carelessness in boy- 

 hood, and that what was sport to the young lad may assume 

 the form of serious misfortune to the man, it may also serve to 

 show that much may be done by after diligence to retrieve an 

 early error of this kind ; that life itself is a school, and nature 

 always a fresh study ; and that the man who keeps his eyes 

 and his mind open will always find fitting, though, it may 

 be, hard schoolmasters, to speed him on in his lifelong 

 education.' 



These are noble words with which to close the record of his 

 life up till this time. He lodged in St. Patrick Square, Edin- 

 burgh, until joined by Mrs. Miller and her daughter Harriet 

 in April 1840, when they occupied a small house at No. 5 

 Sylvan Place, Meadows. Miller's salary at this time was 

 ^200 ; and as the sale of his household goods at Cronrarty 

 had only brought him ;i^40, the furnishing of his house was 

 only accomplished gradually. Mrs. Miller would herself 

 occasionally contribute to the columns of the Witness. Mr. 

 James Mackenzie, the sub-editor, was a great favourite with 



