, the learned editor of the Greek Testament, was the son of Thomas
, the learned editor of the Greek Testament, was the son of Thomas Mil!, of Banton or Bampton,
near the town of Snap in Westmoreland, and was born at
Shap about 1645. Of his early history our accounts are
very scanty; and as his reputation chiefly rests on his Greek
Testament, which occupied the greater part of his life,
and as he meddled little in affairs unconnected with his
studies, we are restricted to a very few particulars. His
father being in indifferent circumstances, he was, in 1661,
entered as a servitor of Queen’s college, Oxford, where we
may suppose his application soon procured him respect.
Bishop Kennet tells us, that in his opinion, he “talked
and wrote the best Latin of any man in the university, and
was the most airy and facetious in conversation — in all
respects a bright man.
” At this college he took the degree of B. A. in May 1666, and while bachelor, was selected to pronounce an “Oratio panegyrica
” at the opening of the Sheldon theatre in ready extempore preacher.
” In 1676 his countryman and fellowcollegian, Dr. Thomas Lamplugh, being made bishop of
Exeter, he appointed Mr. Mill to be one of his chaplains,
and gave him a minor prebend in the church of Exeter.
In July 1680 he took his degree of B. D.; in August 1681
he was presented by his college to the rectory of Blechingdon, in Oxfordshire; and in December of that year he
proceeded D. D. about which time he became chaplain in
ordinary to Charles II. by the interest of the father of one
of his pupils. On May 5, 1685, he was elected and admitted principal of St. Edmund’s Hall, a station particularly convenient for his studies. By succeeding Dr. Crossthwaite in this office, bishop Kennet says he had the advantage of shining the brighter; but “he was so much
taken up with the one thing, ‘his Testament,’ that he had
not leisure to attend to the discipline of the house, which
rose and fell according to his different vice-principals.
”
In 1704 archbishop Sharp obtained for him from queen
Anne, a prebend of Canterbury, in which he succeeded
Dr. Beveridge, then promoted to the see of St. Asaph.
He had completed his great undertaking, the new editiuu
of the Greek Testament, when he died of an apop'ectie
fit, June 23, 1707, and was buried in the chancel of Blechingdon church, where, in a short inscription on his monument, he is celebrated for what critics have thought the
most valuable part of his labours on the New Testament,
his “prolegomena marmore perenniora.
”