Milles, Jeremiah

, an English divine and antiquary, was the grandson of the rev. Isaac Milles, rector of High Clear in Hampshire, probably by his second son Jeremiah. His eldest son was Dr. Thomas Milles, bishop of Waterford and Lismore, of whom it may be necessary to give some account, as Mr. Harris the editor and continuator of Ware has admitted a few mistakes, calling him Mills, and stating that he was the son of Joseph Mills. He was educated at Wadham college, Oxford, where he took the degree of B. A. in 1692, and that of M. A. in 1695. He was ordained by bishop Hough. In 1704 he took the degree of B. D. and in 1706 was appointed Greek professor of Oxford. In 1707 he attended the earl of Pembroke, lord lieutenant of Ireland, into that kingdom, and by him was promoted to the see of Waterford and Lismore. He died at Waterford May 13, 1740. He published a few controversial tracts, enumerated by Harris, but is best known by his valuable edition of the works of St. Cyril, published at Oxford in 1703, folio.

Bishop Milles left his fortune to his nephew, Jeremiah, who was born in 1714, and educated at Eton school, when he entered of Queen’s college, Oxford, as a gentleman commoner, and took his degrees of M. A. in 1735, and B. and D. D. in 1747, on which occasion he went out grand compounder. He was collated by his uncle to a prebend in the cathedral of Waterford, and to a living near that city, which he held but a short time, choosing to reside in England. Here he married Edith, a daughter of archbishop Potter, by whose interest he obtained the united rectories of St. Edmund the King and St. Nicholas Aeon in Lombard-street, with that of Merstham, Surrey, and the sinecure rectory of West Terring, in Sussex. To Merstham he was inducted in 1745. From the chantorship of Exeter he was promoted to the deanery of that cathedral, in 1762, on the advancement of Dr. Lyttelton to the see of Carlisle, | whom he also succeeded as president of the society of antiquaries in 176.5. He had been chosen a fellow of this society in 1741, and of the Royal Society in 1742. His speech, on taking upon him the office of president of the Society of Antiquaries, was prefixed to the first volume of the Archoeologia. In other volumes of that work are some papers communicated by him, one of which, “Observations on the Wardrobe Account for the year 1483, wherein are contained the deliveries made for the coronation of king Richard III. and some other particulars relative to the history,” was answered by Mr. Walpole, afterwards lord Orford, in a paper or essay, very characteristic of his lordship’s ingenuity and haughty petulance. In the early part of his life, Dr. Milles had made ample collections for a history of Devonshire, v*hich are noticed by Mr. Gough in his Topography. Ha was also engaged in illustrating the Da ish coinage, and the Domesday Survey, on both which subjects, it is thought, he left much valuable matter. His worst attempt was to vindicate the authenticity of Rowley’s poems, in an edition which he printed in 1782, 4to. After what Tyrwhitt and Warton had advanced on this subject, a grave answer to this was not necessary; but it was the writer’s misiortune to draw upon himself the wicked wit of the author of “An Archaeological Epistle,” and the more wicked irony of George Steevens in the St. James’s Chronicle. The dean died Feb. 13, 1784, and was buried in the church of St. Edmund, which, as well as his other preferments, he retained until his death, with the exception of the rectory of West Terring, which he resigned to his son Richard. His character is very justly recorded on his monument, as one conspicuous for the variety and extent of his knowledge, and for un remitted zeal and activity in those stations to which his merit had raised him; nor was he in private life less distinguished for sweetness of disposition, piety, and integrity. ¹