MILNER 



3809 



MILTON 



fish and produce. The annual value of all prod- 

 ucts is about $5,000,000. The Federal building, 

 library and hospital are prominent buildings. 

 North of the city is Union Lake Park, along 

 the shore of an attractive artificial lake two and 

 a half miles long and a mile wide. The city 

 received its name from its industrial mills. It 

 was incorporated in 1801 and was chartered as 

 a city in 1886. The commission form of gov- 

 ernment was adopted in 1913. L.R.H. 



MIL ' NER , ALFRED, first Viscount ( 1854- ) , 

 an English official whose name is associated 

 especially with the history of British coloniza- 

 tion in South Africa. He was born at Bonn, 

 Germany, and was educated at Tubingen, at 

 King's College, London, and at Balliol College, 

 Oxford. Early in his career he served as a 

 journalist under John Morley and William T. 

 Stead, but his first public office was that of 

 private secretary to the Chancellor of the Ex- 

 chequer (1887-1889). Between 1889 and 1892 

 he held the office of Under-Secr*etary for Fi- 

 nance in Egypt, and on his return to England 

 in the latter year he became chairman of the 

 Board of Inland Revenue. 



His appointment, in 1897, as High Commis- 

 sioner for South Africa and governor of the 

 Cape of Good Hope, was the beginning of a 

 distinguished career in British South Africa. 

 During the troubled period before the outbreak 

 of the Boer War (see SOUTH AFRICAN WAR), 

 Milner showed himself one of the clearest- 

 minded and most reliable officials in the Brit- 

 ish service, and in 1901, while the war was still 

 in progress, he was appointed governor of the 

 Transvaal and Orange River colonies. He con- 

 tinued in office until 1905, when failing health 

 compelled his retirement. In the words of a 

 contemporary official, "He laid deep and strong 

 the foundation upon which a united South 

 Africa would arise to become one of the great 

 states of the Empire." The esteem in which he 

 was held was evidenced by a public address of 

 appreciation, signed by over 370,000 persons, 

 which was presented to him after his return to 

 England. The title of Viscount was conferred 

 on him in 1901. Lord Milner is the author of 

 England in Egypt and The Nation and the 

 Empire. 



MILREIS, mil' rase, or mil'rees, the name of 

 a coin and unit of the monetary system in 

 Portugal and Brazil. It is divided into 1,000 

 reis. In Portugal it is known as the crown, or 

 coroa. In the money of the United States and 

 Canada the milreis of Portugal is worth about 

 $1.08; that of Brazil, fifty-five cents. It would 

 239 



therefore require about fifty-two of the reis of 

 Portugal to purchase in the United States or 

 Canada a commodity valued at five cents. See 

 COINS, FOREIGN. 



MILTIADES, milti'adeez, ( ? -500 B.C.), an 

 Athenian general who won the great and deci- 

 sive battle at Marathon (which see). He first 

 appears in history as tyrant of the Chersonese, 

 and about 512 B. c. accompanied Darius on his 

 Scythian expedition. When the Persians in- 

 vaded Greece in 490 B. c. he became one of ten 

 generals of the Athenian army chosen to resist 

 the Persian invasion of Attica, each of the ten 

 to command one day at a time. On the* day 

 of his command he particularly distinguished 

 himself by winning at Marathon. In the fol- 

 lowing year the victorious general asked Athens 

 for a fleet of seventy vessels, and made an at- 

 tack on the island of Paros in order to gratify 

 a personal revenge. He was wounded in this 

 attack, and when its object became known he 

 was impeached and ordered to pay fifty talents 

 fine. As a talent represented in modern money 

 a sum ranging from $1,700 to $2,000, it was a 

 heavy penalty; being unable to pay he was 

 sent to prison, where he died of his wound, and 

 his son, Cimon, subsequently paid the fine. 



MIL'TON, JOHN (1608-1674), an English 

 poet and political pamphleteer, author of the 

 most-honored poem in English literature, one of 

 the world's great epics Paradise Lost. Proba- 

 bly no one has better expressed the world's ap- 

 preciation of this master of sublime and ideal- 

 istic verse than Wordsworth in his inspired 

 lines 



Thy soul was like a star and dwelt apart ; 

 Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the 



sea 



Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free ; 

 So didst thou travel on life's common way 

 In cheerful godliness : and yet thy heart 

 The lowliest duties on herself did lay. 



Milton was born on December 9, 1608, in 

 London, where his father, a musical composer 

 and a man of considerable learning, was estab- 

 lished as a scrivener (a kind of notary). The 

 boy's early instruction was received from his 

 father and from private tutors until, at the age 

 of twelve, he entered Saint Paul's School. Here 

 he studied Latin, Greek, French, Italian and 

 Hebrew and became especially familiar with 

 the poetry of Spenser, from whom he later ac- 

 knowledged that much of his inspiration was 

 drawn. By 1625 he was ready for admission 

 into Christ's College, Cambridge, and for seven 

 years remained at the university, devoting him- 

 self chiefly to the study of literature and prp- 



