MILNER 



MILTON 



203 



Physiology and Comparative Anatomy of Man and 

 the Animals (14 vols. 1857-81) have a great per- 

 manent value for their immense mass of details, 

 and copious references to scattered sources of 

 information. He also had an important share in 

 a splendid quarto of Anatomical and Zoological 

 Researches on the Coasts of Sicily. Other works 

 were researches on the natural history of the 

 French coasts (1832-45) and on the natural history 

 of the mammalia (1871). In some of his later 

 works he was assisted by his distinguished son 

 Alphonse. Milne-Edwards must always hold high 

 rank amongst the naturalists of the 19th century. 

 His researches in the distribution of the lower 

 invertebrates led him to the theory of centres of 

 creation ; and to this he adhered throughout life, 

 in spite of the general acceptance of the newer 

 and larger views of Darwin by hia fellow-scientists. 

 He diedon the 29th July 1885. His elder brother, 

 Frederick William, was almost equally celebrated. 

 He founded the Ethnological Society in Paris, and 

 is considered the father of ethnology in France. 



Jlilner, JOSEPH, an ecclesiastical historian, was 

 born near Leeds in 1744. He studied at Catharine 

 Hall, Cambridge, and afterwards became well 

 known as head-master of Hull grammar-school. 

 He was vicur of North Ferriby, 7 miles from 

 Hull, and lecturer in the principal church of the 

 town, and in 1797 became vicar of Holy Trinity 

 Church. He died on 15th Novemlier of the same 

 year. Milner's principal work is his History of the 

 Church of Christ, of which he lived to complete 

 three volumes, reaching to the 13th century ; a 

 fourth volume coming down to the 16th century, 

 was edited from his MSS. by Ms younger brother, 

 Dr Isaac Milner, dean of Carlisle, who also pub- 

 lished a complete edition of his brother's works in 

 H vols. 1810. The principles on which the history 

 is written are of the narrowest kind ; the scholar- 

 ship, literary style, and critical insight are alike 

 poor. 



Millies, RICHARD MOXCKTOX. See HOUGHTOX. 



Millllfnvie (pron. Milltjuy), a town of Stirling- 

 shire, 7 miles NN\V. of Glasgow. Pop. 2636. 



Milo. See MKI.KS. 



.tlilo. of Crotoiiii, in Magna Orn-cia, an athlete 

 famous for his great strength. He was six times 

 victor for wrestling at the Olympic games, and as 

 often at the Pythian, and commanded the army 

 which defeated the Sybarites in 511. On one 

 iH'i-a-ion he is said to have carried a live ox upon 

 bis shoulders through the stadium of Olympia, and 

 afterwards to have eaten the whole of it in one 

 day ; and on another, to have upheld the pillars of 

 a house in which P\ tliagoras and his scholars were 

 assembled, so as to give them time to make their 

 escape when the house was falling. In old age he 

 lost nis life through too great confidence in his own 

 strength, in attempting to split up a tree, which 

 i-l. .-.-.I upon his hands, and held him fast until he 

 was devoured by wolves. 



MilrH. or MII.KKA, a Portuguese silver coin 

 and money of account, contains 1000 rees, and is 

 valued at 4s. 5d. sterling. The coin is commonly 

 known in Portugal as the rerun, or 'crown,' and 

 is (since 24th April 1835) the unit of the money- 

 B.ystern in that country. It is also used in Brazil. 

 Coins of the values of a half-coroa, or balf-milrei, 

 as well as the one -fifth, one-tenth, and one-twen- 

 tieth, are current in both countries as money of 

 account. 



Milt. See FISHES, Vol. IV. p. 654. 



MiltiadoH, a celebrated Athenian general, who 

 was tyrant of a colony in the Tliraoian Chersonesus, 

 took part with Darius Hystaspes against the 

 Scythians, and, when Attica was threatened by 



the great Persian invasion, was chosen one of the 

 ten generals. He prevailed upon the polemarch 

 Callimachus to give his casting vote in favour of 

 risking a battle, and when his turn came to com- 

 mand drew up his army on the famous field of 

 Marathon. The victory of the Athenians and one 

 thousand Plateaus over the Persian host of Datis 

 and Artaphernes is justly counted one of the 

 decisive battles of the world. Miltiar'es, being 

 entrusted anew with the command of an arma- 

 ment, made an attack on the island of Paros in 

 order to gratify a private enmity, but, failing in 

 the attempt, was on his return to Athens con- 

 demned to pay a tine of fifty talents as an indem- 

 nity for the expenses of the expedition. Being 

 unable to do this, he was thrown into prison, where 

 he died of a wound received at Paros. The fins 

 was exacted after his death from his son Cimon. 



Hilton. Joiix, after Shakespeare the grecatest 

 English poet, was Imrn in Bread Street, Cheapside, 

 on December 9, 1608. His father, John Milton, 

 was a prosperous scrivener, a Puritan but a 

 musician, and composer of several pieces much 

 admired by his contemporaries. He was descended 

 from a family of yeomen settled in Oxfordshire, 

 and had come to town upon being disinherited 

 for his religious convictions by nis father, a 

 Catholic recusant. He appears to have from the 

 first discerned the promise of his son, and to have 

 determined to give him the best education he 

 could. After studying under private tutors, young 

 Milton was admitted about 1620 into St Paul's 

 School, where he distinguished himself not only as 

 a scholar, but as a poet. In February 1625 he 

 entered Christ's College, Cambridge. His academi- 

 cal course was not wholly smooth ; he seems to 

 have been chastised not, as the legend says, 

 flogged by his tutor, and was certainly rusticated 

 for a short time in 1620. After his return, how- 

 ever, he went through the university course with 

 credit, graduating as Bachelor at the proper time, 

 and proceeding Master of Arts in July 1632. The 

 condition of the church, over which Laud then ruled 

 supreme, deterred the young Puritan from taking 

 orders ; he felt no vocation towards any other pro- 

 fession ; and at Horton, in Buckinghamshire, where 

 his father had retired upon the fortune he had 

 acquired in business, he settled quietly down with 

 the distinct purpose of making himself a poet by 

 study and self-discipline. His poetical genius had 

 already been attested by two noble productions, 

 the 'Hymn on the Nativity,' and 'At a Solemn 

 Music,' as well as much Latin verse of the highest 

 quality ; but it is remarkable how little stimulus 

 he seems to have felt to occasional composition. 

 During his six years' residence at Horton he pro- 

 duced, so far as known, only two English poems 

 of importance which can be ascribed to direct 

 poetical impulse from within, the Atletjro and the 

 renseroso. Comus was written at the instance 

 of his friend, the musician Henry Lawes, to cele- 

 brate Lord Bridgevvater's assumption of the 

 wardenship of the Welsh marches, and was per- 

 formed at Ludlow before a select assemblage in 

 September 1634. Lyrirlas was evoked by the 

 death of his friend, Edward King, shipwrecked 

 on his passage to Ireland in 1637. There is, per- 

 haps, not another instance in literature of a great 

 poet so entirely dependent upon circumstances for 

 inspiration, and, while meditating the highest 

 things, so content to bide his time in calm reliance 

 upon his ability to do what lie pleased when he 

 pleased. The four productions of this Horton 

 l>eriod were indeed of themselves sufficient to 

 place him in the first rank of English poets. Their 

 most individual characteristic is perhaps chastened 

 exuberance boundless poetical wealth severely 

 controlled, and splendidly displayed without lavish- 



