HUGH MILLER 51 



good things on the side of truth had been already said ; 

 and that his good things, if he really desired to produce 

 any, would require all to be said on the side of paradox 

 and error. Poor Edward Irving formed a melancholy 

 illustration of this species of originality. His stock of 

 striking things on the side of truth was soon expended ; 

 notoriety had meanwhile become as essential to his 

 comfort as ardent spirits to that of the dram-drinker ; 

 and so, to procure the supply of the unwholesome 

 pabulum, without which he could not exist, he launched 

 into a perilous ocean of heterodoxy and extravagance, 

 and made shipwreck of his faith. Stewart's originality 

 was not the originality of opening up new vistas in 

 which all was unfamiliar, simply because the direction 

 in which they led was one in which men's thought had 

 no occasion to travel and no business to perform. It 

 was the greatly higher ability of enabling men to see 

 new and unwonted objects in old familiar directions. 1 

 For sixteen years Miller sat under his ministry, and for 

 twelve was admitted to his closest intimacy. 



But in time work of even the ' Old Mortality ' order 

 grew scarce. Accordingly, in the summer of June 

 1828, he visited Inverness, and inserted in the local 

 papers an advertisement for employment. He felt that 

 he could execute such commissions with greater care 

 and exactness than were usual, and in a style that could 

 be depended upon for correct spelling. He mentions 

 himself the case of the English mason who mangled 

 Proverbs xxxi. 10 into the bewildering abbreviation that 



