have walked, and a fearful dream rises upon me. I cannot bear the horrible thought. God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ have mercy upon me! Dearest Lydia, dear children, farewell. My brain burns as the recollection grows. My dear wife, farewell. HUGH MILLER."

"O life, as futile then as frail

O for thy voice to soothe and bless!
What hope of answer or redress

Behind the veil, behind the veil ?"

In awe and mystery we stand by the grave of genius, thus suddenly disappearing from the scene of its triumphs, rather disposed to meditate in silence than read aloud the lesson to be learned there. Mr. Miller's concluding words in "The Story of my Education" convey, however, the most appropriate lesson which could be given in such a volume as this. He says:-"In looking back upon my youth, I see, methinks, a wild fruit tree, rich in leaf and blossom; and it is mortifying enough to mark how very few of the blossoms have set, and how diminutive and imperfectly formed the fruit is into which even the productive few have been developed. A right use of the opportunities of instruction afforded me in early youth would have made me a scholar ere my twenty-fifth year, and have saved to me at least ten of the best years of life,-years which were spent in obscure and humble occupations. But while my story must serve to show the evils which re

sult from truant carelessness in boyhood, and that what was sport to the young lad may assume the form of serious misfortune to the man, it may also serve to show that much may be done by after diligence, to retrieve an early error of this kind,— that life itself is a school, and nature always a fresh study, and that the man who keeps his eyes and his mind open will always find fitting, though, it may be, hard schoolmasters, to speed him on in his life-long education."

And now, before closing this brief narrative, the reader will perhaps pardon us for interposing a correction of a mischievous misreading of that lesson which has, in some quarters, obtained currency.

Hugh Miller, it is said, fell the victim of a baffled ambition and an austere theology. His grand effort to reconcile geology with Genesis had failed, and the consciousness of that failure was the cause of the eclipse in which reason and life were extinguished. So the terrible tragedy of the 24th December, 1856, is interpreted. To such as possess any true conception of his character, the interpretation must be eminently unsatisfactory. That the precise mode in which science and revelation might be harmonised, presented no difficulties to Hugh Miller, we do not affirm. But, while quite aware the theory on which he lavished the riches of his imagination was open to question -had, indeed, been already questioned-the hopes -inspired by the book of God never wavered.

While exploring the abysmal depths of his favourite study, heaven's own light still shed its supernal splendours over his spirit, and in quite another than a despondent mood did he contemplate the termination of his labours upon "The Testimony of the Rocks." The doubt with which the discords of nature inspire some minds did not perplex his. Through all the mists of scientific speculation, the eternal pole-star still remained for him an authentic luminary. No scrap of writing, no word breathed even in the ear of friendship, warrants the conclusion to which grave and able editors have not scrupled to rush. We have said that the seeds of the malady which prostrated Hugh Miller were sown in the quarry of Cromarty; perhaps it had been more correct to have said, that there they received their first marked development. If the matter was completely investigated, we suspect that a constitutional tendency to cerebral disease would be found to have existed. For some six or seven years he had been complaining that he no longer worked as he was wont to do. With double toil, but half the results of earlier, better days, could now be produced. The jaded spirit was spurred to its tasks under the pressure of motives whose force the noblest minds alone can feel. Remonstrances of affection and predictions of physicians were alike unheeded. Nothing was feared until, suddenly, the dread of a calamity no longer to be concealed precipitated the very

catastrophe from which he recoiled. A clearer case of cerebral disorder does not exist. That, with the warnings received, he should have continued unawakened to the perils of his position, only shows how sometimes the best of men, absorbed in special pursuits, may neglect what is of unspeakable importance to remember. In his eagerness to read the wondrous story of an earlier world, Hugh Miller forgot he was himself fearfully and wonderfully made. Over all men the natural and organic laws assert paramount authority. A man so constituted as Hugh Miller was ever in imminent and peculiar peril from their transgression; yet the peril was put far from him, and every monition of its approach, even while confessed, was unheeded. He could warn brother editors of the dangers of overwork, yet by a singular fatality he himself continued to burn the midnight oil. Thus it came to pass, that he who had done for the geology what Burns had done for the songs of Scotland, perished in the meridian of his powers.

"We have here twenty-four small books, for small people, at the smallest of prices; each volume containing from forty to fifty pages of small but clear letterpress, several illustrations, good paper, good writing, and all for the charge of threepence! We only say that such a windfall of books is not often shaken from the Christmas tree.". Athenæum.