262 HUGH MILLER 



While still at school he had gained some notice for 

 the verses which he wrote. In the intervals of his 

 subsequent labours with mallet and chisel, he con- 

 tinued to amuse himself in giving metrical expression 

 to his feelings and reflections, grave or gay. Con- 

 scious of his power, though hardly yet aware in what 

 direction it could best be used, he resolved to collect 

 and publish his verses. At the age of seven-and- 

 twenty he accordingly gave to the world a little 

 volume with the title Poems written in the leisure 

 hours of a 'Journeyman Mason. Not without some 

 misgiving, however, did he make this first literary 

 venture. Even before the voices of the ' chorus of 

 indolent reviewers' could travel up from the south 

 country, with their sententious judgments of the 

 merits and defects of this new peasant-poet, he set 

 himself to prepare some contributions in prose which 

 might perchance afford a better measure of his quality. 

 Some years before that time he had been out all night 

 with the herring fleet, and he now sent to the 

 Inverness Courier some letters descriptive of what he 

 had then seen. These made so favourable an impres- 

 sion that they were soon afterwards reprinted 

 separately. They marked the advent of a writer 

 gifted with no ordinary powers of narration and with 

 the command of a pure, nervous, and masculine style. 

 The reception which these letters met with from men 

 in whose judgment and taste he had confidence 

 formed a turning point in his career. He now 

 realised that his true strength lay not in the writing 

 of verses, but in descriptive prose. Some years, how- 

 ever, still passed before he found the class of subjects 



