In the middle of the last century, hard by a church dedicated to St. Mary――on a spot at that time considered somewhat rural in appearance, but since absorbed by the even then very populous town of Leeds――stood an humble, unornamented cottage, the outer door of which was studded with nails, like that of an ancient peel or a modern prison-house; and there a Yorkshire weaver, of the name of Milner, lived in comparative poverty. He is stated to have been characterized by sagacity, industry, and self-denial, but nevertheless had not proved particularly successful in the trade he followed; having besides, like many persons of a higher rank, suffered severely from the effects of the rebellion of 1745. Though not blessed with much intellectual culture, he had, as is common with his class, a full appreciation of the manifold advantages of a sound education; and vowed that he would not shrink from personal sacrifices that his children might at all events enjoy that invaluable possession. He was already the father of two boys, one of whom afterward attained worthy celebrity, when, on the 11th of January, 1750, Isaac Milner, the third of the family, first saw the light. So many of those famous personages whose illustrious footprints have been traced in the foregoing pages, with a view to the encouragement of youths aspiring to excellence, could boast of gentle lineage and hereditary associations, that it is impossible not to experience something like a sensation of relief, and to feel the charm of variety, in turning to the career of a man without any such pretensions――not incited by the ambition of adding to a name that had been feared or respected in another day, and whose position in early life was not rendered easy by wealth, or “shone upon from the past.” Cradled under the roof of a cottage, apprenticed during seven years as a factory boy, and clutched from the loom by fraternal partiality, to be employed as usher in a provincial school, he raised himself by intellectual vigor and perseverance to places of honor and importance; and he was extolled among his great, learned, and reverend contemporaries, in his various characters of academic, historian, divine, and philosopher.