HUGH MILLER 



comparison with the sagacity of Bentley or the instinct 

 of Person. What habits of classical verse-composition 

 had done for these scholars is brought to the geologist 

 by observation. This, in unison with creative mental 

 power, will alone preserve the name of the natural 

 scientist. The first has kept White of Selborne a 

 literary evergreen : the second has maintained his place 

 for Cuvier. Miller's own friend, Dr. Longmuir, rightly 

 singles out this Champollion-like trait of sagacity as his 

 most characteristic feature, by which 'he seemed by 

 intuition to perceive what cost other minds no small 

 amount of careful investigation.' He was very cautious 

 in statement, and laborious in the acquisition of his 

 data. In his works the reader will find no second-hand 

 statements, no airy generalisation ; even in fields where 

 special research in minute departments had been by 

 circumstances denied to him, his gift of constructive 

 imagination often enables him to supply such defects 

 as later investigators may have detected and added. 

 1 The more,' says Professor Huxley, ' I study the fishes 

 of the Old Red, the more I am struck by the patience 

 and sagacity manifested in his researches, and by the 

 natural insight which, in his case, seems to have supplied 

 the want of special anatomical knowledge.' 



And what is true in science is also no less true in his 

 purely literary performances. The reader of his articles, 

 political or social, cannot fail to be struck with the per- 

 tinence of his quotations and illustrations. What he 

 knew was instantly at the call of a powerful memory and 



