Though I suppose he had but a round of jests, Dr. Cave once bidding too leisurely for a book, says Millington, ‘Is this your “Primitive Christianity?”’ alluding to a book the honest doctor had published under that title. He died in Cambridge, and I hear they bestowed an elegy on his memory, and design to raise a monument to his ashes.” Thomas Hearne does not give him so good a character. He writes under date 13th September 1723: “Though the late Mr. Millington of London, bookseller, was certainly the best auctioneer in the world, being a man of great wit and fluency of speech, and a thorough master of his trade; though, at the same time, very impudent and saucy, yet he could not at the end of the auction, be brought to give an account to the persons who employed him, so that by that means, he allowed what he pleased and no more, and kept a great number of books that were not sold to himself. Whence arose that vast stock of books, though most of them but ordinary, that he had when he dyed, and which, after his death, were sold by auction.”[12] “An Elegy upon the Lamented Death of Mr. Edward Millington, the famous Auctioneer,” alluded to by Dunton, is printed in the “Works of Mr. Thomas Brown,” ed. 1744, iv. p. 320, but the Rev. C. H. Hartshorne quotes it in his “Book Rarities of Cambridge,” 1829, p. 450, from Bagford’s Collection, British Museum, Harleian MSS., No. 5947. It reads as follows:-- “Mourn! mourn! you booksellers, for cruel death Has robb’d the famous auctioneer of breath: He’s gone,--he’s gone,--all the great loss deplore; Great Millington--alas! he is no more: No more will he now at your service stand Behind the desk, with mallet in his hand: No more the value of your books set forth, And sell ’em by his art for twice the worth. Methinks I see him still, with smiling look, Amidst the crowd, and in his hand a book: Then in a fine, facetious, pleasing way The author’s genius and his wit display. O all you scribbling tribe, come, mourn his death, Whose wit hath given your dying fame new birth. When your neglected works did mouldering lie Upon the shelves, and none your books would buy, How oft has he, with strainèd eloquence, Affirm’d the leaves contained a world of sense, When all’s insipid, dull impertinence? ‘Come, gentlemen,--come bid me what you please; Upon my word it is a curious piece, Done by a learned hand--and neatly bound: One pound--once, twice, fifteen: who bids?--a crown!’ Then shakes his head, with an affected frown, And says ‘For shame! consider, gentlemen, The book is sold in shops for more than ten. Good lack a day!--’tis strange!’ then strikes the blow, And in a feignèd passion bids it go.