Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 38.djvu/27

Milnes relieve genius in distress. In 1860 he befriended David Gray [q. v.], and in 1862 wrote a preface to his poem ‘The Luggie.’ Milnes was also instrumental in making Mr. A. C. Swinburne known to the public, and he drew attention to ‘Atalanta in Calydon’ in the ‘Edinburgh Review.’ He knew every one of note, and was present at almost every great social gathering. In 1875 he visited Canada and the United States, where he met Longfellow, Emerson, Lowell, and was everywhere widely received by leading men, partly for the sympathy he had shown with the north during the civil war. Towards the close of his life, Houghton, already a fellow of the Royal Society, honorary D.C.L. of Oxford, and LL.D. of Edinburgh, became an honorary fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, secretary for foreign correspondence in the Royal Academy, and a trustee of the British Museum. He succeeded Carlyle, who had been his lifelong friend, as president of the London Library in 1882. In May 1885 he took part in unveiling a bust of Coleridge in Westminster Abbey, and of Gray at Cambridge. His last speech was at a meeting of the short-lived Wordsworth Society in the following July. He died at Vichy on 11 Aug. 1885, and on 20 Aug. was buried at Fryston. His wife had predeceased him in February 1874. He left two daughters and a son, who afterwards became lord-lieutenant of Ireland in Mr. Gladstone's fourth ministry.

Houghton abounded in friendliness, but his sympathies were broad rather than deep. Naturally generous and always ready to offer his help, he found a romantic pleasure of his own in giving it. His poetry is of the meditative kind, cultured and graceful; but it lacks fire. In society, where he found his chief occupation and success, especially as an after-dinner speaker, he was always amusing, and many stories were told of his humorous originality. But he was eminently a dilettante; while his interests were wide, he shirked the trouble necessary for judgments other than superficial. He had many fine tastes and some coarse ones.

Houghton's poetical works are: 1. ‘Memorials of a Tour in some parts of Greece, chiefly Poetical,’ London, 1834. 2.‘Memorials of a Residence on the Continent, and Historical Poems,’ London, 1838, of which an enlarged edition appeared in 1844. 3. ‘Poems of many Years,’ London, 1838. 4. ‘Poetry for the People, and other Poems,’ London, 1840. 5. ‘Poems, Legendary and Historical,’ London, 1844, which included pieces previously published. 6. ‘Palm Leaves,’ London, 1844. He also issued several songs in single sheets. A collected edition in two volumes, with a preface and portrait, appeared in London in 1876.

His prose writings include, besides those noticed, pamphlets and articles in newspapers and reviews: 1. ‘A Speech on the Ballot, delivered in the House of Commons,’ London, 1839. 2. ‘Thoughts on Purity of Election,’ London, 1842. 3. ‘Answer to R. Baxter on the South Yorkshire Isle of Axholme Bill,’ Pontefract, 1852. 4. Preface to ‘Another Version of Keats's “Hyperion,”’ London, 1856. 5. ‘Address on Social Economy’ at the Social Science Congress, London, 1862. 6. ‘On the present Social Results of Classical Education,’ in F. W. Farrar's ‘Essays on a Liberal Education,’ London, 1867. He also edited various papers in the publications of the Philobiblon Society and the Grampian Club; and he wrote a preface to the ‘History of Grillion's Club, from its Origin in 1812 to its 50th Anniversary,’ London, 1880.

[The Life, Letters, and Friendships of Richard Monckton Milnes, first Lord Houghton, by T. Wemyss Reid, London, 1890, is a generous account of its subject. See also the Times, 12 Aug. 1885; and the Athenæum, Academy, and Saturday Review (art. by G. S. Venables) for 15 Aug. 1885; Sir F. H. Doyle's Reminiscences and Opinions, pp. 109 et seq.,and the Correspondence of Carlyle and Emerson, London, 1883, i. 263.]  MILO. [See Gloucester, Miles de (DNB00),, d. 1143.]  MILRED or MILRET (d. 775), bishop of Worcester, was perhaps coadjutor bishop to Wilfrith, bishop of the Hwiccas, the people of the present Worcestershire and Gloucestershire (, Making of England, pp. 129, 130). His name appears as bishop along with that of Wilfrith in the attestation of a charter (Codex Diplomaticus, No. 95) of Ethelbald or Æthelbald (d. 757) [q. v.], king of the Mercians, and on the death of Wilfrith he succeeded to the see in 743 (, sub an.; 744 A.-S. Chronicle; 745, Historia Regum, c. 40, and , i. 6). William of Malmesbury (Gesta Pontificum, 3. 9) records his presence at the council of Clovesho held in 747. In 754, or early in 755, he visited Boniface, archbishop of Mentz, and Bishop Lullus in Germany, and on hearng less than a year afterwards of the martyrdom of Boniface (5 June 755), wrote to Julius expressing his grief, and sending some small presents, but not sending a book (‘librum pyrpyri metri’), for which Lullus had ipparently asked, because Archbishop Cuthbert (d. 758) [q. v.] had delayed to return it (Monumenta Moguntina, pp. 267, 268). During the reign of Offa of Mercia Milred received many grants, some of which are