Background
William Mitford was born on February 10, 1744, at Exbury, England, the elder of the two sons of John Mitford, a barrister, and his wife Philadelphia Reveley.
( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1374538043/?tag=2022091-20
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0030L1CW6/?tag=2022091-20
William Mitford was born on February 10, 1744, at Exbury, England, the elder of the two sons of John Mitford, a barrister, and his wife Philadelphia Reveley.
Mitford was educated at Cheam School, under the picturesque writer William Gilpin, but at the age of fifteen a severe illness led to his being removed, and after two years of idleness Mitford was sent, in July 1761, as a gentleman commoner to Queen's College, Oxford. In this year his father died, and left him the Exbury property and a considerable fortune. Mitford, therefore, being "very much his own master, was easily led to prefer amusement to study. " He left Oxford (where the only sign of assiduity he had shown was to attend the lectures of Blackstone) without a degree, in 1763, and proceeded to the Middle Temple.
In October 1776, Mitford went abroad. He was encouraged by French scholars whom he met in Paris, Avignon and Nice to give himself systematically to the study of Greek history. But it was Gibbon, with whom he was closely associated when they both were officers in the South Hampshire Militia, who suggested to Mitford the form which his work should take. In 1784 the first of the volumes of his History of Greece appeared, and the fifth and last of these quartos was published in 1810, after which the state of Mitford's eyesight and other physical infirmities, including a loss of memory, forbade his continuation of the enterprise, although he painfully revised successive new editions. While his book was progressing, Mitford was a member of the House of Commons, with intervals, from 1785 to 1818, and he was for many years verderer of the New Forest and a county magistrate; but it does not appear that he ever visited Greece. In addition to his History of Greece, he published a few smaller works, the most important of which was an Essay on the Harmony of Language, 1774. The style of Mitford is natural and lucid, but without the rich colour of Gibbon. He affected some oddities both of language and of orthography, for which he was censured and which he endeavoured to revise. But his political opinions were still more severely treated, since Mitford was an impassioned anti-Jacobin, and his partiality for a monarchy led him to be unjust to the Athenians. Hence his History of Greece, after having had no peer in European literature for half a century, faded in interest on the appearance of the work of Grote. Clinton, too, in his Fasti hellenici, charged Mitford with "a general negligence of dates, " though admitting that in his philosophical range "he is far superior to any former writer" on Greek history. Bryon, who dilated on Mitford's shortcomings, nevertheless declared that he was "perhaps the best of all modern historians altogether. "
After a long illness, William Mitford died on February 10, 1827, at Exbury.
( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)
Quotations: "Men fear death, as if unquestionably the greatest evil, and yet no man knows that it may not be the greatest good. "
William Mitford was a member of Parliament for Newport, Cornwall, a member of Parliament for Bere Alston and a member of Parliament for New Romney.
On May 18, 1766, William Mitford married Frances Molloy, daughter of James Molloy of Dublin. The couple had five sons and one daughter.
John Freeman-Mitford, 1st Baron Redesdale, was an English lawyer and politician.
