MILMAN, HENRY HART, mu., an English poet and ecclesiastical historian, was the youngest son of sir. Francis Milman, physician to George III., and was b. in London, Feb. 10, 1791. He was educated at Eton, and afterwards at Brasenose college, Oxford, where he took the degree of M.A., obtained the Newdegate prize in 1812, published .Fazio, a Tragedy (which was successfully brought upon the stage at Covent garden), in 1815, took orders in 1817, and shortly after was appointed vicar of St. Mary's, Reading. In the following year appeared hia Samor, Lord of the Bright City, an Heroic Poem, which was followed in 1820 by the FaTh of Jerusalem, a beautiful dramatic poem, with some fine sacred lyrics interspersed. In 1821 Milman was chosen professor of poetry at Oxford, and published three other poems in the course of the same year—The Martyr of Antioch, Belshazzar, Anne Boleyn. His Sermons at the Bampton Lecture appeared in 1827, and his History of the Jews (3 vols.) in 1829. The last of these works did not bear the author's name; it was written in so liberal and tolerant a spirit that ecclesiastics of the stricter sort could hardly fail to be offended. Its weak point was a want of adequate learning, especially in the department of biblical criticism. A new edition, greatly
improved and more critical,. yet still far from being very accurate or built on solid foundations, with an interesting preface, was published in 1863. In 1840 appeared a collected edition of his Poetical Works, containing some other pieces besides those already mentioned. The same year witnessed the publication of his History of Christian ity from the Birth of Christ to the Abolition of Paganism in the Roman Empire (3 vols.). In 1849 he was made dean of St. Paul's; and in 1854 published his masterpiece, History of Latin Christianity, including that of the Popes to the Pontificate of .Nicholas V. (3 vols.).
It is a work of great learning, liberality, and chastened eloquence; it displays a broad grasp of human nature in its religious workings; besides a philosophic and poetical sympathy with the different men and opinions which it reviews. The work secured for its author a position in the first rank of English historians. Milman edited Gibbon, and contributed extensively to the Quarterly Review. He died in 1868. A posthumous work contains his Essays on St. Paul, Savonarola, Erasmus, etc.