MILL (John), a very learned divine, was born at Shap in Westmoreland, about the year 1645; and became a servitor of Queen's college Oxford. On his entering into orders he became an eminent preacher, and was made prebendary of Exeter. In 1681, he was created doctor of divinity; about the same time he was made chaplain in ordinary to King Charles II. and in 1685 he was elected principal of St Edmund's hall in Oxford. His edition of the Greek Testament, which will ever render his name memorable, was published about a fortnight before his death, which hap- pened in June 1707. Dr Mills was employed 30 years in preparing this edition.

MILL-STONE, the stone by which corn is ground. — The mill-stones which we find preserved from ancient times are all small, and very different from those in use at present. Therefore mentions two or three such found in England, among other Roman antiquities, which were but 20 inches broad; and there is great reason to believe that the Romans, as well as the Egyptians of old, and the ancient Jews, did not employ horses, or wind, or water, as we do, to turn their mills, but made their slaves and captives of war do this laborious work; they were in this service placed behind these mill-stones, and pushed them on with all their force. Sampson, when a prisoner to the Philistines, was treated no better, but was condemned to the mill-stone in his prison. The runner or looer mill-stone, in this sort of grinding, was usually very heavy for its size, being as thick as broad. This is the mill-stone which is expressly prohibited in scripture to take in pledge, as lying loose it was more easily removed. The Talmudists have a story, that the Chaldeans made the young men of the captivity carry mill-stones with them to Babylon, where there seems to have been a scarcity at that time; and hence, probably, their paraphrase renders the text “have borne the mills, or mill-stones;” which might thus be true in a literal sense. They have also a proverbial expression of a man with a mill-stone about his neck; which they use to express a man under the severest weight of affliction. This also plainly refers to this small sort of stones.

Rhenish Mill-Stone, is clasped by Cronstedt among the volcanic products, on account of its appearance, which is a blackish grey, porous, and perfectly resembling a lava of Mount Vesuvius.

MILLENIARIES, or Chiliasts, a name given to those, in the primitive ages, who believed that the saints will reign on earth with Christ 1000 years. See MILLENIUM.

MILLENER, or MILLER, one who sells ribbons and dresses, particularly head-dresses, for women; and who makes up those dresses.

Of this word different etymologies have been given. It is not derived from the French; for, through some strange fatality, the French cannot express the notion of milliner, otherwise than by the circumlocution marchand or marchande des modes.

Neither is it derived from the Low-Dutch language, the great, but neglected, magazine of the Anglo-Saxon. For Sewell, in his Dictionary English and Dutch, 1708, describes milliner to be “en kraamer van lint en andere optonifelen, Fransche kraamer;” that is, “a pedlar who sells ribbons and other trimmings or ornaments; a French pedlar.”

Littleton, in his English and Latin dictionary, published 1677, defines milliner, “a jack of all trades;” q.d. millenarius, or mille mercium venditor; that is, “one who sells a thousand different sorts of things.” This etymology seems fanciful: But, if he rightly understood the vulgar meaning of the word milliner in his time, we must hold that it then implied what is now termed “a haberdasher of small wares,” one who dealt in various articles of petty merchandise, and who did not make up the goods which he sold.

Vol. XII. Part I.

Before Littleton’s time, however, a somewhat nicer characteristic than seems compatible with his notion, appears to have belonged to them; for Shakespeare, in his Henry IV., makes Hotspur, when complaining of the daintiness of a courtier, say,

“He was perfumed like a millener.”

The fact seems to be, that there were milliners of several kinds: as, horse-milleners, (for so those persons were called who make ornaments of coloured worsted for horses); haberdashers of small wares, the milliners of Littleton; and milliners such as those now peculiarly known by that name, whether male or female; and to whom Shakespeare’s allusion seems most appropriate.

Lastly, Dr Johnson, in his Dictionary, derives the word from miliner, an inhabitant of Milan, from whence people of this profession first came, as a Lombard is a banker.