20 FAMOUS SCOTS 



Like Burns, Carlyle, and Scott, Miller seems to have 

 borne the powerful impress, mentally and physically, of 

 his father. Yet, like the mothers of the first two, Mrs. 

 Miller bequeathed to her son his store of legend 

 and story and the imagination that was thus so early 

 awakened. The new house which his father had built 

 remained for some little time after his death untenanted ; 

 and, as the insurance of the sloop was deferred or dis- 

 puted by an insolvent broker, his mother had recourse 

 to her needle as the means by which she could best 

 support her family. Three children had been born, 

 and her brothers came to her assistance and lightened 

 her task by taking her second daughter, a child of three, 

 to live with them. Both of the girls died of a fever 

 within a few days of each other, the one in her twelfth, 

 and the other in her tenth year. 



Of these two uncles, the James and Sandy of his 

 Schools and Schoolmaster s> Miller has spoken with de- 

 served affection and loyalty. To them he confesses 

 he owed more real education than ever he acquired 

 from all other sources ; and, belonging as they do to the 

 class of humble and worthy men that seems pre-emi- 

 nently the boast and pride of Scottish life, they will 

 merit a detailed account. Of this type some little 

 knowledge had been made known by Lord Jeffrey in 

 his review of Cromek's Reliques, where such men as 

 the father of Burns and those of his immediate circle 

 were first introduced to their proper place as those 

 'from whom old Scotia's grandeur springs.' In his 



