The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1871-05-18
HUGH MILLER AND ROBERT BURNS.

personal "reminiscences BY DR.. McCosh, who
was an intimate friend of the great geolo-
gist In this paper is comparison between
Robert Burns and Hugh Miller, as represen-
tatives of Scottish genius, born in humble
life. Our readers will be interested in the
sketch =
CT am tempted to compare Miller, and
when I compare him, 20 contrast him with
another eminent Scotsman, Robert Burns.
Both were sprung frora the nobler order of
the Scottish peasantrg; neither was origi-
nally educated as scaolar; both rose to the
highest eminepce in tle midst of difficulties
which led the one asgell as the other seri-
ously to propose entigrating to America;
both had deep love for Scotland and her
common people; & will go down through
| all coming ages as sausohold words, and as
representatives of rSe intelligence of the
sons of toll in their native land; and both
were characterized b. noble modesty and
manly independence of nature,-'Owre
blate to seek, owre proud to snool.' But
with the resemblances there were differences.
In respect of native genius they rank in my
| view equally high; but the complexion and
bent of that genius differed in the two indi-
| viduals. No one would compare any poetry
published by Hugh Miller with the poetry
of Robert Burns; though there are passages
of very high poetic power in all the, prose
| works Of Miller. Let us only look at that
bold sketch of a proposed Epic towards the
close of the Sixth Lecture of his Testimony
of the Rocks, in which he represents Luci-
fer, son of the morning, cast down on the
Pre-Adamite earth, while yet half extin-
guished volcano; then, as ages roll on, NOV
| ing amidst tangled. foliage and ravenous
creatures, horrid with trenchant tooth and
barbed sting, and enveloped in armor Of
plate and scale, marking all the while and
wondering at the progressive work Of God,
as animal follows plant, and man succeeds
animal, and seeking to frustrate it by dia-
bolical wiles, which, however, only fulfil the
| eternal counsels of Heaven, and issue in the
crowning work, the descent and death and
ascension of the Incarnate Son of God
Greater as poet, Robert Burns cannot be
placed as q thinker, or a man of science, or
a writer of prose, on the level Of Hugh Mil
Ter. Dugald Stewart expressed his surprise
to find Burns form so correct an idea of the
then prevailing theory in Edinburgh, which
referred all beauty to the association of
ideas, theory which s ems to have gained
the momentary assent Sf BaAns in spite of
his own better sense and truer feeling:-
That the martial clangor, he says, 'of a
trumpet had something in it vastly more
grand, heroic, and sublime, than the twingle-
twangle of Jew's-halp; that the delicate
Aexure of rose-twig, when the half'blown
flower is heavy with the tears Of dawn, was
infinitely more beautiful and elegant than
the upright stalk of the burdock, and that
from something innate and independent Of
all association of ideas,-these l had set
down as irrefragible orthodox truths, until
perusing your book shook my faith No
one who had conversed with Hugh Miller
would have expressed .surprise that he was
capable of understanding such truths. He
must have been in the clouds himself, who,
in talking with him, did not confess that
Hugh Miller could soar as high as he, and
keep well-balanced pin ons all the while
He had no difficulty sn understanding the
Association Theory, and many other theo-
rieg of Hume and Brown as well, and in
brushing away them AID some other meagre
or misty explanatiopspy a few brief but CO.
gent facts and arguments In his works he
has combined, as no working man ever did
before, lofty speculation with rigid science,
and rradiated the whole with the corrusca-
tions of poetry. Nor is it to be omitted
that there is far ntpe important point OF
difference between tn Ayrshire ploughman
and the Cromarty mason. Both were men
of naturally strong passions; but where the
one yielded to the tefaptations that asSailed
him,
"'And thoughtless .foes laid him low,
| And stained his name,