ioo FAMOUS SCOTS 



assured, and no greater proof of the personality 

 of the editor and the quality of 'the leaders' re- 

 mains than in the curious fact that, now after half a 

 century, to the great mass of the people his name has 

 been not Miller, nor Mr. Miller, but Hugh Miller. As 

 in the similar case of John Bright the people seized on 

 the fact that here was a writer and speaker sprung from 

 themselves, and his Christian name was as familiar as 

 his surname. Yet, curiously enough, from first to last 

 he never believed in the profession of an editor, and from 

 the 'new-journalism' of the paragraph and the leaderette 

 he would have turned in disdain. Nothing but the 

 fact that he felt convinced of his mission would have 

 induced him to leave Cromarty for the post. ' I have 

 been,' he could truly say, 'an honest journalist. I 

 have never once given expression to an opinion which 

 I did not conscientiously regard as sound, nor stated 

 a fact which, at the time at least, I did not believe to 

 be true.' He never mastered, or felt it necessary to 

 master, the routine details of the business, for the paper 

 was read not for its Parliamentary reports, or the exposi- 

 tion of party politics, but for the essays, sketches, or 

 leaders which were known to be by him. Accordingly 

 the mere fluent production of ( copy,' and the diurnal 

 serving up of the editorial thunder by which the members 

 of the fourth estate fondly delude themselves that they 

 lead public opinion, never really came naturally to him. 

 He prepared himself carefully for his work; and 

 perhaps the bi-weekly issue of the paper and its peculiar 



