HUGH MILLER 55 



Relugas, who is now remembered by his Wolf of Badt- 

 noch a not quite unsuccessful effort at bending the 

 bow of Ulysses, though without the dramatic force of 

 Scott. By Carruthers he was introduced to Principal 

 Baird, and thus a link with the past was effected through 

 a man who had edited the poems of Michael Bruce, 

 had befriended Alexander Murray for a short period 

 the occupant of the Oriental chair in Edinburgh, and 

 been a patron of Pringle and a close friend of Scott. 

 By Baird he was strongly pressed to venture on a 

 literary life in the capital, but the time was not pro- 

 pitious, and he wisely resolved to devote himself to 

 several years of accumulation and reflection before 

 he should embark on a vocation for which he had no 

 great liking, and in which, even to the last, he had but 

 little belief. For an ordinary journalist he would in- 

 deed have been as little qualified as Burns when 

 offered a post on Perry's Morning Chronicle. The just- 

 ness of his resolution was fully shown when the oppor- 

 tunity found him, and he was then fully prepared for 

 the work he was to do. He was induced by the Prin- 

 cipal to draw up for him a brief sketch of his life, and 

 of this a draft bringing it up to 1825 was composed and 

 sent to Edinburgh. 



There existed at this time in the North the remains 

 of a little coterie of ladies, numbering among its 

 members Henry Mackenzie's cousin, Mrs. Rose of 

 Kilravock, whom Burns had visited on his Highland 

 tour, Lady Gordon Gumming, and Mrs. Grant of 



