SPECTATOR'S LIBRARY.

BIOGRAPHY,

The Life of Isaac Milner. D.D.. F.R.S.. Dean of Carlisle, President of Queen's Col- lege. and Profe.sor of Mathematics in the University of Cambridge; comprising a portion of his Corre.poudence hitherto unp.iblished. By his Niece. Mary Milner Parker; Deigam. Cambridge. TRAWLS.

A Pedestrian Tour in Calabria and Sicily. By Arthur John Strutt. Newby. Ftc-rum Phineas Quiddy; or Sheer Industry. By John Poole, Esq., Author of "Pant Pry,'• " Little Pedlingtou," &c. In three volumes Coast's.

THE LIFE OF DR. MILNER.

ISAAC MILNER, a younger brother of the Church-historian, was rather a remarkable and influential man in his own day than likely to attract much attention from posterity. Gifted with great natu- ral sagacity—a " ponderous sense," as one of his admirers phrased it—and a constitutional activity, be made himself competently acquainted with many sciences, and a master of more than one. His abilities and acquirements being united with an unspotted character, a kind heart and a love of order, on high Tory principles in high Tory times, he received those good things with which our Church and Universities are not slow to reward decorous and " right-thinking " merit. Entering Queen's College in 1770, when twenty years old, ISAAC MILNER passed rapidly through all the grades of University-honours, and somewhat more slowly through the profits, from a living and a Fellowship, to the Presidentship of his College, the Professorship of Mathe- matics, and the Deanery of Carlisle. His position, first as a teacher of the professional and territorial aristocracy of the country, sub- sequently as an examiner of candidates for honours, and as the President of a College, made him widely looked up to by the rising generation of his own time, and gave him great influence over many. This was further extended by what may be called his religio-politico principles, Evangelism and opposition to the Slave- trade ; WILBERFORCE being a great friend of MILNER'S, and assign- ing to him the credit, humanly speaking, of his conversion. The Dean, moreover, till growing infirmities prevented him, kept him- self fully abreast with the current of the time ; preaching, contri- buting to scientific journals, standing forth as an active Univer- sity-man, mixing himself up by speech or writing with such puolic questions as he approved of, and editing the works of his brother.

But the influence of these things passes away with the memory of the generations that were personally touched by them. Dis- covering no new principle in science, producing no work that sup- plied a want or filled up a vacuum, rousing no great movement of society, and not standing forth as a leader in any of the con- flicting principles already in motion, Dr. Miusza's reputation is likely to get fainter and fainter as time rolls on. His connexion with his brother's works, (the closing part of the History being substantially his own,) and his life of that brother, will indeed keep him before the readers of a certain kind of church-history; and his own sermons may procure him a mummy-like preser- vation with students of theology. But the story of his early life will be the only point connected with Isaac MILNER that will attract much general regard hereafter : for though his career may not be one of the most striking illustrations( of the pursuit of know- ledge under difficulties, it at least exhibits indefatigable industry in turning opportunities to account. The exact condition of Isaac MILNER'S father is not known, or it was not flattering to tell it. He appears to have been in busi- ness at Leeds, and to have in some way suffered pecuniary loss from the Rebellion of '45. As long as he lived, however, he con- trived to give his children a good education, in despite of his mis- fortunes; but dying suddenly, when ISAAC was ten years old, the straitened circumstances of his mother compelled her to take the future Professor and President from school, to apprentice him to a weaver. At this grammar-school ISAAC had learned to construe OVID and SALLUST, and had begun the rudiments of Greek : he had also exhibited a spontaneous taste for mathematics, and con- structed a sort of sun-dial on a wall before he was nine years old. These tastes for study followed him to the loom; and when his brother JOSEPH, the historian, (who had been sent to college through the kindness of some friends and obtained the master- ship of a school at Hull,) proposed to take him as his usher, the young weaver was tound competent. "Joseph Milner requested the Reverend Myles Atkinson, the minister of St. Paul's Church, in that town, to examine into the qualifications of Isaac, to become his usher in the Grammar-school at Hull. Upon proceeding to the work-room in which Isaac Milner then laboured, Mr. Atkinson found him seated at his loom, with Tacitus and some Greek author lying by his side. Upon further examination, it appeared that, notwithstanding his long absence from school, and the interruption of his literary pursuits, his knowledge and his love of classical learning remained unimpaired. After a private interview with Mr. Atkinson, during %Lich the terms of the apprentice's emancipation were agreed upon, the master of the establishment entered the work-room,ond addressing young Milner, said to him, lease, lad, thou art off.' The delight exhibited by the youth, on bearing these words, was declared by Mr. Atkinson to be quite indescribable." His labours as an usher were dull; but he found his drudgery of permanent use to him, by the familiarity with the rules of grammar which it compelled him to acquire ; and in his declining years it was his delight to examine a classical friend on these rules, and chuckle at any want of readiness in the answers. His turn for mathematics did not require any stimulant ; and though it does not appear that he taught them to the pupils, his brother was accustomed to call upon him to solve any difficulties in algebra, &e. that arose m the school. In 1770, when IseLae was twenty, his brother sent him to college as -a slur. On this occasion both the President and the Historian are said to have walked from Leeds to Cam- bridge, with occasional lifts in a waggon. It is also said, that in fulfilling the servile duties then exacted from sizars, ISAAC upset a tureen of soup designed for the Fellows, and was rebuked for it : on which he exclaimed, in his broad Yorkshire dialect, " When I get into power; I will abolish this nuisance." And if he ever said so, he was as good as his word : on becoming President of his Col- lege, the degrading or at least the servile offices of the sizars were abrogated by his order.

" Ce n'est que le premier pas qui coute" is an extensive truth ; and when a man gets attached to any large professional body, (ex- cept perhaps medicine, now-a-days,) and has means of living, how- ever narrow, his progress in proportion to his abilities is pretty nearly certain, unless some defect of character or miscalculation of circumstances bars his way. Nothing of this kind occurred with ISAAC MILNER : he was a most laborious and submissive student,— being the only pupil in his College who refused to sign a petition against subscription of the Articles ; a demand which, in those days of rational religion, was even looked upon favourably by some of the superiors. As a teacher, he was zealous, and particularly "neat" in his mathematical papers ; which were so highly prized that a bed-maker was bribed to steal some to be copied by a student of another College. He strove for the University honours, and gained them with high credit : he was elected Fellow and Tutor, gradu- ally proceeding to his highest elevations ; the last of which, the Professorship of Mathematics, he attained in 1798, when he was forty-eight years old ; after which, his life passed in little more than the usual routine of a clergyman, professor, and "head of a house."

For college life he was indeed peculiarly fitted ; and from 1770, when he entered Queen's, till his death in 1820, he may be said to have resided there ; his official visits to Carlisle as Dean, and to London as a member of the Board of Longitude, forming no exception, any more than his occasional excursions. But these tr:os were only as changes of air; the atmosphere most congenial to him was the University. He had there the sort of homage which he seemed to like ; he mixed with a society to which only he had been accustomed after quitting the workshop and the grammar- school ; and he was occupied with a variety of business that amused him with the notion of active employment, though it may be questioned whether it did not prevent the labour of any great undertaking, had he been inclined that way. We suspect, how- ever, that his nature was not adapted to the "laborious days" and unwearied steadiness of pursuit which are requisite to learned works of great excellence—that, for example, he never would have written his brother's Church History.

Something of this liking for occupation rather than labour is, however, fairly chargeable upon his health; which, naturally ro- bust, sufered from several causes. In his early college-days, he injured himself by over-study ; and though the late Mr. HET, of Leeds, cured him by putting him "upon an entirely new system of habits," it left behind habitual headaches, which only quitted him within a few years of his death. When studying chemistry, he in- cautiously inhaled some noxious gas, that injured his lungs ; an accidental fall some years afterwards brought on a spitting of blood, which not only threatened a pulmonary complaint, but was followed by an intermitting pulse, under which BAILLIE or PIT- CAIRN declared his life was "not worth a minute's purchase"; and a little before his death he declared, that since 1775 he had "not enjoyed one single day of complete health." His disorders seem also to have had some effect upon his nervous system. Ile was often wont to weep in private upon comparatively slight occa- sions; and the desponding views he sometimes took of his religious condition are perhaps traceable to his deranged health. His personal character is described as very amiable. To some- what of the homeliness of a college, with much of its bonhommie and "ponderous" pleasantry, were added kindness of heart, an affectionate disposition, and great readiness both in bestovmieg charity and lending assistance. His presence is said to have been stately and dignified ; his voice sonorous, and very powerfuL It must be remembered we derive this estimate from the niece whom he brought up, or from personal friends writing to her. To us the Dean appears to have not been altogether devoid of a disposition to display before casual strangers, and a desire to make himself personally conspicuous upon occasions not demanding it ; failings that seem natural to a churchman and the head of a college, who cannot stir without being capped to. In her preface Miss MILNER states that she has endeavoured to guard herself against improper partiality ; and we think she has succeeded, so far as success was possible. There is no attempt at concealment, and, what was more difficult, no exaggerated tone in her praisq,; though it must be remarked that a very near relation, adopted in childhood and constantly with her benefactor, was not likely to exercise a very "judging eye" upon his faults. '1 he ob- vious weakness of Miss Muassit's estimate is chiefly shown in the length of her work. The interest of Dean MILNER'S life is in its first half, which does not occupy more than a fourth of this very bulky volume; the greater part of the remainder being tilled out by ex- tracts from manuscripts or private letters, which mostly consist of Opinions, or facts of a very subordinate kind. These, no doubt, have a character but they are chiefly attractive to a certain class of religionists, and to individuals who knew the Dean ; and, relating rather to his works than his life, they would have been better exhi- bited in a separate place than intermingled with the biography. Notwithstanding this defect, which interrupts the march of the narrative, and imparts a kind of slow heaviness to the work, Miss MILNER'S Life of Isaac Milner is a solid, real, and informing book ; full in its particulars of the hero, well interspersed with various anecdotes, and presenting in its correspondence some good inci- dental notices of the characters and manner of living of the divines of an age which may now be considered past, as well as glimpses of politicians and public events in the discussions which the cor- respondents raite upon them. This miscellaneous nature of the work will in a measure govern our extracts from it ; which will not always be of a strictly bio- graphical character.

MISCELLANEOUS REMINISCENCES BY MR. MACAULAY.

In 1814, Dr. Milner again itisieted on my rinsing the Easter holydays with him ; and he was, if possible, kinder than before. It was a time not to be for- gotten by the youngest who were able to comprehend the signs of public joy. The news of the fall of Paris, and of the abdication of Napoleon, arrived, I think, on the very day on which I went on my second visit to the Lodge of Queen's College. Cambridge was illuminated; and my kind old friend was divided between his wish that I should see the show and his fear that I might come to some harm in the crowd. He sent me out with all sorts of preeau- tions,and told me afterwards that he could not compose himself to sleep till he knew that I was safe at home. In general, this visit resembled the last, ex- cept that, as was natural at such a mew, he talked much more of hist ry and politics than of natural science. One story which he told at breakfest, over his great bowl of milk, I well remember. " The first time," lie said, ',that I ever beard about war or the French was when I was a little child in Londcn. I was taken nut of bed late at night, and carried to the window. All the street was alive. though it was midnight. The watchman was calling

• Past twelve o'clock ; Quebec taken.' fhe news came late; and the Lord Mayor had given orders that the watchmen should cry it, with the hour, all through he city."

He talked of the hearing of the recent events upon religion, of the restora- tion of the Pope, of the suppression of the order of Jesutta, and orate proba• bility of its revival. Then he went back to the Reformation, and found me, for my age, an intelligent listener ; for I had lately been reading his history of that time, and Robertson's Charles the Fifth. I ventured to say some hard things of Luther; %hid% he pronounced to be most unjust, and took down from his bookcase some letters of Melanethon, in order to set me right. He was very severe on Erasmus, though the most distinguished ornament of his

n college. He fluid, " We have no relic of him at Queen's except a huge corkscrew ; and I am afraid that there was nothing in his principles to keep him from making very assiduous use of it." This corkscrew is mentioned br Dr. Buchanan, who, in his last visit to Queen's College, inhabited Erasmus a rooms, as being "about a thitd of a yard lung."

A 0000 NATURED SARCASM.

A young gentleman of his own College, alto had obtained certainly not a very high place among the Wrenglers, came to him, after the Smite-house examination, overflowing sith satisfaction and delight, to communicate what he considered his great success, and to be congratulated upon it. The youth was a person for a horn, as for his father and his whole family, the Dean enter- tained the Lightest regard ; but he would seldom repress a jest which rose to his lips; and thinking,! suppose, that the joy expressed was rather greater Anus the circumstances warranted, looked very good-humouredly in his visitor's face, shook him heartily by the hand, and said, " Very well, vcry well; it's capital; we'll count from the other end of the list."

NOTICE OF COLONEL T. P. THOMPSON THIRTY•PIVE YEARS AGO.

"Mr. Thompson, tin, father, is a tried character, having been a truly religious man for many years. He is connected with the Methodists. The sun has, of course, had a religious education, and either is or sill be, I trust, a religious character likewise, in due time; but religion, you know, is not hereditary. However, I believe I do not go too far when I say, that Mr. Thompson junior will certainly favour all the rational attempts of religious people to spread Christianity and to civilize barbarians. In this light, therefore, I venture to recommend Mr. Thompson to your notice, as a person on whom the Moravian, might depend for help, and support, and countenance, in all their laudable attempts, whether those attempts be on a small or a larger scale. Even Wane, or two, or three of y our brethren, should have a mind to go with him to explore those regions, I should think the opportunity a very favourable one.

"Mr. Wilberforce is Mr. Thompson's warn) friend, and does his utmost to forward his appointment ; and I do assure you, that I shall feel greatly disap- pointed if Mr. Thompson, under the guidance and protection of a kind Provi- dence, do not show himself both discreet and enterprising, and also very able in the execution of the plans which he has in view."

PROJECTORS.

"My dear friend—I find myself here ex officio. I am a member of the Board of Longitude: and we meet three times a year at the Admiralty, to receive and Judge of proposals, &c. And excessively entertaining it is to see how many persons of desperate fortunes imagine they merit rewards for their skill in finding out the longitude at sea. One foolish fellow writes to me and says, ' As you have the disposal of four, or five, or &c. thousands of poem's for assisting persons in their schemes, I think it my duty to ask far one 'hominoid: I believe that will be enough to enable me to complete my scheme.' Some of these applicants are absolutely crack.brained, and oth ignorant gnorant in he ex- treme. About a year ago, a fellow came from Norwich, and thought he had found out the longitude merely because he had hung an immense weight of lead to a telescope, which he supposed would steady it at sea."

A BOXING LORD BOXED.

It should be premised, that it was his settled beta to endeavour to glean from every person who fell in his way some portion of the particular know- ledge, a hatever it might be, which that person was supposed to possess. There- fore, being in company at Lowther with a nobleman who professed great skill as a boxer, he contrived to turn the conversation upon the art or wiener self.defence. Lord A— II— strenuously maintained that a scientific pugilist could not by any possibility be struck hy en uninstructed wag t; that Hs skill would enable him to ward off any blow not dealt to loin by • brother of the craft. The Dean disputed this position; the compeny became interested and the discussion animated ; experiment only could decide time point. In order therefore to bring the matter to the test, Dr. Milner grove from his seat, and walking into the middle of the apartment, coolly said," Now, my Lord, if you will only promise not to strike me, I think that, in spite of any guard you can keep, I can strike you." " Impossible," &c. &c. exclaimed Lord A— 1:1—. They stood up aveurdingly ; and " within less than thirty seconds," said Dean Milner, with great triumph, when he afterwards related the circumstance," I gave him with my open hand such a slap on the face as rang again through the large room." The competty„ of course, laughed heartily; and Lord A— H— said no more on the sutject of boxing; but so irre- sistible %vas the influence of the Desit's good-humour, that it was impossible even for a 1111111 in his Lordship's circumstances to be ailgry with him.

DEAN MILNER'S voice.

On one occasion, while stay big at Lowther Castle, Dr. Milner proved, what

indeed stood in little need of proof, his extraordinary power of voice. He was walking on the terrace with several other persons, the Bishop of Llandaff, I think, among others, when a labourer being visible at a considerable distance in the fields below, it was determined that they should try who among them could speak loud enough to make him hear. They tried in turn, each ad- dressing the unconscious agriculturist in the most sonorous words which pre- sented themselves. Dean Milner spoke last; and on his exclaiming in his full and round tones, "Turn, charge. and conquer!" the man instantly turned, and gave signs of attention. If the Dean felt any degree of self-complacency on the score of any of his personal advantages, it was with regard to his mag- nificent voice, and his skill in using it; and he certainly sometimes told this anecdote with evident satisfaction.

A JOKE OF OLD MRS. MILNER.

One evening, a party of friends assembled at the house of the Reverend Joseph Milner were discussing, among other religious topics, the character of

St. Paul. Joseph Milner expressed very strongly his idea of the privilege and happiness of those persons who enjoyed opportunities of personal intercourse with the Apostle ; and said, that he could scarcely conceive a higher gratifica- tion than to have sat in his company and beard him converse. "Ay, bairn," interposed his mother, in her broad Yorkshire dialect ; "but thou would'st not have let him have all the talk to himself; thou would'st have put in thy word, 1'11 warrant thee." Joseph Milner, who was in fact, when he liked his company, a great talker, joined very heartily in the laugh thus raised at his expense.

Though a profound mathematical musician, neither the Dean nor his brother JOSEPH, the historian, had what is called a musical ear ; and they adopted this method as a test- " I have heard the Dean relate with much glee, that his brother and him- self, being well aware that a defect of musical ear was imputed to them, and being at the same time very sensible that they certainly never had received any such pleasure from listening to melody or harmony as many of their ac- quaintance professed to experience, nevertheless flattered themselves that the peculiarity might be explained by the fact that they really had never heard any truly good music. While in this mood of mind, chance threw into their way an advertisement, setting forth that The Messiah, the greatest work of the immortal Handel, &c. &c. was about to be performed, in an unusually effi- dent manner, at Beverley, a town about nine miles from Hull. To Beverley, therefore, they resolved to repair, determined to put the matter to the test.

" They arrived, and took their seats in the Minster : the confused clangour of tuning was hushed ; the conductor, an important-looking person with a large roll of paper in his hand, gave the authoritative signal, and the overture to

The Messiah commenced. It was no place,' continued Dr. Milner, for talking, but we turned round and looked at one another and shook our heads: we were satisfied. This, as we were given to understand, was first-rate music: alas, alas ! to us it was all alike. We staid but a little while.'"

MATHEMATICS AND MUSIC.

It may appear surprising that Dr. Milner should have selected for voluntary study a science in the pursuit of which nature bad placed in his way an impassable barrier; but it is possible that the consciousness of such an obstacle had the effect of stimulating his exertions. Certain it is, that he often persecuted his musical friends to supply him with reasons for particular laws of composition ; which, in fact, depended upon the natural faculty in which he was deficient. "Why," he would say to Mr. Latrobe or to Dr. Hague, "is the use of conse- cutive fifths forbidden ?" The answer would be, " Because they grate against my soul ": the reply was, of course, far from satisfactory : and on one occa- sion, I well recollect that Mr. Latrobe appended to it au assertion which fur- nished the querist with a handle for some good-humoured triumph. Having said, "They grate against my soul," Mr. Latrobe unwarily added, "And octaves are as bad. Dr. Hague, who was present, rather imprudently "rose to ex- plain"; stating, that there were cases in which, as every musician knows, octaves are not bad at all. The seeming discrepance of opinion delighted Dr. Miler; and often did he afterwards allude to this proof, as he professed to consider it, of the uncertainty of the musical code.

We believe Dr. MILNER is the Professor of Mathematics alluded to by Colonel Tuostrsosi in one of his musical articles, that de- lighted to plague the Professor of Music by asking him for a reason why the seventh of the minor scale should be sharpened in ascend- ing I) and he could only answer, because the ear required it. The following is a strange condition of mind for a worthy man; and is, perhaps, only resolvable by the state of his nervous system

RELIGIOUS MISGIVINGS.

"My views have of late been exceedingly dark and distressing; in a word, Almighty God seems to bide his face.

"I intrust the secret hardly to any earthly being. I endeavour to pour out my heart before God ; but really 1 receive so little that I can fairly call answers, in any shape, that soy heart fails, and I know not what will become of me. I feel assured, that for a good while my earnest desire has been to serve God according to my station, and to give myself wholly to him; • and I hoped I was going on tolerably well : but I find it no easy matter to look death and judgment in the face; and the thing which most dispirits me is, that my own case takes up so much of my attention, that, in a measure, my usefulness

is destroyed, or at least lessened. • • • "I bless God, however, that I never lose sight of the Cross as the great thing to cling to; and though I should die without seeing any personal interest in the Redeemer's merits, 1 think-1 hope—I should be found at his feet. If I am to be saved at all, it is assuredly in this way. This conviction has not yet been shaken in my mind ; but it is a blind sort of faith, and nearer allied to despair than to confidence. I see plainly, indeed, that there is no other way ; but still I do not see but that I may perish. "1 will thank you for a word at your leisure. My door is bolted all the time I am writing this, for I am full of tears."

THE OLD MAN'S LOSS OF AN OLD FRIEND.

"I know not whether you may have heard, that from long, and in some mea- sure severe indisposition, 1 have been compelled to live here in a sort of retire- ment from College, and from business of almost every kind.

"I assure son, I do not overstate it when I affirm, that from the day of the decease of our dear and lamented friend, Dr. Jowett, all my academical objects have put on a different aspect. To Inc the loss has been both irreparable and incalculable. I am not sure that a single day has passed without my heaving a sigh to his memory: and the melancholy reflection has been kept up and in- creased by tedious and protracted infirmities for more than two years. • • •

"For many weeks p.ast I have been meditating a return to Cambridge, where

1 am much wanted. • • Alas, alas ! ever since the year 1770, whenever I returned to Cambridge, my first object was invade:sly to meet Dr. Jewett; and it was usually settled by us that we should meet on the first night of our coming back to College !"