MILNES, RICHARD MONCKTON, Baron HOUGHTON, English poet and politician, descended from an old Yorkshire family, was born in 1809, and educated at Trinity Col lege, Cambridge. He entered parliament as m.r. for Pontefract in 1837, and continued to represent that borough until the close of the parliamentary session of 1863, when he was called to the upper house by the title of Baron Houghton. In the house of,com mons he began life as a conservative, but afterwards allied himself to the liberal party, and was a faithful follower of Lord Palmerston, when his foreign policy and high-handed dealings at the foreign office led to the temporary estrangement of that statesman from the whigs. Milnes has distingmished himself, however, rather by his philanthropic labors, and his speeches on behalf of the Italians, Poles, and other oppressed nations, than by his devotion to party politics. He has lueen the advocate of public education
and religious equality. He carried, in 1846, a bill for establishing reformatories, a'nd has taken a great interest in the reform of the criminal classes. Milnes has also cultivated the muses with grace and success. He has traveled much in oriental countries, and is the author of Memorials of a TOW' in Greece, and also of poems called Palm, Leceves, in which a poetical halo is thrown around the manners and domestic institutions of the East. His Poems of Many Years, and Poems llistorical and Legendary, contain many simple and elegant effusions. In 1849, he edited the Life, Letters, and Literary Remains of John Keats. He has also written noughts on Purity of Election; Monographs. Personal and Social (1873-76): etc, His Ciglected Poetical Works appeared in 1876.