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MILNER-MILTIADES.

was appointed agent in England to the Irish Catholic hierarchy. His solicitude for the interests of religion in both countries induced him to take a journey to Rome in 1814, and he remained there about 12 months. In 1818, he published a treatise entitled the End of Religious Controversy, containing a defence of those articles of the Catholic faith usually regarded as objectionable by Protestants. This was succeeded by his Vindication of the End of Religious Controversy against the Exceptions of the Bishop of St. David's and the reverend Richard Grier; and a Parting Word to Reverend R. Grier; with a Brief Notice of Doctor Samuel Parr's Posthumous Letter to Doctor Milner. His death took place in 1826.

MILO; an island in the Greek Archipelago; the ancient Melos. (See Melos.)

MILO, a native of Crotona, in Italy, was a scholar of Pythagoras, and one of the most celebrated Grecian athletes. He bore off the prize six times in the Olympic games. Of his prodigious strength many instances are cited. When the temple in which Pythagoras was teaching his pupils was on the point of falling, Milo seized the main pillar, and delayed the destruction of the edifice until all present had escaped. He once carried a bull to the sacrifice on his shoulders, and killed it with a blow of his fist. His strength, however, was the cause of his death. Seeing in a forest a strong trunk of a tree, which it had been in vain attempted to split with wedges, he determined to pull it asunder; but his strength was insufficient. The wedges which had kept the cleft open had dropped out, and he remained with his hands fastened in the fissure. No one coming to his assistance, he was devoured by wild beasts. According to the tradition of the Pythagoreans, Milo was pursued to his house in Crotona by Cylo, shut up, and burned.

MILORADO WITCH, Michael Andreewitch, count of, a distinguished Russian officer, was born in 1770; served in 1787 against the Turks, in 1794 against the

Poles ; rose rapidly; commanded, in 1799, the vanguard of Suwarrow's army in Italy, as major-general; fought, in 1805, as lieutenant-general in the battle of Austerlitz. In 1808, he fought victoriously against the Turks, and, in 1812, organized the first corps de reserve, and led it to the main army before the battle of Mosaisk. He was of great service during this whole campaign against the French, as also in the succeeding war in 1813. He contributed essentially to the victory of the allies

at Culm (q. v.), commanding, under the grand-prince Constantine, a corps de reserve, consisting of Prussian grenadiers and cuirassiers, and the Russian and Prussian guards. In the battle of Leipsic, he was again active, and marched with the armies into France. After the peace, he was appointed military commandant of St. Petersburg. In the insurrection of the troops, in 1825, at the ascension of the emperor Nicholas, he was killed by a pistol-shot. As an active commander of vanguards he had few equals.

MILTIADES; an Athenian general, who lived about B. C. 500. He had already successfully established an Athenian colony in the Chersonesus, and subjected sev eral islands in the Egean to the dominion of his country, when Darius, at the head of a formidable army, undertook the subjugation of Greece. Miltiades, Aristides and Themistocles animated the Athenians, disheartened by the superior numbers of the enemy, to resistance. Each of the 10 tribes placed 1000 men under the direction of a leader. This little army advanced to the plains of Marathon (B. C. 490), where 1000 foot soldiers, sent by their allies the Platæans, joined them. Miltiades was in favor of an attack; Aristides and some of the other generals supported him; others, on the contrary, wished to wait for the auxiliaries from Lacedæmon. The general-in-chief (polemarch), Callimachus, however, concur red with the proposal of Miltiades, and the attack was determined upon. The chief command, which belonged to all the generals alternately, was unanimously conferred on Miltiades, who nevertheless made no use of it, but waited for the day which regularly called him to the head of the army. He then drew up his troops at the foot of a mountain in a wooded plain, to impede the action of the enemy's cavalry. The Platæans occupied the left wing; Callimachus commanded the right, and Aristides and Themistocles the centre of the army. Miltiades himself was in every part where his presence was neces sary. The Greeks began the attack at full speed; the Persians defended themselves with coolness, but with obstinacy, until, after a contest of several hours, both their wings gave way. In the cen tre, Datis, the Persian general, with his best troops, pressed Aristides and Themistocles hard; but being attacked in the rear by the Greeks, he was compelled to forego his advantages. The rout was now general. Those who escaped the sword were obliged to flee to the waves;

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MILTIADES-MILTON.

these, many fell into the hands of the Greeks. The Persians lost 6400 men, the Athenians 192. Miltiades was himself wounded. Glorious as this victory was, it would have been fatal to Athens, had it not been for the activity of Miltiades. Datis determined to fall upon Athens in his retreat, and his fleet had already passed cape Sunium, when Miltiades, receiving information of it, immediately put his troops in motion, and arrived under the walls of the city in time to compel the enemy to return to the coast of Asia. Miltiades was then highly honored, but was soon both envied and persecuted. His enemies represented that he might easily be tempted to possess himself of absolute power. An unsuccessful enterprise, of which he was the projector, facilitated their success. He had desired that a fleet of 70 ships should be placed at his disposal, and promised, by means of it, to put the Athenians in possession of great wealth and advantages. His design was probably to plunder some of the Persian cities on the coasts, and to punish those islands of the Ægean sea which had taken part with the Persians; but he failed in his attack on Paros, and was compelled to refund the expenses of the expedition, and died of his wounds in prison.

MILTON, John, one of the most eminent of English poets, sprang from an ancient family, formerly proprietors of Milton, near Thame, in Oxfordshire. His grandfather, who was under ranger of the forest of Shotover, being a zealous Roman Catholic, disinherited his son, the father of Milton, for becoming a Protestant, on which account he was obliged to quit his studies at Oxford, and settle in London as a scrivener. This gentleman, who was a good classical scholar, and remarkable for his skill in music, had two sons and a daughter: John, the poet, Christopher, who became a judge in the court of common pleas, and Anne, who married Edward Phillips, secondary at the crown office. John Milton was born at his father's house in Bread-street, December 9, 1608. He received his early education from a learned minister of the name of Young, and was afterwards placed at St. Paul's school, whence he was removed, in his seventeenth year, to Christ's college, Cambridge, where he graduated M.A, and distinguished himself by the purity and elegance of his Latin versification. The original purpose of Milton was to enter the church; but his dislike to subscription and to oaths, which, in his opinion, required what he termed

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"an accommodating conscience," prevented the fulfilment of this intention. On leaving college, therefore, he repaired to his father's house, who, having retired from business, had taken a residence at Horton, in Buckinghamshire. Here he passed five years in a study of the best Greek and Roman authors, and in the composition of some of his finest miscellaneous poems, including his Allegro and Penseroso, Comus and Lycidas. That his learning and talents had by this time attracted considerable attention, is proved by the production of Comus, at the solicitation of the Bridgewater family, which was performed at Ludlow castle, in 1634, by some of its youthful members; as also by his Arcades, part of an entertainment, performed before the countess-dowager of Derby, in the same manner, at Harefield. In 1638, having obtained his father's consent to travel, he visited Paris, where he was introduced to Grotius, and thence proceeded successive ly to Florence, Rome, and Naples, in which latter capital he was kindly entertained by Manso, marquis of Villa, the patron of Tasso. His general reception in Italy was also highly complimentary, although he would not disguise his religious opinions. After remaining abroad for fifteen months, he returned to England, giving up his intention of visiting Sicily and Greece, in consequence of accounts of the state of affairs of his own country. "I esteemed it dishonorable," he writes, "for me to be lingering abroad, even for the improvement of my mind, while my fellow-citizens were contending for their liberty at home." He settled in the metropolis, and undertook the education of his two nephews, the sons of his sister, Mrs. Phillips. Other parents being also induced by his high character to apply to him, he engaged a house and garden in Aldersgate-street, and opened an academy for education. However engrossed by tuition, he soon found time to mingle in the controversial struggles of the day, and published four treatises relative to church government, which produced him antagonists in bishop Hall and archbishop Usher. A fifth production followed, entitled Reasons of Church Government urged against Prelacy, in which he promises to undertake something, but yet he knew not what, which "might be of use and honor to his country;" a calm anticipation of great performance, which he amply redeemed by his Paradise Lost. About this time, his father, who was disturbed

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in his residence by the king's troops, came to reside with his son John, who, in 1643, united himself in marriage with Mary, daughter of Richard Powel, Esq., a magistrate in Oxfordshire. In more than one respect, this was an unsuitable connexion; for the father of the lady being a zealous royalist, who practised the jovial hospitality of the country gentlemen of that party, the residence of her husband so disgusted the bride, that in less than a month, under the pretence of a visit, she left him, and remained for the rest of the summer with her parents. His letters and messages for her to return home being treated with neglect, Milton at length became incensed, and regarding her conduct as a desertion of the marriage contract, he sought to punish it by repudiation. To this matrimonial disagreement is to be attributed his treatises, the Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce; the Judgment of Martin Bucer concerning Divorce; and Tetrachordon, or Exposition upon the four chief Places in Scripture which treat of Marriage. The Presbyterian assembly of divines, then sitting at Westminster, alarmed at this reasoning, had the author called up before the house of lords, which, however, instituted no process. Convinced by his own arguments, Milton began to pay attention to a young lady-a step which alarmed the parents of his wife, who, having become obnoxious to the ruling powers, had need of the good offices of their son-in-law with his party. Thus disposed, they surprised him into an interview with Mrs. Milton, whom, on her expression of penitence, he not only received again with affection, but also took her parents and brothers, in the most generous manner, into his own house. He continued to employ his pen on public topics, and, in 1644, published his celebrated Tractate on Education. The Presbyterians, then in power, having continued the subsisting restraints upon the press, he also printed, in the same year, his Areopagitica, a Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing, a spirited and energetic defence of a free press. In 1645, he published his juvenile poems, in Latin and English, including, for the first time, the Allegro and Penseroso. Milton's notions of the origin and end of government carried him to a full approbation of the trial and execution of Charles I, which he sought to justify in a tract, entitled the Tenure of Kings and Magistrates. Even in the title-page he asserts the right to put "a tyrant or

wicked king” to death on due conviction, "by any who possess the power," should the ordinary magistrates have no means to do so. He farther employed his pen in the same cause by the composition of a History of England, of which, however, he had only completed six books, when he was interrupted, by being nominated Latin secretary to the new council of state. He had scarcely accepted the appointment, when he was requested to answer the famous book, attributed to Charles I, entitled Ikon Basilike. This task he accomplished in a work, which he called Iconoclastes, or the Image breaker, which is considered by many writers as one of the ablest of his political tracts. His celebrated controversy with Salmasius soon after followed, which originated in the latter's defence of Charles I, and of monarchs, under the title of Defensio Regis, written at the instigation of the exiled Charles II. Milton entitled his reply, Defensio pro Populo Anglicano. It was published in 1651, and though tainted with party virulence and the discreditable personal acrimony which distinguished the controversies of the times, exhibits a strain of fervid eloquence, which completely overwhelmed the great but inadequate powers of his opponent. He acquired by this production a high reputation both at home and abroad, and was visited on the occasion by all the foreign ambassadors then in London; he also received from the government a present of £1000. He, however, bought this triumph dear, as an affection of the eyes, previously produeed by intense study, terminated, as his physicians predicted, in an irremediable gutta serena, owing to his exertions on this occasion. It is unnecessary to observe how nobly and feelingly he has alluded to his blindness in more than one passage of his exalted poetry. His loss of sight did not, however, impede his facility of composition, and in 1652 he wrote a second Defence of the People of England, against an attack by Du Moulin, under the name of More, similar to that of Salmasius. In 1652, Milton lost his wife, who had borne him three daughters, and soon after married another, who died in childbed the same year. To divert his grief for this loss, he resumed his History of England, and also made some progress in a Latin dictiona ry, and still composed much of the Latin correspondence of his office. On the death of Cromwell, he employed his pen with great alacrity to check the increasing

feeling in favor of the restoration.

MILTON.

On the restoration, Milton took refuge for some time in the house of a friend. His Defences of the People and Iconoclastes were called in, and ordered to be burnt; but the author was reported to have absconded; and in the act of indemnity which followed, his name formed no exception. He appears, however, to have been some time in the custody of the sergeant-at-arms, but was at length discharged, as it is said, owing to the friendly interposition of sir William Davenant, who had received similar kind offices from Milton, when endangered by his adherence to the royal cause. In reduced circumstances, and under the discountenance of power, he now removed to a private residence, near his former house in the city, and, his infirmity requiring female aid, was led, in his fifty-fourth year, to take, as a third wife, Elizabeth Minshull. He now resumed the poetical studies which he had for some years laid aside, and, left in repose to meditate upon the lofty ideas that filled his mind, produced his immortal Paradise Lost, which was finished in 1665, and first printed in 1667, in a small 4to. The sum which he obtained for it was five pounds, with a contingency of fifteen dependent upon the sale of two more impressions, the copyright, however, remaining his own. Paradise Lost long struggled with bad taste and political prejudices, before it took a secure place among the few productions of the human mind which continually rise in estimation, and are unlimited by time or. place. In 1670 appeared his Paradise Regained, which he is said to have preferred to its predecessor. With Paradise Regained, appeared the tragedy of Samson Agonistes, composed upon the ancient model, and abounding in moral and descriptive beauties, but exhibiting little pure dramatic talent, either in the developement of plot or delineation of character, and never intended for the stage. In 1672, he composed a system of logic, after the manner of Ramus; and the following year again entered the field of polemics, with a Treatise of True Religion, Heresy, Schism, Toleration, and the best Means of Preventing the Growth of Popery. A publication of his familiar epistles, in Latin, and of some academical exercises, occupied the last year of his life, which repeated fits of the gout were now rapidly bringing to a close. He sank tranquilly under an exhaustion of the vital powers in No

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vember, 1674, when he had nearly completed his sixty-sixth year. His remains, with a numerous and splendid attendance, were interred in the church of Cripplegate, where the elder Samuel Whitbread has erected a monument to his memory. Dr. Sprat, bishop of Rochester, as dean of Westminster, denied him a monument in the abbey, where, however, in 1737, one was erected to his memory by auditor Benson. Milton was distinguished in his youth for personal beauty; his habits of life were those of a student and philosopher, being strictly sober and temperate; his chief relaxations consisted of music and conversation. His temper was serene and cheerful; and although warm and acrimonious in controversy, he appears to have indulged no private enmities, and to have been civil and urbane in the ordinary in- ́ tercourse of society. Of the sublimity of the genius, and the depth and variety of the learning of Milton, there can be no difference of opinion; and in respect to the first, his own countrymen, at least, will scarcely admit that he has ever been equalled. Had he never even written Paradise Lost, his Allegro, Penseroso, and Comus, must have stamped him a poet in the most elevated sense of the word. In his prose writings his spirit and vigor are also striking, and his style, although sometimes harsh and uncouth, is pregnant with energy and imagination. Moving in the ranks of party himself, no man's fame has been more rancorously attacked than that of Milton, by political animosity; but after all the deductions it has been able to make, as a man of genius he will ever rank among the chief glories of the English nation. The best editions of the poetical works of Milton are those of Newton, Hawkins and Todd (6 vols., 8vo., with his life in one volume). His prose works have been published by Symmonds, with an account of his life (7 vols., 8vo.) Thomas Warton published an edition of the minor poems with a valuable commentary. In 1825, an unpublished work on the Christian Doctrine was discovered among some state papers, and published in the original Latin, and in an English translation, by Mr. Sumner, a royal chaplain. This publication led to a new discussion, not only of the theological tenets, but of the general merits of Milton, in the English and American periodical works of the time. The most celebrated treatises thus produced were the one in the Edinburgh

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Review by Mr. Macaulay, and the one in the Christian Examiner (Boston) by the Rev. Dr. Channing.

MIMES (, imitation). The Greeks gave this name to short plays, or theatrical exhibitions, the object of which was to represent some action of a simple nature. They consisted merely of detached scenes, generally of a comic character, and often of a dialogue composed extemporaneously; they were commonly exhibited at feasts,but appear to have also been occasionally represented on the stage. The mimes of Sophron of Syracuse were a kind of comic delineations of real life in rhythmical Doric prose, which Theocritus imitated in his Idyls. Among the Romans, the mimes were, at first, irregular comedies, calculated to amuse the people by their broad humor; they afterwards assumed a more artificial form. The actors who performed them were also called mimes, and differed from the pantomimes (q.v.), who represented every thing by action. Decimus Laberius (50 B. C.) and Publius Syrus, his contemporary, were the principal mimographers, or authors of mimes. (See Ziegler, De Mimis Romanorum, Göttingen, 1789.)

MIMIC. (See Pantomime.)

MIMNERMUS; the name of an ancient Greek poet and musician, known, according to Athenæus, as the inventor of the pentameter measure in versification. Strabo assigns Colophon as the city of his birth, which took place about six centuries before the commencement of the Christian era. Horace speaks in the highest terms of his love elegies, which he prefers to the writings of Callimachus, while Propertius places him before Homer in the expression of the softer passions. Both he and his mistress, Nanno, are said to have been musicians by profession, and to have been celebrated for their performance on the flute, especially, according to Plutarch, in a particular air, called Kradias, used at the Athenian sacrifices. A few fragments only of his lyric poems have come down to posterity, as preserved by Stobæus; they are, however, of a character which leads us to suppose that the high reputation he enjoyed was not unmerited. Nothing is known of the time or manner of his death. (See Schönemann's De Vita et Carm. Mimnermi, Göttingen, 1824.)

MIMOSA. (See Sensitive Plant.)

MINA, don Francisco Espoz y, one of the most distinguished of the Spanish patriots, is a native of Navarre, and was born, in 1782, at a small village about two miles from Pampeluna. By some he has been

represented as the son of a peasant, but he is, in fact, of a family of some consequence. During the war against the French, his nephew, don Xavier Mina, then a student at the university of Saragossa, raised a guerilla corps, with which he performed several spirited exploits. Xavier being taken prisoner, in March, 1810, the command of the corps was transferred to Francisco, who soon rendered his name the terror of the French. Brave, active, indefatigable, full of resources, and possessed of admirable presence of mind, he incessantly harassed and wore down the strength of the enemy, not only in Navarre, but in the neighboring provinces of Alava and Arragon. Such was the rapidity of his movements that nothing could escape him. The loss which the French sustained in this kind of warfare was incalculable, while his was trifling, as the accuracy of the intelligence which he received prevented him from being ever surprised; and when he was far outnumbered, his troops disbanded by signal, and reunited again in a few hours, and resumed offensive operations. It was in vain that, resolving to exterminate his division, the enemy poured 25,000 men into Navarre. He not only stood his ground, but eventually remained master of the province; he was, in fact, often denominated the king of Navarre. In 1811, the regency gave him the rank of colonel; in 1812, that of brigadier-general, and soon after, that of general. His force, in 1813, consisted of 11,000 infantry and 2500 cavalry, and with this he coöperated in the blockade of Pampeluna, and recovered Saragossa, Monzon, Tafalla, Jaca, and various other places. When the peace was concluded, he was besieging St. Jean Pied de Port. After having put his division into quarters, he went to Madrid, and had the mortification to find that he had been laboring only for the reestablishment of despotism. Disgusted with the conduct of Ferdinand, and having fruitlessly remonstrated with him, he endeavored to persuade the other Spanish generals in the capital to join with him and make an ef fort in the cause of freedom; but his efforts were rendered abortive by the influence of the priesthood. Mina then hastened to Navarre, with the intention of putting himself at the head of his division; but he found that the new captain-general had dismissed the troops which composed it. He, however, gained over the garrison of Pampeluna, and was on the point of proclaiming the constitution, when his plan was frustrated by the pusillanimity of

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