Page:Cousins's Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature.djvu/283

 Dictionary of English Literature 271

MILLER, THOMAS (1807-1874). Poet and novelist, of

humble parentage, worked in early life as a basket-maker. He pub. Songs of the Sea Nymphs (1832). Going to London he was be friended by Lady Blessington (q.v.) and S. Rogers (q.v.), and for a time engaged in business as a bookseller, but was unsuccessful and devoted himself exclusively to literature, producing over 40 vols., including several novels, e.g., Royston Gower (1838), Gideon Giles the Roper, and Rural Sketches. In his stories he successfully delineated rural characters and scenes.

MILMAN, HENRY HART (1791-1868). Poet and historian,

s. of Sir Francis M., a distinguished physician, ed. at Eton and Oxf. Taking orders he became in 1835 Rector of St. Margaret's, West minster, and in 1849 Dean of St. Paul's. He also held the professor ship of Poetry at Oxf. 1821-31. Among his poetical works may be mentioned Fazio (drama) (1815), Santor (epic) (1818), The Fall of Jerusalem (1820), The Martyr of Antioch (1822), and Anne Boleyn (1826). It is, however, on his work as an historian that his literary fame chiefly rests, his chief works in this department being his His tory of the Jews (1830), History of Christianity (1840), and especially The History of Latin Christianity (6 vols. 1854-56), which is one of the most important historical works of the century, characterised alike by literary distinction and by learning and research. M. also brought out a valuable ed. of Gibbon's Decline and Fall, and wrote a History of St. Paul's Cathedral.

MILNES, R. MONCKTON- (See HOUGHTON).

MILTON, JOHN (1608-1674). Poet, was b. gth December

1608 in Bread Street, London. His /., also John, was the s. of a yeoman of Oxfordshire, who cast him off on his becoming a Protestant. He had then become a scrivener in London, and grew to be a man of good estate. From him his illustrious s. inherited his lofty integrity, and his love of, and proficiency in, music. M. re ceived his first education from a Scotch friend of his father's, Thomas Young, a Puritan of some note, one of the writers of Smectymnuus. Thereafter he was at St. Paul's School, and in 1625 went to Christ's Coll., Camb., where for his beauty and his delicacy of mind he was nicknamed " the lady." His sister Anne had m. Edward Phillips, and the death of her first child in infancy gave to him the subject of his earliest poem, On the death of a Fair Infant (1626). It was fol lowed during his 7 years' life at the Univ., along with others, by the poems, On the Morning of Christ's Nativity (1629), On the Circum cision, The Passion, Time, At a Solemn Music, On May Morning, and On Shakespeare, all in 1630; and two sonnets, To the Nightingale and On arriving at the Age of Twenty-three, in 1631. In 1632, having given up the idea of entering the Church, for which his /. had in tended him, he lived for 6 years at Horton, near Windsor, to which the latter had retired, devoted to further study. Here he wrote L' Allegro and // Penseroso in 1632, Arcades (1633), Comus in 1634, and Lycidas in 1637. The first celebrates the pleasures of a life of cheerful innocence, and the second of contemplative, though not j gloomy, retirement, and the last is a lament for a lost friend, Edward