PROFESSOR HENRY HART MILMAN, D.D. “NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Henry Hart Milman HDT WHAT? INDEX HENRY HART MILMAN HENRY HART MILMAN 1791 February 10, Thursday: Henry Hart Milman was born at 47, Lower Brook Street, in the parish of St. James’s, Westminster, London, the 3d and final son of Sir Francis Milman, 1st Baronet, physician to King George III, with Frances Hart Milman. He would be educated at Eton and then at Brasenose College, Oxford. NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT Henry Hart Milman “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX HENRY HART MILMAN HENRY HART MILMAN 1812 Henry Hart Milman won the Newdigate prize for best undergraduate verse composition with a poem on the Apollo Belvedere statue in the Vatican, entitled “Belvidere Apollo.” “Too fair to worship, too divine to love.” HDT WHAT? INDEX HENRY HART MILMAN HENRY HART MILMAN Heard ye the arrow hurtle in the sky? Heard ye the dragon monster’s deathful cry? In settled majesty of calm disdain, Proud of his might, yet scornful of the slain, The heavenly archer stands, — no human birth, No perishable denizen of earth: Youth blooms immortal in his beardless face, A god in strength, with more than godlike grace; All, all divine, — no struggling muscle glows, Through heaving vein no mantling life-blood flows, But animate with deity alone, In deathless glory lives the breathing stone. Bright kindling with a conqueror’s stern delight, His keen eye tracks the arrow’s fateful flight; Burns his indignant cheek with vengeful fire, And his lip quivers with insulting ire: Firm fixed his tread, yet light, as when on high He walks the impalpable and pathless sky: The rich luxuriance of his hair, confined In graceful ringlets, wantons on the wind, That lifts in sport his mantle’s drooping fold Proud to display that form of faultless mould. Mighty Ephesian! with an eagle’s flight Thy proud soul mounted through the fields of light, Viewed the bright conclave of Heaven’s blest abode, And the cold marble leapt to life a god: Contagious awe through breathless myriads ran, And nations bowed before the work of man. For mild he seemed, as in Elysian bowers, Wasting in careless ease the joyous hours; Haughty, as bards have sung, with princely sway Curbing the fierce flame-breathing steeds of day; Beauteous as vision seen in dreamy sleep By holy maid on Delphi’s haunted steep, Mid the dim twilight of the laurel grove, Too fair to worship, too divine to love. Yet on that form in wild delirious trance With more than reverence gazed the maid of France, Day after day the love-sick dreamer stood With him alone, nor thought it solitude! To cherish grief, her last, her dearest care, Her one fond hope, — to perish of despair. Oft as the shifting light her sight beguiled, Blushing she shrunk, and thought the marble smiled: Oft breathless listening heard, or seemed to hear, A voice of music melt upon her ear. Slowly she waned, and cold and senseless grown, Closed her dim eyes, herself benumbed to stone. Yet love in death a sickly strength supplied: Once more she gazed, then feebly smiled and died. HDT WHAT? INDEX HENRY HART MILMAN HENRY HART MILMAN 1814 Henry Hart Milman was elected a fellow of Brasenose College, Oxford. LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD? — NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES. LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD. “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Henry Hart Milman HDT WHAT? INDEX HENRY HART MILMAN HENRY HART MILMAN 1816 Henry Hart Milman won a prize offered by Brasenose College, Oxford with an essay “Comparative Estimate of Sculpture and Painting.” In this year he was ordained. DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD. Henry Hart Milman “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX HENRY HART MILMAN HENRY HART MILMAN 1818 The Reverend Henry Hart Milman’s Fazio: A Tragedy (produced on the stage under the title The Italian Wife) and Samor, the Lord of the Bright City: An Heroic Poem, a treatment of a British legend having to do with the “bright city” of Gloucester. He became parish priest at St Mary’s in Reading, England. CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT Henry Hart Milman “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX HENRY HART MILMAN HENRY HART MILMAN 1820 Henry Hart Milman’s THE FALL OF JERUSALEM: A DRAMATIC POEM BY THE REV. H.H. HILMAN. HDT WHAT? INDEX HENRY HART MILMAN HENRY HART MILMAN 1821 The Reverend Henry Hart Milman was elected professor of poetry at the University of Oxford. THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Henry Hart Milman HDT WHAT? INDEX HENRY HART MILMAN HENRY HART MILMAN 1822 The Reverend Professor Henry Hart Milman’s poem “The Martyr of Antioch,” based on the legend of Saint Margaret the Virgin (Arthur Sullivan would use this as the basis for an oratorio), and his poem “Belshazzar.” HDT WHAT? INDEX HENRY HART MILMAN HENRY HART MILMAN 1826 The Reverend Professor Henry Hart Milman’s Anne Boleyn: A Dramatic Poem. HDT WHAT? INDEX HENRY HART MILMAN HENRY HART MILMAN 1827 The Reverend Professor Henry Hart Milman delivered the Bampton lectures on the character and conduct of the apostles as an evidence of Christianity. THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Henry Hart Milman HDT WHAT? INDEX HENRY HART MILMAN HENRY HART MILMAN 1830 The Reverend Professor Henry Hart Milman’s HISTORY OF THE JEWS, which is memorable as the first by an English clergyman which treats the Jews as an Oriental tribe, recognizes sheikhs and amirs in the Old Testament, sifts and classifies documentary evidence, and evades or minimizes the miraculous. In consequence, the author was violently attacked and his inevitable preferment would be delayed. HDT WHAT? INDEX HENRY HART MILMAN HENRY HART MILMAN 1835 Sir Robert Peel appointed the Reverend Professor Henry Hart Milman as rector of St Margaret’s, Westminster, and canon of Westminster. Publication of the Reverend’s NALA AND DAMAYANTI AND OTHER POEMS. TRANSLATED FROM THE SANSKRIT INTO ENGLISH BY REV. HENRY HART MILMAN, WITH MYTHOLOGICAL AND CRITICAL NOTES (Oxford: D.A. Talboys). This volume would be in the personal library of Henry Thoreau, and he would bequeath it to Waldo Emerson. Unfortunately, however, Google Books has not scanned it. The closest electronic text we have is that of a much later, revised and corrected edition based upon the Milman translation, which is what is behind the following button: NALA AND DAMAYANTI HDT WHAT? INDEX HENRY HART MILMAN HENRY HART MILMAN 1837 January 30, Monday: Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 2nd day went into Town & spent the day in attending to some buisness & visiting some of my old acquaintance Dined at Dr Tobeys & returned to the School House to lodge — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS David Henry Thoreau checked out, from Harvard Library, Volume 5 of the New Series of The Gentleman’s Magazine, dealing with that magazine’s 1836 content:1 THE GENTLEMAN’S MAG. • [iii]-iv. S:. “Preface.” the Reverend John Mitford [Originator: “Sylvanus Urban”] • pages 2. S:. Note re Robert Montgomery Martin’s History of the British Colonies. Thomas Fisher • pages 2. L:. Remarks re the Abbé de la Rue. Thomas Wright [Originator: “Gaulois”] • pages 2. L:. Genealogical note on Sacheverell family. Charles Edward Long [Originator: “l.”] • pages 3-10. Review: Thomas Frognall Dibdin’s Reminiscences of a Literary Life. The Reverend John Mitford • pages 10-13. Article: “Diary of a Lover of Literature [by Thomas Green; abridged by Mitford (cont.)].” the Reverend John Mitford • pages 14-15. Article: “Royal Porcelain Works, Worcester.” Martin Barr [Originator: “B.”] • pages 15-16. Article: “St. Olave’s Grammar School, Southwark.” George Richard Corner [Originator: “G.R.C.”] • pages 16. Article: “Quaestiones Venusinae.—No. VII [conc.].” the Reverend James Tate [Originator: “The Author of Horatius Restitutus”] • pages 17-27. Article: “Records of the Exchequer.” John Bruce • pages 32. L:. “Our Lord’s Miracles on the Maimed.” Dr. Samuel Merriman the Younger [Originator: “Ilaranthropos” {in Greek}] • pages 33-36. Article: “St. Stephen’s Chapel, Westminster.” John Gough Nichols [Originator: “J.G.N.”] • pages 36-43. Article: “Scandinavia and the British Isles.” Nicholas Carlisle • pages 49-51. Review: James Davidson’s The History of Axminster Church. John Gough Nichols • pages 51-52. Review: William Caveller’s Select Specimens of Gothic Architecture. Edward John Carlos • pages 52-53. Review: Samuel Tymms’s The Family Topographer, vol. 5. Edward John Carlos • pages 53-55. Review: Spiritual Despotism. The Reverend John Mitford • pages 55-57. Review: A. James Augustus St. John’s Egypt and Mohammed Ali. The Reverend John Mitford • pages 57-58. Review: Harry Chester’s The Lay of the Lady Ellen. The Reverend John Mitford • pages 58-59. Review: England and Russia; A Statement of Facts. By a Resident at Constantinople; Edward Stirling’s Some Considerations on the Political State of the intermediate Country between Persia and India. Thomas Fisher • pages 59-60. Review: Annual Reports of the American Anti-Slavery Society; Anti-Slavery Record; Société Française pour l’Abolition de l’Esclavage. Thomas Fisher 1. We really have no idea why Thoreau checked this out, but I will note in passing that the volume does contain information pertaining to the town of Saffron Walden in England. HDT WHAT? INDEX HENRY HART MILMAN HENRY HART MILMAN • pages 60. Review: The British and Foreign Temperance Advocate, vol.