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 of the People of Ireland in relation to the University of Dublin,' Dublin, 1832, 8vo. 'The Principal Events of Modern History with their Times selected in reference to Modern History Philosophically Illustrated,' Armagh, 1839, 8vo. 'Judgment in the Consistorial Court of Armagh, involving the Question of the Law of Marriage in Ireland,' Armagh, 1840, 8vo. 'Notes on the Opinions of Lord Brougham and Vaux and Lord Campbell on the Law of Marriage in Ireland,' London, 1844, 8vo. 'The Present Crisis of the Church of Ireland considered,' Dublin, 1844, 8vo; 2nd edit. 1845. 'The Case of the Church Education Society of Ireland argued in reply to Dr. Elrington,' London, 1847, 8vo. ' Supplement to the Case of the Church Education Society of Ireland,' c., London, 1847, 8vo. 'The Law of Ecclesiastical Residences in Ireland,' Dublin, 1848, 8vo.



MILLER, HUGH (1802–1856), man of letters and geologist, son of Hugh Miller by his second wife Harriet, was born at Cromarty on 10 Oct. 1802. His father, who came of a long line of seafaring men of Scandinavian descent, was lost in the Moray Firth with his trading-sloop and all hands on 9 Nov. 1807. His mother was great-granddaughter of Donald Ross or Roy, a sage and seer of Celtic race long remembered in Ross-shire. As a child Hugh was a keen observer of nature and a collector of shells and stones, while he evinced much interest in literature. But when sent to the school of his native burgh he proved incorrigibly self-willed, and left it after a violent personal encounter with the dominie, on whom he revenged himself in some stinging verses. Wild and intractable, he formed his companions into a gang of rovers and orchard robbers; but at the same time he infected some of them with his own love of reading and rhyming, and edited a boyish 'Village Observer,' to which several of them contributed. At seventeen he was apprenticed to a stone-mason, abandoned his boyish frowardness, and became an excellent workman. His occupation gave his mind its scientific cast. He saw ripple-marks on the bed of his first quarry; and thus 'the necessity that had made him a quarrier taught him also to be a geologist.' On 11 Nov. 1822 his apprenticeship ceased and he became a journeyman mason. Miller thenceforth pursued his craft in different parts of the highlands and lowlands of Scotland, sometimes in towns he was in Edinburgh in 1824-5 oftener in the open country. Always observing, reflecting, and writing, he developed a strongly religious temperament, and devotion to the Christian faith became the determining principle of his life. He soon formed the acquaintance of persons of literary taste, among them Dr. Carruthers of the 'Inverness Courier,' and Alexander Stewart, minister of Cromarty. In 1829 he published 'Poems written in the Leisure Hours of a Journeyman Mason,' a volume that attracted the favourable attention of some distant critics, among them Leigh Hunt, but it lacked fire or facility, and he wisely abandoned poetry for prose. He contributed in 1829 'Letters on the Herring Fishery' to the 'Inverness Courier;' they were reprinted separately, and gave promise of much literary capacity.

At thirty-two, in 1834, his reputation in his native town brought him an accountantship in the branch of the Commercial Bank recently established there. On 7 Jan. 1837 he married, after a long courtship, Lydia Falconer Fraser [see ], a lady of great mental refinement. He showed some interest in his work at the bank by publishing 'Words of Warning to the People of Scotland,' in which he advocated the continuance of the one-pound-note circulation. But he made his first mark in literature in 1835 when he issued 'Scenes and Legends of the North of Scotland,' the traditions of his native Cromarty, and a little later he contributed largely to Mackay Wilson's 'Tales of the Borders.' But while he thoroughly studied the antiquities of his native town, he did not neglect the geological examination of the neighbouring country which he had begun as a stonemason's apprentice. Geology formed the subject of a chapter in his 'Scenes and Legends.' He explored the fossil fish-beds of the old red sandstone about Cromarty; and when Dr. John Malcolmson and Professor Fleming of Aberdeen visited the town, he met them and discussed geological problems. He soon began to correspond with Murchison and Agassiz, and to collect the materials for a work on the 'Old Red Sandstone.'

Since 1834 Miller had been an intensely interested spectator of the attempts of the Church of Scotland to neutralise the effects of the law of patronage, and to secure to the Scottish people the right of freely  elect-