Douglas, to study under Millar at Glasgow (Stewart, Works, x. 11–13, 80).
Millar had been intended for the ministry, but he had some scruples as to the necessary profession of faith; and his uncle John, who had been a writer to the signet, encouraged him to take to the law. After completing his course at Glasgow he was for two years in the family of Henry Home, lord Kames [q. v.], to whose son he was tutor. He there made the acquaintance of David Hume. Millar became a firm believer in Hume's metaphysical doctrines, and though they were politically opposed, Hume placed his nephew, David Hume (1757–1838) [q. v.], under Millar's charge in 1775 (Burton, Hume, ii. 479–81). Millar became an advocate in 1760, and made a promising start in his profession, but he sacrificed any prospects which he might have had by accepting next year the professorship of law at Glasgow, to which he was appointed, ‘through the interest of the guardians of the Duke of Hamilton and at the recommendation of Lord Kames and Adam Smith.’ The pay was small, but he had just married Miss Margaret Craig, and preferred a small certainty to the chances of professional success. His duties did not at first preclude him from attending circuits, and he had a reputation for his influence with juries in defending criminals. He was also frequently employed in arbitrations in commercial cases (Life, pp. lxxxvii–lxxxix). He devoted himself, however, to his professorial duties and rapidly increased the attendance of students, upon whose fees the salary chiefly depended. He had soon forty students of civil law in place of four or five, and a greater number attended his lectures on government. His predecessor, Hercules Lindsay, had lectured in English, in spite of a protest from the Faculty of Advocates, and Millar attracted students by adhering to this precedent. Unlike many Scottish professors, he never wrote his lectures, but spoke from notes, and continued to modify his lectures materially until his death. He gave half the session to lectures upon civil law, and half to lectures upon jurisprudence generally. He gave additional courses upon government, upon Scottish law, and for some years before his death upon English law. His books (see below) gave the substance of some of his lectures. A general account of the whole course is given by his biographer. He appears to have been a very animated lecturer, commanding the interest of his hearers, and uncompromising in asserting his principles. He took pupils in his house; and on becoming professor was elected a member of the ‘Literary Society’ of Glasgow, founded in 1752. He practised speaking there regularly, and became one of the leading orators; especially maintaining Hume's theories in opposition to Reid, who held the professorship of moral philosophy at Glasgow from 1763 to 1796. Their controversies did not disturb their friendship.
Millar's whiggism made him conspicuous at a time when Scotland was chiefly in the hands of the tories. He did not scruple to express his hopes that the American struggle might end in the independence, rather than in the conquest of the colonies. He was in favour of parliamentary reform, though he opposed universal suffrage as leading to corruption. He held by the Rockingham whigs and afterwards by Fox. He taught that the power of the crown had made alarming advances, and held that the triumph of Pitt and George III in 1784 had dealt ‘a fatal blow to the British Constitution.’ His ‘Historical View,’ published in 1787, was dedicated to Fox, and intended in part to meet the toryism of Hume's history. He was an ardent supporter of the agitation against the slave-trade. He sympathised with the French revolution at its start, and, though he lamented the catastrophes which followed, continued to oppose the war and the ‘crusade’ advocated by Burke. He was a zealous member of the ‘Society of the Friends of the People,’ and incurred much odium in consequence. He is said to have refused a ‘lucrative place’ in order that his independence of an administration whose measures he condemned might not be doubtful (ib. p. xcviii). Jeffrey when at Glasgow was forbidden by his father to attend Millar's lectures on account of their whig tendency.
Millar spent much of his time at the small farm of Whitemoss, near Kilbride, about seven miles from Glasgow, which was given to him by his uncle, John Millar. He was there a neighbour of James Baillie, the professor of divinity, with whose children Joanna [q. v.] and Matthew [q. v.], his own children became intimate. Upon the death of his father and his uncle in 1785 he became proprietor of Millheugh, and here, as at Whitemoss, amused himself by planting and cultivating. He visited England twice: in 1774, when he was at London, Oxford, and Cambridge; and in 1792, when he stayed in London, heard debates, and made the acquaintance of Fox.
Millar was an athletic and temperate man, and appeared to retain his health and spirits, but was weakened by an illness in 1799, and after recovering incautiously exposed himself, and died of pleurisy at Millheugh 30 May 1801.
