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6 vols. 12mo. And various philosophical

discourses.

MILO, a celebrated athlete of Crotona in Italy. It is said that he carried on his shoulders a young bullock four years old, for above forty yards, and afterwards killed it with one blow of his fist, and ate it up in one day. He was seven times crowned at the Pythian games, and six at Olympia. Ovid. Cic. &c.2. T. Annius, a native of Lanuvium, who at tempted to obtain the consulship at Rome. Clodins the tribune opposed his views, yet Milo would have succeeded had not an unfortunate rencontre taken place between his suite and that of Clodius as he was going to the country. Clodius and eleven of his servants were killed, and the body of the murdered tribane was carried to Rome and exposed to public view. Cicero undertook the defence of Milo, but with no effect; he was condenined and banished to Massilia.-3. A general of the forces of Pyrrhus. He was made governor of Tarentum, and that he might be reminded of his duty to his sovereign, Pyrrhus sent him as a present a chain, which was covered with the skin of Nicias the physician, who had perfidiously offered the Romans to poison his royal master for a sum of money. MILO, an island of the Archipelago, about 50 miles in circumference. It has one of the largest and most commodious harbours of the Mediterranean, which serves as a retreat for all vessels that go to, or come from, the Levant. The inhabitants, who are all Greeks, except the cadi, are good sailors. Here are two bishops, one of the Greek, and the other of the Latin church.

MILO, the capital of the above island, is situated on the eastern part of it, and contains about 5000 inhabitants. It is 60 miles N. of Candia. Lat. 36. 41 N. Lon. 25. 6 E.

MILT, in anatomy, a popular name for the spleen. See ANATOMY.

MILT, or MELT, in natural history, the soft roe in fishes; thus called from its yielding, by expression, a whitish juice resembling milk. (See ROE.) The milt is properly the seed or spermatic part of the male fish. The milt of a carp is reckoned a choice bit. It consists of two long whitish irregular bodies, cach included in a very thin fine membrane. M. Petit considers them as the testicles of the fish wherein the seed is preserved; the lower part, next the anus, he takes for the vesiculæ seminales.

To MILT. v. a. (from the noun.) To impregnate the roe or spawn of the female fish.

MILT-WASTE. See ASPLENIUM. MILTHORP, a port-town of Westmoreland, at the mouth of the Can, five miles from Kendal. It is the only sea-port in the county; and goods are brought hither in small vessels from Grange in Lancashire. Here are two paper-mills. It has a market on Friday, and a fair on old May-day; and there is a good stone bridge over the river Betha, which runs through the town.

MILTENBURG, a town of Franconia, in VOL. VIH.

Germany, 20 miles S. E. of Aschaffenburg.

Lat. 49, 46 N. Lon. 9. 19 E.

MILTIADES. There were twwo of this name recorded in ancient history, both Athenians; one the son of Cypselus, the other the celebrated captain, the son of Cimon, who made himself absolute in the Chersonesus, whither he was sent by the Athenians, and who in some time after signalised himself so much by the victory at Marathon over the Persian army. (See MARATHON.) Some time after this battle Miltiades was intrusted with a fleet of 70 ships, and ordered to punish those islands which had revolted to the Persians. He was successful at first, but a sudden report that the Persian fleet was coming to attack him changed his operations as he was besieg ing Paros. He raised the siege and returned to Athens, where he was accused of treason, and particularly of holding correspondence with the enemy. A wound which he had received before Paros detained him at home from making his defence, and his enemies taking advantage of his absence, he was condemned to death, but the rigour of the sentence was retracted on the recollection of his great services to the Athenians; he was put into prison till he had paid a fine of 50 talents to the state. His inability detained him in confinement, and soon after his wounds became incurable, and he died about 489 years before the Christian era. His body was ran somed by his son Cimon, who was obliged to borrow and pay the 50 talents, to give his father a decent burial.

MILTON, an ancient town of Dorsetshire, having a market on Tuesdays. This place was famous for its abbey, which is now in ruins. It is 113 miles W. by S. of London.

MILTON, a town of Kent, having a market on Saturdays. It is seated on a creek of the river Medway, near the isle of Sheppey, and is much noted for the excellence of its oysters. It is governed by a constable, and is 42 miles E. of London.

MILTON (John), the most illustrious of the English poets, was descended of a genteel family, seated at a place of their own name, viz. Milton, in Oxfordshire. He was born December 9, 1608, and received his first rudiments of education under the care of his parents, assisted by a private tutor. He afterwards passed some time at St. Paul's school, London; in which city his father had settled, being engaged in the business of a scrivener. At the age of 17 he was sent to Christ's college, Cambridge, where he made a great progress in all parts of academical learning, but his chief delight was in poetry. In 1628, he proceeded bachelor of arts, having performed his exercise for it with great applause. His father designed him for the church; but the young gentleman's attachment to the muses was so strong, that it became impossible to engage him in any other pursuits. In 1632 he took the degree of master of arts; and having now spent as much time in the university as became a person who determined not to engage in engage

any of the three professions, he left the college, greatly regretted by his acquaintance, but highly displeased with the usual method of training up youth there for the studyof divinity; andbeing much out of humour with the public administration of ecclesiastical affairs, he grew dissatisfied with the established form of church government, and disliked the whole plan of education practised in the university. His parents, who how dwelt at Horton, near Colnbrook, in Buckinghamshire, received him with unabated affection, notwithstanding he had thwarted their views of providing for him in the church; and they amplyindulged him in hisloveofretirement, wherein he enriched his mind with the choicest stores of Grecian and Roman literature: and his poems of Comus, L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, and Lycidas, all written at this time, would have been sufficient, had he never produced any thing more considerable, to have transmmitted his fame to latest posterity. However, he was not so absorbed in his studies as not to make frequent excursions to London; neither did so much excellence pass unnoticed among his neighbours in the country, with the most distinguished of whom he sometimes chose to relax his mind, and improve his acquaintance with the world as well as with books.-After five years spent in this manner, he obtained his father's permission to travel for farther improvement. At Paris he became acquainted with the celebrated Hugo Grotius: and from thence travelling into Italy, he was every where caressed by persons of the most eminent quality and learning.

Upon his return home, he set up a genteel academy in Aldersgate-street.-In 1641 he began to draw his pen in defence of the presbyterian party, and the next year he married the daughter of Richard Powell, Esq. of ForestHill in Oxfordshire. This lady, however, whether from a difference on account of party, her father being a zealous royalist, or some other cause, soon thought proper to return to her relations; which so incensed her husband, that he resolved never to take her again, and wrote and published several tracts in defence of the doctrine and discipline of divorce. He even made his addresses to another lady; but this incident proved the means of a reconciliation with Mrs. Milton.

In 1644 he wrote his Tract upon Education; and the restraint on the liberty of the press being continued by act of parliament, he wrote boldly and nobly against that restraint. In 1645 he published his juvenile poems; and about two years after, on the death of his father, he took a smaller house in High Holborn, the back of which opened into Lincoln'sInn Fields. Here he quietly prosecuted his studies, till the fatal catastrophe and death of Charles I.; on which occasion he published his Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, in justification of the fact. He was now taken into the service of the commonwealth, and made Latin secretary to the council of state, who resolved neither to write to others abroad, nor to receive any answers, except in the Latin tongue,

which was common to them all. The famous Exar Batinian coming out about the same time, our author, by command, wrote and published his Iconoclastes the same year. It was also, by order of his masters, backed by the reward of 10007. that in 1651 he published his celebrated piece, entitled ProPopulo Anglicano Defensio. "A Defence of the People of England, in answer to Salmasius's Defence of the King;" which performance spread his fame over all Europe. He now dwelt in a pleasant house, with a garden, in Petty France, Westminster, opening into St. James's Park. In 1652 he buried his wife, who died not long after the delivery of her fourth child; and about the same time he also lost his eye-sight, by a gutta serena, which had been growing upon him many years.

Cromwell took the reins of government into his own hands in the year 1653; but Milton still held his office. His leisure hours be employed in prosecuting his studies; wherein he was so far from being discouraged by the loss of his sight, that he even conceived hopes this misfortune would add new vigour to his genius; which, in fact, seems to have been the case. Thus animated, he again ventured upon matrimony: his second lady was the daughter of Captain Woodstock of Hackney; she died in child-bed about a year after. On the deposition of the protector, Richard Cromwell, and on the return of the long parliament, Milton being still continued secretary, he appeared again in print, pleading for a farther reformation of the laws relating to religion ; and, during the anarchy that ensued, he drew up several schemes for re-establishing the commonwealth, exerting all his faculties to prevent the return of Charles II. England's destiny, however, and Charles's good fortune, prevailing, our author chose to consult his safety, and retired to a friend's house in Bartholomewclose. A particular prosecution was intended against him; but the just esteem to which his admirable genius and extraordinary accomplishments entitled him had raised him so many friends, even among those of the opposite party, that he was included in the general amnesty.

This storm over, he married a third wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Mr. Minshall, a Cheshire gentleman; and not long after he took a house in the Artillery Walk leading to Bunhill-fields. This was his last stage: here he sat down for a longer continuance than he had been able to do any where; and though he had lost his fortune (for every thing belonging to him went to wreck at the Restoration), he did not lose his taste for literature, but continued his studies with almost as much ardour as ever; and applied himself particularly to the finishing his grand work, the Paradise Lost, one of the noblest poems that ever was produced by human genius. It was published in 1667, and his Paradise Regained came ont in 1670.-This latter work fell short of the excellence of the former production ; although, were it not for the transcendent merit of

Paradise Lost, the second composition would doubtless have stood foremost in the rank of English epic poems. After this he published many pieces in prose, for which we refer our readers to the edition of his Historical, Poetical, and Miscellaneous Works,printed by Millar,in 2 vols. 4to, in 1753.

In 1674 this great man paid the last debt to Bature at his house in Bunhill-fields, in the 6th year of his age; and was interred on the 12th of November, in the chancel of St. Giles's, Cripplegate. A decent monument was erected to his memory, in 1737, in Westminster abbey, by Mr. Benson, one of the auditors of the imprest. His person was remarkably handsome, but his constitution was tender.

Memoirs of the life of Milton have been ably written by Mr. Hayley, Dr. Symonds, and others: but one of the most interesting sketches of this kind, both as it regards biography and criticism, is that by Dr. Johnson. It displays the great powers, and unfortunately at the same time the great prejudices, of that learned man; yet we wish we had room to select more than two or three of its characteristic passages.

Pryden remarks that Milton has some flats among his elevations. But, says Johnson, this is only to say, that all the parts are not equal. In every work, one part must be for the sake of others; a palace must have passages; a poem must have transitions. It is no more to be required that wit should be always blazing, that that the sun should always stand at noon. In a great work there is a vicissitude of luminons and opaque parts, as there is in the world a succession of day and night. Milton, when he has expatiated in the sky, may be allowed sometimes to revisit earth; for what other author ever soared so high, or sustained his flight so long!"

Once more," Milton was naturally a thinker for himself, confident of his own abilities, and disdainful of help or hindrance: he did not refuse admission to the thoughts or images of his predecessors, but he did not seek them. From his contemporaries he neither courted nor received support; there is in his writings nothing by which the pride of other authors might be gratified, or favour gained; no exchange of praise, nor solicitations of support. His great works were performed under disconntenance, and in his blindness; but difficulties vanished at his touch: he was born for whatever is arduous; and Paradise Lost is not the greatest of heroic poems, only because it is not the first.”

Again, "The characteristic quality of his poen is sublimity. He sometimes descends to the elegant, but his element is the great. He can occasionally invest himself with grace, but his natural port is gigantic loftiness. He can please when pleasure is required; but it is his peculiar power to astonish.

"He seems to have been well acquainted with his own genius, and to know what it was that nature had bestowed upon him more bountifully than upon ethers, the power of dis

playing the vast, illuminating the splendid, exposing the awful, darkening the gloomy, and aggravating the dreadful: he therefore chose a subject on which too much could not be said, on which he might tire his fancy without the censure of extravagance.

"The appearances of nature, and the occurrences of life, did not satiate his appetite for greatness. To paint things as they are requires a minute attention, and employs the memory rather than the fancy. Milton's delight was to sport in the wide regions of possibility; reality was a scene too narrow for his mind. He sent his faculties out upon discovery, into worlds where only imagination can travel, and delighted to form new modes of existence, and furnish sentiment and action to superior beings, to trace the counsels of hell, or accompany the choirs of heaven."

Lastly, "In Milton every line breathes sanctity of thought, and purity of manners, except when the train of the narration requires the introduction of the rebellious spirits; and even they are compelled to acknowledge their subjection to God, in such a manner as excites reverence, and confirms piety."

MIME. 8. (pos.) A buffoon who practises gesticulations, either representative of some action, or merely contrived to raise mirth (B. Jonson).

To MIME. v. n. To play the mime (B. Jon.). MIMER. s. (from mime.) A mimic (Milt.). MIMIC. a. (mimicus, Latin.) Imitative (Swift).

MIMIC. s. (mimicus, Latin.) 1. A ludicrous imitator; a buffoon who copies another's act or manner (Prior). 2. A mean or servile imitator.

To MIMIC. v. a. (from the noun.) To imitate as a buffoon; to ridicule by a burlesque imitation (Granville).

MIMICAL. a. (mimicus, Latin.) Imita. tive; befitting a mimic; acting the mimic (Dryden).

MIMICALLY. ad. In imitation; in a mimical manner.

MIMICRY. 8. (from mimic.) Burlesque imitation (Spectator).

MIMNÈRMUS, a Greek poet and musician of Colophon in the age of Solon. He chiefly excelled in elegiac poetry, whence some have attributed the invention of it to him. In the expression of love, Propertius prefers him to Homer, as this verse shews:

Plus in amore valet Mimnermi versus Homero. Lib. i. Eleg. 9. v. 11. And Horace bears testimony to his abilities in describing that seducing passion: Si Mimnermus uti censet, sine amore jocisque Nil est jucundum, vivas in amore jocisque. Epist. vi. lib. i. v. 65.

If, as wise Mimnermus said, Life unblest with love and joy Ranks us with the senseless dead, Let these gifts each hour employ. Alluding to some much-admired lines of this

Greek poet, which have been preserved by branches and stem exudes the gum Arabic of Stobæus. the shops. See the Article ARABICUM GUM

Τις δε βίος, τι δε τερπνόν, απερ χρυσης Αφροδίλης, &c.

What is life and all its pride,
If love and pleasure be denied?
Snatch, snatch me hence, ye fates, whene'er

The am'rous bliss I cease to share.
Oh let us crop each fragrant flow'r
While youth and vigour give us pow'r:
For frozen age will soon destroy
The force to give or take a joy;
And then, a prey to pain and care,
Detested by the young and fair,
The sun's blest beams will hateful grow,
And only shine on scenes of woe.
MIMO/GRAPHER. s. (mimus and yeapw.)
A writer of farces.

MIMO'SA. Sensitive plant. In botany, a genus of the class polygamia, order monœcia. Calyx five-toothed; corol five-cleft; stamens five or more; style one; stigma truncate; legume various. Eighty-five species, scattered over the warm climates of the globe. They may be thus subdivided:

Å. Leaves simple.

B. Leaves simply-pinnate.

C. Leaves bigemminate, or tergeminate. D. Leaves conjugate, and also pinnate. E. Leaves doubly-pinnate. This subdivision embraces more than half the genus. The following are the chief species.

1. M. sensitiva. Common sensitive plant. Prickly partial leaflets two-pair; the innermost very small: flowers purple, in roundish heads, succeeded by broad, flat-jointed pods, in radiated clusters. The leaves and foot-stalks recede from the touch. A native of Brazil.

2. M. pudica. Bashful sensitive plant. Prickly; leaves somewhat digitate; stem bristly. Peculiarly sensitive to the approach of the hand, both in stalk and leaves. A native of Brazil.

3. M. viva. Lively mimosa. Unarmed; partial leaflets four pair, roundish; stem herbaceous, unarmed. A native of Jamaica; retaining the letters or name of a person for several minutes after such letters have been run over the leaves with a stick.

4. M. scandens. Cacoons, or Mafotoo wyth. Unarmed; leaves ending in a tendril; leaflets two pair. A native of both the Indies: its pod is eight or nine feet long, the largest and longest in botany, containing from ten to fifteen seeds.

5. M. catechu. Spines stipular; leaves many pair; glands of the partial ones solitary; spikes filiform, axillary, in pairs or threes, peduncled. A native of Hindustan, from which the drug called terra japonica is obtained by a decoction of the wood. See TERRA JAPONICA and CATECHU.

6. M. nilotica. Spines stipular, spreading; outer partial leaves separated by a gland; spikes globular, peduncled. A native tree of Arabia; about fifteen feet high, with a lupin-like pod, containing flattish brown seeds. From the

MI.

7. M. Senegal. Spines in threes, the middle one reflected; flowers in spikes. native of Arabia and Africa. The gum

A

Senegal exudes from it; which has a close resemblance to gum Arabic. See the article GUMMI SENEGALENSE.

The three last species are strictly acacias: the nilotic mimosa is the true acacia or Egyp tian thorn. But this genus in the Linnéan system comprehends as well the acacia and inga tribes, as the mimosas of other authors, all of which are too numerous to be particularly detailed.

The manner of propagating acacias is to sow their seeds in a hot-bed in spring; they will soon appear above the ground, and are then to be transplanted. For this purpose, another hot-bed must be prepared, into which must be plunged as many small pots as there is occasion for. These must be first filled with earth; and when they have stood twenty-four hours, this earth will be of a proper warmth. Then the plants are to be raised gently out of the first hot-bed, and planted one in the middle of each pot, and watered gently to settle the earth to their roots. The bed is then to be shaded with mats till they have taken root; and after this air must be given them, as they are able to bear it, by raising the glasses which cover the beds. There are two kinds, called the locust tree and the water acacia of Carolina, which, with the other hardier kinds, may be wholly uncovered in the hot-bed by midsummer. The first and second winter, these should be sheltered in a common hot-bed frame, till they are grown woody; and after this, they may be taken out of the pots in the spring of the year, and planted in the open ground, where they are intended to stand; which should always be in a wilderness or clump of trees, where they may be sheltered from the wind, the violence of which is otherwise apt to split them. When they are eight or ten feet high, they will make very vigorous shoots, which should be annually shortened, that the heads of the trees may not become open and naked. They love a loose and somewhat moist soil.

The other and tender kinds of acacia should be kept in the hot beds till July, and after this be exposed to the air by degrees, though the glasses should not be removed from them wholly for the first year. These must be set in a stove the first and second winters; but when they are grown woody, they will live in a good green-house, and may be exposed in summer, as myrtles, orange-trees, and the like. They must be very little watered in winter; especially those which shed their leaves. The tenderest kinds of all, which are the true Egyptian acacia, the branched-leafed acacia, with twisted pods, and the large four-leaved acacia with twisted pods, must have a hot-bed of tanner's bark, and be shifted into larger pots, as they increase in bulk. The earth for these must be somewhat sandy; and great care must

be taken not to give them too large pots. The first of these three may, when grown woody, be set in a common stove, among viburnums, and similar plants; but the other two must have a bark-stove in winter: nor should they be exposed to the open air in summer, at least till they are four or five years old. In winter, these are to have very little water; but in summer they require frequent refreshings.

The inga may be propagated by seeds, in the manner directed for the acacia, only that the plants being too tender to endure the open air of this country, must not be removed out of the stove, even in the warmest part of the year; but they are only preserved in curious gardens, for the sake of variety. The sensitive plant, or the mimosa, strictly so called, may be propagated by seeds in the same manher with the inga, and other natives of warm climates.

The sensitive plant is so denominated, from its remarkable property of receding from the touch, and giving signs, as it were, of animal life and sensation; this motion it performs by means of three distinct articulations, viz. of a single leaf with its pedicle, of the pedicle to its branch, and of the branch to the trunk, or main stem; the primary motion of all which is the closing of the two halves of the leaf on its rib; then the rib or pedicle itself closes; and if the motion with which the plant is moved be very strong, the very branches have the sensation propagated to them, and apply themselves to the main stem, as the simple leaves did before to their ribs, and these ribs to their branches; so that the whole plant, in this state, forms itself, from a very complexly branched figure, into a sort of straight, cylindrical one. MIMULUS, Monkey flower. In botany, a genus of the class didynamia, order angiospermia. Calyx five-toothed, prismatic; the upper lip folded back at the sides; capsule twocelled; many-seeded. Four species: natives of North or South America, with blue or yellow flowers.

MIMUSOP. In botany, a genus of the class octandria,order digynia. Calyx five-leaved; corolless: capsule one-celled; three-valved; seeds a few. Three species: herbs of Spain.

MINA, or MANEH, a species of money, which properly signifies one part or ounce. It is observed that this word occurs only in the books of Kings, Chronicles, Ezra, and Ezekiel. This prophet (xlv. 12.) tells us, that the minah or maneh was valued at 60 shekels, which in gold make of our English money about 543 pounds, and in silver alinost seven pounds. Thus for the Hebrew maneh. But the Greek or Attic mina, which is probably that mentioned in the books of the Maccabees and in the New Testament, is valued at 100 drachmæ, or about 21. 178. sterling. There was also a lesser mina, which was valued at 75 drachmæ.

MINACIOUS. a. (minax, Lat.) Full of

threats.

MINA/CITY. 8. (from minux, Lat.) Disposition to use threats.

MINAGNGHINIM, a pulsatile instru ment of music, among the Hebrews, which was a square table of wood fitted with a handle; over this table was stretched an iron chain, or hempen cord, passing through balls of wood or brass, which struck against the table when the instrument was shook, and occasioned a clear sound, which might be heard at a great distance.

MI'NATORY. a. (minor, Latin.) Threatening (Bacon).

To MINCE. v. a. (from minish.) 1. To cut into small parts (South). 2. To mention any thing scrupulously, by a little at a time; to palliate (Woodward). 3. To speak with affected softness; to clip the words (Shakspeare).

To MINCE. v. n. 1. To walk nicely by short steps (Pope). 2. To speak small and imperfectly (Dryden).

MINCHA, in the Jewish customs, offerings of meal, cakes, or biscuits, made in the temple of the Lord. The Seventy have sometimes preserved this word in their translation; but instead of mincha they read manaa, which doubtless was the received pronunciation in their time.

MINCHING HAMPTON, a town of Gloucestershire, 20 miles from Bath and Bristol, and near 90 from London, with a market on Tuesdays, and two fairs. The parish is pretty large, being bounded on the north by the Stroud, and on the south by the brook Avening; and has 12 hamlets belonging to it, with a common called Amberley. Here is a good large rectory church, built in form of a cross, and worth 2001. a-year. Near it are very large camps, with deep trenches; and near Dunkirk in this parish are fulling-mills.

MINCINGLY. ad. (from mince.) In small parts; not fully (Hooker).

MINCIUS, a river of the Transpadana; running from, or rather transmitted through, the Lacus Benacus, from north to south, into the Padus; but originally rising in the Rhetian Alps. Now Mincio or Menzo, running through the duchy of Mantua into the Po.

MIND. 8. (gemine, Saxon.) 1. The intelligent power (Shakspeare). 2. Intellectual capacity (Cowley). 3. Liking; choice; inclination; propension; affection (Hooker). 4, Thoughts; sentiments (Dryden). 5. Opinion (Granville). 6. Memory; remembrance.

To MIND. v. a. (from the noun.) 1. To mark; to attend (Roscommon). 2. To put in mind; to remind (Burnet).

To MIND. v. n. To incline; to be dis posed (Spenser).

MINDANAO, the largest of the Philippine Islands, in Asia, except Manilla. It is almost the only one that is not subject to Spain; its length being about 200 miles, and its breadth 150.

The inhabitants are of a very different description from those of the other Philippine Islands. Those of the inland country are supposed to be the ancient pagan inhabitants, whom the Mahometans, that possess the coasts, have driven up to the mountains. The air of

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