298 Proceedings of the Boyal Society 
and Hall — names to which we now-a-days look through such a long 
vista of years, crowded with discovery, that they seem to stand far 
away amid the halo of an early heroic life. 
James Miller was born at the Manse of Eassie in Forfarshire, on 
the 22d of April 1812. He was the third son of the Kev. James 
Miller, minister of the parish, and his wife Elizabeth Martin, 
daughter of the Eev. Hr Martin, minister of Kirkcaldy, in Fife. 
At Eassie Mr Miller received his early training, and till he went 
to College at St Andrews he was constantly under the parental 
eye ; for his father, aided by teachers and tutors, conducted the 
education of his own family, along with the sons of several neigh- 
bouring proprietors. Surrounded by home influences, Mr Miller 
received the early training which fitted him, when a lad of only 
twelve, for the Literary and Arts classes of the University of St 
Andrews. Here it was he first began to show his great intellectual 
facility, taking bursaries, and distinguishing himself, more par- 
ticularly as a scholar in classics and metaphysics, in competition 
with lads considerably older than himself. 
After three years spent at St Andrews, he repaired to Edinburgh 
in 1827, and commenced his medical studies, not only under the 
distinguished professors of medicine who then adorned our Uni- 
versity, but also under the late Mr Liston, who, as a private 
lecturer unconnected with the University, had at that time taken the 
whole country by surprise as a teacher and practitioner of surgery. 
In 1828 Mr Miller became a pupil of Liston’s, and under that 
tutelage there grew up between the master and student an affection 
and mutual regard, which, though interrupted, so far as daily per- 
sonal intercourse was concerned, by Liston’s removal to London, 
and finally eclipsed by the premature death of that illustrious man, 
remained throughout life as one of the tenderest and warmest 
emotions of Mr Miller’s inmost feelings. It was about this time 
that Mr Miller’s anatomical skill led to his selection by Professor 
Munro tertius as his demonstrator of anatomy ; and in the dis- 
charge of the duties of that responsible office, he acquired both that 
familiarity with normal texture and diseased structure, as well as 
that facility of description and easy diction, which were eminently 
characteristic of him throughout his after life. 
