page_title: John Mills (encyclopedist)
section_title: The History of the Roman Emperors, from Augustus to Constantine, 1755
hierarchical_section_title: John Mills (encyclopedist) / Work / The History of the Roman Emperors, from Augustus to Constantine, 1755
caption_attribution_description: English: The History of the Roman Emperors from Augustus to Constantine, Vol. 1, title plate and title page, 1755
context_page_description: John Mills was an English writer on agriculture, translator and editor. Mills and Gottfried Sellius are known for being the first to prepare a French edition of Ephraim Chambers's Cyclopaedia for publication in 1745, which eventually resulted in the Encyclopédie published in France between 1751 and 1772.
  As writer on agriculture, Mills is credited for publishing the earliest complete treatise on all branches of agriculture. His chief work, A New System of Practical Husbandry, in 5 volumes, appeared in 1767. It combines the results of the experience and observations of such writers as Evelyn, Duhamel, John Worlidge, and Jethro Tull, and was highly commended. Mills was a warm advocate of small farms.
context_section_description: Mills re-emerged from the shadow in 1755 as the translator of The History of the Roman Emperors, from Augustus to Constantine. This work was originally written in 10 volumes by Jean-Baptiste Louis Crévier, who was Professor of Rhetoric in the Collège de Beauvais in Paris. Mills had translated from the French the first two volumes, when in 1755 a review of this work was published in The monthly review of literary journal. The review introduced Mills as the translator, with the following phrase:
  Mr. Mills, and his other works, we are alike strangers to; but have been informed he has published some tracts, with reputation, abroad; and that he was the first undertaker and promoter of the translation of Chambers's Cyclopædia into French...
  In Robert Watt's Bibliotheca Britannica (1824, p. 670) this translation was credited to another John Mills Esq., but this description clearly indicates we are dealing with one and the same person. The 1755 review was critical about Mill's translation skills, and stated:
  ...If he is an Englishman, which, but for his name, we should doubt, from his manner of expression, it is possible he may have lived so long in foreign countries, as to have somewhat lessened his acquaintance with his vernacular language: for we have met with few writers that have shewn themselves less masters of its purity, Mr. Johnson has judiciously observed, that "the great pest of speech is frequency of translation. No book was ever turned from one language to another, without imparting something of its native idiom; this is the most mischievous and comprehensive innovation; single words may enter by thousands, and 'the fabric of the tongue continue the fame; but new phraseology changes much at once, it alters not the single stones of the building, but the order of the columns."
  The review specifically expressed, that Mills left his diction in a Gallic form, that renders it uncouth to an English ear. They hoped, that the remaining volumes would be more agreeable to the reader. It is unknown if Mills fulfilled this expectation, but he did translate another eight volumes, which were published in the next years.
caption: The History of the Roman Emperors from Augustus to Constantine, 1755
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