Chapter Miller to Milton of M by Biographical Dictionary of English Literature

Miller to Milton

Miller, Thomas (1807-1874).—Poet and novelist, of humble parentage, worked in early life as a basket- maker. He published Songs of the Sea Nymphs (1832). Going to London he was befriended 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, son of Sir Francis Milman, a distinguished physician, educated at Eton and Oxford Taking orders he became in 1835 Rector of St. Margaret’s, Westminster, and in 1849 Dean of St. Paul’s. He also held the professorship of Poetry at Oxford 1821-31. Among his poetical works may be mentioned Fazio (drama) (1815), Samor (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 History 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. Milman also brought out a valuable edition 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 born 9th December 1608 in Bread Street, London. His flourished, also John, was the son 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 son inherited his lofty integrity, and his love of, and proficiency in, music. Milton received 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 College, Cambridge, where for his beauty and his delicacy of mind he was nicknamed “the lady.” His sister Anne had married 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 followed during his 7 years’ life at the University, along with others, by the poems, On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity (1629), On the Circumcision, 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 flourished had intended 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 Il 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 gloomy, retirement, and the last is a lament for a lost friend, Edward King, who perished at sea. Arcades and Comus are masques set to music by Henry Lawes, having for their motives respectively family affection and maiden purity. Had he written nothing else these would have give him a place among the immortals. In 1638 he completed his education by a period of travel in France and Italy, where he visited Grotius at Paris, and Galileo at Florence. The news of impending troubles in Church and State brought him home the following year, and with his return may be said to close the first of three well-marked divisions into which his life falls. These may be called (1) the period of preparation and of the early poems; (2) the period of controversy, and of the prose writings; and (3) the period of retirement and of the later poems. Soon after his return Milton settled in London, and employed himself in teaching his nephews, Edward and John Phillips, turning over in his mind at the same time various subjects as the possible theme for the great poem which, as the chief object of his life, he looked forward to writing. But he was soon to be called away to far other matters, and to be plunged into the controversies and practical business which were to absorb his energies for the next 20 years. The works of this period fall into three classes—(1) those directed against Episcopacy, including Reformation of Church Discipline in England (1641), and his answers to the writings of Bishop Hall (q.v.), and in defence of Smectymnuus (see under Calamy); (2) those relating to divorce, including The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce (1643), and The Four Chief Places of Scripture which treat of Marriage (1645); and (3) those on political and miscellaneous questions, including the Tractate on Education, Areopagitica, A Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing (1644) (his greatest