In 1847 appeared "First Impressions of England and its People," the result of a tour made during the previous year. Some parts of this book, especially the account of the pilgrimages to Stratford-on-Avon, and the Leasowes, and Olney, and other places memorable for their literary associations, are as fine pieces of descriptive writing as the English language possesses. This magic of style characterized all his works, whether those of a more popular kind, or his scientific treatises, such as the "Old Red Sandstone," and "Footprints of the Creator," a volume suggested by the "Vestiges of Creation," and subversive of the fallacies of that superficial and plausible book. Not one of the authors of our day has approached Hugh Miller as a master of English composition, for the equal of which we must go back to the times of Addison, Hume, and Goldsmith. Other living writers have now a wider celebrity, but they owe it much to the peculiarities of their style or the popularity of their topics. Mr. Miller has taken subjects of science, too often rendered dry and repulsive, and has thrown over them an air of attractive romance. His writings on literature, history, and politics, are known to comparatively few, from having appeared in the columns of a local newspaper. A judicious selection from his miscellaneous articles in the _Witness_ would widely extend his fame, and secure for him a place, in classic English literature, as high as he held during his life as a periodical writer and as a scientific geologist.
The personal appearance of Mr. Miller, or "Old Red," as he was familiarly named by his scientific friends, will not be forgotten by any who have seen him. A head of great massiveness, magnified by an abundant profusion of sub-Celtic hair, was set on a body of muscular compactness, but which in later years felt the undermining influence of a life of unusual physical and mental toil. Generally wrapped in a bulky plaid, and with a garb ready for any work, he had the appearance of a shepherd from the Rosshire hills rather than an author and a man of science. In conversation or in lecturing, the man of original genius and cultivated mind at once shone out, and his abundant information and philosophical acuteness were only less remarkable than his amiable disposition, his generous spirit, and his consistent, humble piety. Literature and science have lost in him one of their brightest ornaments, and Scotland one of its greatest men.