In spite of poverty, Miller’s childhood was not without its sunshine, and many days spent in the lanes and fields were not the least enjoyable of his pleasures. He was first engaged as a farmer’s boy at Thornock, a village near his native town. The trade of basket-making was subsequently learned, and when quite a young man he married. He migrated to Nottingham, and obtained employment as a journeyman at a basket-manufactory in the town.
“At this period,” says Dr. Spencer T. Hall, “the Sherwood Forester,” “he had a somewhat round but intelligent face, a fair complexion, full, blue, speaking eyes, and a voice reminding one of the deeper and softer tones of a well-played flute. Of all who saw him at his work, it is probable that scarcely one knew how befitting him was the couplet of Virgil, where he says:
‘Thus while I sung, my sorrows I deceived,
And bending osiers into baskets weaved.’”
He had the good fortune to become known to Mr. Thomas Bailey, a man of literary taste, the writer of several works, and father of the more famous Philip James Bailey, author of “Festus.” Mr. Bailey recognised at once the merits of a collection of poems submitted to him by Miller, was the means of the pieces being printed, and did all in his power to obtain a favourable welcome for the volume. The book was entitled “Songs of Sea Nymphs;” it contained only forty-eight pages, and was sold at two shillings. In his preface the author stated: “I am induced to offer these extracts from unpublished poems in their present state solely because I cannot find any publisher who will undertake, without an extensive list of subscribers, the risk of publishing a volume of poetry written by an individual whose humble station in life buries him in obscurity.” He next explains that the object of the work is to elicit the opinion of his country-men as to the merits or demerits of his verses—which he terms “trifles.” Mr. Miller says, “Concerning the poems, I have only to add that the three first songs are extracts from an unpublished poem entitled, ‘Hero and Leander, a Tale of the Sea.’ The scene is chiefly confined to Neptune’s palace beneath the waves. The other extracts are from ‘Adelaide and Reginald, a Fairy Tale of Bosworth Field.’ I am aware that the date is too modern for fairies; however, who can prove it? for so long as a barren circle is found in the velvet valleys of England, tradition will ever call it a fairy-ring. Having launched my little bark on the casual ocean of public opinion, not without anxiety, I leave it to its fate.—Thomas Miller, Basket-maker, Nottingham, August, 1832.” The volume was the means of making him many friends, and enabling him to start business on his own account. He had a work-room in the Long Row, and a stall on a Saturday in the market-place. Here is a picture of the stall from Spencer Hall’s graphic pen:—“There was poetry in his very baskets. A few coarser ones were there, but others of more beautiful pattern, texture, and colour, flung a sort of bloom over the rest; and the basket-maker and his wares well-matched each other, as he would take his cigar from his mouth, and ask some pretty market maiden, in his cheeriest tones, as she lingered and looked, if she would not like to purchase. As a youth, I was wont to stand there chatting with him occasionally, and to hear him, between customers, pour out the poetry of Coleridge and other great minds, with an appreciance and a melody that such authors might themselves have listened to with pride and delight.”
He next moved to London, hoping to follow a literary career by contributing at the commencement to the monthly magazines. Writing gave Miller great pleasure, but put little money in his purse, and to obtain bread for his household he had to work at his trade in the metropolis. Friends at first were few, and he had none able to help him to literary employment. He had journeyed to London alone, and arrived there with seven-and-sixpence in his pocket, intending to send for his wife and family when brighter days dawned. Some time passed before there was a break in the dark clouds which hung over him. Here are particulars of the dawn of better times. “One day,” says Mr. Joseph Johnson, in Manchester Notes and Queries, “when bending over his baskets, he was surprised by a visit from Mr. W. H. Harrison, editor of Friendship’s Offering, who had fortunately read one of Miller’s poems, and had become impressed with the ability and original talent of the author. The result of the interview was a request that the basket-maker would write a poem for the Offering. Miller, at the time, was so poor that he had neither paper, pens, nor ink, nor the means to buy these needful materials for his poem. He tided over the difficulty by using the whity-brown paper in which his sugar had been wrapped, and mixed some soot with water for his ink; the back of a bellows serving him for a desk, upon which he wrote his charming poem, entitled, ‘The Old Fountain.’ His letter to the editor of the Offering was sealed with moistened bread. The poem was accepted, and two guineas immediately returned. It is simply impossible to imagine the rapture which would fill the breast of the poor poet on receipt of so large a sum.” Says Miller, “I never had been so rich in my life before, and I fancied some one would hear of my fortune and try and rob me of it; so, at night, I barred the door, and went to bed, but did not sleep all night, from delight and fear.”
We reproduce the lines as a fair example of Miller’s poetry:—
The Old Fountain.
“Deep in the bosom of a silent wood,
Where an eternal twilight dimly reigns,
A sculptured fountain hath for ages stood,
O’erhung with trees; and still such awe remains
Around the spot, that few dare venture there—
The babbling water spreads such superstitious fear.
It looks so old and grey, with moss besprent,
And carven imag’ry, grotesque or quaint;
Eagles and lions are with dragons blent
And cross-winged cherub; while o’er all a Saint
Bends grimly down with frozen blown-back hair,
And on the dancing spray its dead eyes ever stare.
From out a dolphin’s mouth the water leaps
And frets, and tumbles to its bed of gloom;
So dark the umbrage under which it sweeps,
Stretching in distance like a dreary tomb;
With murmurs fraught, and many a gibbering sound,
Gurgle, and moan, and hiss, and plash, and fitful bound.
Oh! ’tis a spot where man might sit and weep
His childish griefs and petty cares away;
Wearied Ambition might lie there and sleep,
And hoary Crime in silence kneel to pray.
The fountain’s voice, the day-beams faintly given,
Tell of that starlight land we pass in dreams to heaven.
There, lovely forms in elder times were seen,
And snowy kirtles waved between the trees;
And light feet swept along the velvet green,
While the rude anthem rose upon the breeze,
When round the margin England’s early daughters
Worshipped the rough-hewn Saint that yet bends o’er the waters.
And some bent priest, whose locks were white as snow,
Would raise his trembling hands and voice to pray;
All would be hushed save that old fountain’s flow
That rolling bore the echoes far away;
Perchance a dove, amid the foliage dim,
Might raise a coo, then pause to list their parting hymn.
That old grey abbey lies in ruins now,
The wild-flowers wave where swung its pond’rous door;
Where once the altar rose, rank nettles grow,
The anthem’s solemn sound is heard no more;
’Tis as if Time had laid down to repose,
Drowsed by the fountain’s voice, which through the forest flows.”
He wrote and worked at his trade; his poetry won for him many admirers, amongst them Lady Blessington, Thomas Moore, Samuel Rogers, the banker-poet, and others, and he was welcomed to their houses. He remarked, “Often have I been sitting in Lady Blessington’s splendid drawing-room in the morning, and talking and laughing as familiarly as in the old house at home; and on the same evening I might have been seen on Westminster Bridge, between an apple vendor and a baked-potato merchant, vending my baskets.”
In 1836, he wrote “A Day in the Woods,” consisting of a series of sketches, stories, and poems. The reading public welcomed the work, and the critical press recognised it as the production of a man of undoubted genius. He continued to make friends, including “L. E. L.,” the poetess, Campbell, Leigh Hunt, Jerrold, Disraeli and Thackeray. The merits and success of his book caused Colburn to make him a tempting offer to write a three-volume novel, and in 1838 appeared “Royston Gower.” The work was so popular that the same publisher commissioned him to write two more novels, namely, in 1839, “Fair Rosamond,” and in 1840, “Lady Jane Grey.” He produced other novels, perhaps the best known is “Gideon Giles.” These works are now to be obtained in cheap form, and have been most extensively circulated.