Milnes, Richard Monckton [Baron Houghton] (1809-1885)

Richard Monckton Milnes, later Baron Houghton, was a friend of George Eliot and George Henry Lewes. He dined with Eliot and Lewes often after having brought one of them, or both, a copy of his poems. According to Lewes, Milnes spoke of Romola with great admiration, but he generally corresponded with Lewes and not Eliot. Milnes wrote Eliot an incredibly congratulatory letter upon hearing of her engagement to John Walter Cross: 'I have condoled with you so sincerely that I can congratulate you, in the deep consciousness of the wonderful weft of pain and pleasure that makes up your emotional experience'.

7:19, 8:332, 8:336, 8:337, 8:346, 8:356, 8:357, 8:404, 8:473