HUGH MILLER 



59 



first he was rather diffident of his ability for the work, 

 the swiftness of mechanical summation never to the 

 end coming to him perfectly natural; though, in the 

 course of a brief two months' absence from Cromarty, 

 he was able to join the bank with such a working 

 acquaintance with the details of the business that, when 

 when the policy of Sir Robert Peel threatened an attack 

 upon the circulation of the one-pound note, he was 

 competent to publish a series of articles, Words of 

 Warning to the People of Scotland, in which he de- 

 fended the cash credit system of Scottish banking. 

 This had before been fully expounded by Hume and 

 Scott, and Miller could show its peculiar ability for 

 enabling men to ' coin their characters should they be 

 good ones, even should houses, ships, and furniture 

 be wanting.' In the years to come his experience 

 enabled him to write his own business and commercial 

 leaders in his paper, but as yet his income did not 

 exceed one hundred pounds, and he willingly joined in 

 the continuation of Wilson's Tales of the JB orders. This 

 work has retained its popularity, though probably few 

 are aware of the complexity of the authorship. As 

 edited by Leighton, it preserves the names of several 

 writers who occupy a more or less humble niche among 

 the minor singers of Scotland, and in the list of contri- 

 butors, along with Miller, to the work are found the 

 two Bethunes, Alexander and John. He wrote for 

 the Tales a good deal of rather poorly remunerated 

 work, and his papers on Burns and Fergusson afford a 



