Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 39.djvu/286

  (P. C. C. Registers of wills, Dixy, 29), and Oxfordshire (Registers of wills).

 MULLINS. [See, d. 1591, divine;, d. 1639, surgeon.]

MULLINS, GEORGE (fl. 1760–1775), painter, was a native of Ireland, and studied painting under [q. v.] He was employed for some time in a manufactory belonging to Mr. Wise at Waterford, where he painted trays and snuffboxes like those made at Birmingham. He obtained, however, some success as a landscape-painter, and coming to London exhibited at the early exhibitions of the Royal Academy from 1770 to 1775. He married a young woman who kept an alehouse near Temple Bar, called the Horseshoe and Magpye, a place of popular resort. The date of his death is not known.

 MULOCK, DINAH MARIA, afterwards (1826–1887), authoress, daughter of Thomas Mulock and his wife Dinah, was born on 20 April 1826 at Stoke-upon-Trent, Staffordshire, where her father was then minister of a small congregation. Her childhood and early youth were much affected by his unsettled fortunes; but she obtained a good education from various quarters, and, feeling conscious of a vocation for author- ship, came to London about 1846, much at the same time as two friends whose assistance was afterwards of the greatest service to her, Alexander Macmillan and [q. v.] Introduced by Miss Camilla Toulmin to the acquaintance of [q. v.], she rapidly made friends in London, and found great encouragement for the stories for the young to which she at first confined herself, of which 'Cola Monti' (1849) was the best known. In the same year she produced her first three-volume novel, 'The Ogilvies,' which obtained a great success. It was followed in 1850 by 'Olive,' perhaps the most imaginative of her fictions. 'The Head of the Family' (1851) and 'Agatha's Husband' (1853), in which the authoress used with great effect her recollections of East Dorset, were perhaps better constructed and more effective as novels, but had hardly the same charm. The delightful fairy story 'Alice Learmont' was published in 1852, and numerous short stories contributed to periodicals, some displaying great imaginative power, were published in 1853 under the title of 'Avillion and other Tales.' A similar collection, of inferior merit, appeared in 1857 under the title of 'Nothing New.' Thoroughly established in public favour as a successful authoress, Miss Mulock took a cottage at Wildwood, North End, Hampstead, and became the ornament of a very extensive social circle. Her personal attractions were at this period of her life considerable, and her simple cordiality, staunch friendliness, and thorough goodness of heart perfected the fascination. In 1857 appeared the work by which she will be principally remembered, 'John Halifax, Gentleman,' a very noble presentation of the highest ideal of English middle-class life, which after nearly forty years still stands boldly out from the works of the female writers of the period, George Eliot's excepted. In writing 'John Halifax,' however, Miss Mulock had practically delivered her message, and her next important work, 'A Life for a Life' (1859), though a very good novel more highly remunerated, and perhaps at the time more widely read, than 'John Halifax' was far from possessing the latter's enduring charm. 'Mistress and Maid' (1863), which originally appeared in 'Good Words,' was inferior in every respect; and, though the lapse was partly retrieved in ' Christian's Mistake' (1865), her subsequent novels were of no great account. The genuine passion which had upborne her early works of fiction had not unnaturally faded out of middle life, and had as naturally been replaced by an excess of the didactic element. This the authoress seemed to feel herself, for several of her later publications were undisguisedly didactic essays, of which 'A Woman's Thoughts about Women' and 'Sermons out of Church' obtained most notice. In her later period, however, she returned to the fanciful tale which had so frequently employed her youth, and achieved a great success with 'The Little Lame Prince' (1874), a charming story for the young. She had published poems in 1852, and in 1881 brought her pieces together under the title of 'Poems of Thirty Years, New and Old.' They are a woman's poems, tender, domestic, and sometimes enthusiastic, always genuine song, and the product of real feeling; some such as 'Philip my King,' verses addressed to her godson, [q. v.], and 'Douglas, Douglas, tender and true'—achieved a wide popularity.

In 1864 Miss Mulock married George Lillie-Craik, esq., a partner in the house of Macmillan & Co., and soon afterwards took up her residence at Shortlands, near Bromley,