ow's Lament for his Brother.'_

How early I woo'd thee, how dearly I lo'ed thee;
How sweet was thy voice, how enchanting thy smile;
The joy 'twas to see thee, the bliss to be wi' thee,
I mind, but to feel now their power to beguile.
I gazed on thy beauty, and a' things about thee,
Seem'd too fair for earth, as I bent at thy shrine;
But fortune and fashion, mair powerfu' than passion,
Could alter the bosom that seem'd sae divine!

Anither may praise thee, may fondle and fraize thee;
And win thee wi' words, when his heart's far awa';
But, oh, when sincerest, when warmest, and dearest,
His vows--will my truth be forgot by thee a'?
'Midst pleasure and splendour thy fancy may wander,
But moments o' solitude ilk ane maun dree;
Then feeling will find thee, and mem'ry remind thee,
O' him wha through life gaes heart-broken for thee.

HUGH MILLER.

The celebrated geologist, and editor of the _Witness_ newspaper, Hugh
Miller, was born at Cromarty on the 10th October 1802. In his fifth year
he had the misfortune to lose his father, who, being the captain of a
small trading vessel, perished in a storm at sea. His widowed mother was
aided by two industrious unmarried brothers in providing for her family,
consisting of two daughters, and the subject of this Memoir. With a
rudimentary training in a private school, taught by a female, he became
a pupil in the grammar school. Perceiving his strong aptitude for
learning, and vigorous native talent, his maternal uncles strongly urged
him to study for one of the liberal professions; but, diffident of
success in more ambitious walks, he resolved to follow the steps of his
progenitors in a life of manual labour. In his sixteenth year he
apprenticed himself to a stone-mason. The profession thus chosen proved
the pathway to his future eminence; for it was while engaged as an
operative stone-hewer in the old red sandstone quarries of Cromarty,
that he achieved those discoveries in that formation which fixed a new
epoch in geological science. Poetical composition in evening hours
relieved the toils of labour, and varied the routine of geological
inquiry. In the prosecution of an ornamental branch of his
profession--that of cutting and lettering grave-stones--he in 1828
proceeded to Inverness. Obtaining the friendship of Mr Robert
Carruthers, the ingenious editor of the _Inverness Courier_, the columns