Page:Cousins's Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature.djvu/282

 270 Dictionary of English Literature

on the dissolution of the Company, retired on a liberal pension. In 1825 he ed. Bentham's Rationale of Judicial Evidence. During the following years he was a frequent contributor to Radical journals, and ed. the London Review. His Logic appeared in 1843, and pro duced a profound impression; and in 1848 he pub. Principles of Political Economy. The years between 1858 and 1865 were very productive, his treatises on Liberty, Utilitarianism, Representative Government, and his Examination of Sir W. Hamilton's Philosophy being pub. during this period. In 1865 he entered the House of Commons as one of the members for Westminster, where, though highly respected, he made no great mark. After this political parenthesis he returned to his literary pursuits, and wrote The Sub jection of Women (1869), The Irish Land Question (1870), and an Autobiography. M. had m. in 1851 Mrs. Taylor, for whom he showed an extraordinary devotion, and whom he survived for 1 5 years. He i d. at Avignon. His Autobiography gives a singular, and in some respects painful account of the methods and views of his /. in his education. Though remaining all his life an adherent of the uliti- tarian philosophy, M. did not transmit it to his disciples altogether unmodified, but, rinding it too narrow and rigid for his own intellec tual and moral requirements, devoted himself to widening it, and infusing into it a certain element of idealism.

Bain's Criticism with Personal Recollections (1882), L. Courtney's John Stuart Mill (1889), Autobiography, Stephens's Utilitarians, J. Grote's Examination of the Utilitarian Philosophy of Mill, etc.

MILLER, HUGH (1802-1856). Geologist, and man of

letters, b. at Cromarty, had the ordinary parish school education, and early showed a remarkable love of reading and power of story-telling. At 17 he was apprenticed to a stonemason, and his work in quarries, together with rambles among the rocks of his native shore, led him to the study of geology. In 1829 he pub. a vol. of poems, and soon afterwards threw himself as an ardent and effective combatant into the controversies, first of the Reform Bill, and thereafter of the Scottish Church question. In 1834 he became accountant in one of the local banks, and in the next year brought out his Scenes and Legends in the North of Scotland. In 1840 the popular party in the Church, with which he had been associated, started a newspaper, The Witness, and M. was called to be ed., a position which he retained till the end of his life, and in which he showed conspicuous ability. Among his geological works are The Old Red Sandstone (1841), Foot prints of the Creator (1850), The Testimony of the Rocks (1856), and Sketch-book of Popular Geology. Other books are: My Schools and Schoolmasters, an autobiography of remarkable interest, First Im pressions of England and its People (1847), and The Cruise of the Betsy. Of the geological books, perhaps that on the old red sand stone, a department in which M. was a discoverer, is the best : but all his writings are distinguished by great literary excellence, and especially by a marvellous power of vivid description. The end of his life was most tragic. He had for long been overworking his brain, which at last gave way, and in a temporary loss of reason, he shot himself during the night.

Life and Letters, P. Bayne (1871), etc.