Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 39.djvu/283

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Müller
277
Müller

the degree of D.D., and in the same year his wife died. In 1865 Mullens became joint foreign secretary of the London Missionary Society, and in 1868 sole foreign secretary. In the earlier capacity he visited the missionary stations of the society in India and China, returning to England in 1866. In 1867 he received from the university of Edinburgh the degree of D.D. In 1870 he attended the annual meeting of the American Board of Foreign Missions, and remained to advocate the claims of the society in Canada. In 1873 he visited Madagascar to confer with the missionaries there, and he published the results in 'Twelve Months in Madagascar' (1857). After the death of Dr. Thomson of the mission on Lake Tanganyika, Mullens left England, 24 April 1879, with Mr. Griffith and Dr. Southon, to proceed to Zanzibar for the purpose of reinforcing the mission in Central Africa. On arrival at Zanzibar, Mullens resolved to accompany the inexperienced members of the mission to the scene of operation. At Kitange, 5 July, 150 miles from Saadani, Mullens caught a severe cold, and he died on 10 July 1879 at Chakombe, eight miles beyond. He was buried at the mission station of Mpwapwa.

Mullens, by his organising power, mastery of details, and statesmanlike supervision, largely increased the efficiency of the London Missionary Society. In addition to many reports, essays, articles, and notices, he wrote:

  1. 'Missions in South India visited and described,' 1854.
  2. 'The Religious Aspects of Hindu Philosophy discussed,' 1860.
  3. 'Brief Memorials of the Rev. Alphonse Francois Lacroix,' 1862.
  4. 'A brief Review of Ten Years' Missionary Labour in India, between 1852 and 1861,' London, 1863.
  5. 'London and Calcutta compared in their Heathenism, their Privileges, and their Prospects,' 1868.
  6. 'Twelve Months in Madagascar,' 1874; 2nd edit. 1875.

Mrs. Mullens wrote 'Faith and Victory: a Story of the Progress of Christianity in Bengal.'

[The Chronicle of the London Missionary Society, October 1879.]

S. P. O.

MÜLLER, JOHANN SEBASTIAN (fl. 1715?–1790?), painter. [See Miller, John.]

MULLER, JOHN (1699–1784), mathematician, was born in Germany in 1699. His first book, a treatise on conic sections, published in London in 1736, is dated from the Tower of London, and dedicated to the master-general of the ordnance, the Duke of Argyll and Greenwich, although Muller's name does not appear in the ordnance-lists in 'Angliæ Notitiæ' at this period. In 1741 Muller was appointed head-master of the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, at a salary of 200l. a year, by the new master-general [see Montagu, John, second Duke of Montagu]. At first, the academy was a mere school, where the masters, Muller and Thomas Simpson, resented military interference, and the boys defied the masters at will (see Duncan, Hist. Roy. Artillery, vol. i.) Subsequently, matters improved, the cadet-company was formed, the academy enlarged, and Muller appointed professor of fortification and artillery, a post he held until superannuated and pensioned in September 1766 (Records Roy. Mil. Academy). He was 'the scholastic father of all the great engineers this country employed for forty years' (Hill, Boswell, i. 351). He died in April 1784, at the age of eighty-five. A portrait of Muller, painted by J. Hay, was engraved by T. Major (Bromley). His library was sold in 1785 (Nichol, Lit. Anecd. vol. iii.)

Muller published:

  1. 'A Mathematical Treatise, containing a System of Conic Sections and the Doctrine of Fluxions and Fluents applied to Various Subjects,' London, 1736, 4to.
  2. 'The Attack and Defence of Fortified Places,' London, 1747.
  3. 'A Treatise containing the Practical Part of Fortification, for the Use of the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich,' London, 1755, 4to.
  4. 'A Treatise on Fortification, Regular and Irregular. With Remarks on the Constructions of Vauban and Coehorn,' London, 1756, 4to, 2nd edit.
  5. 'The Field Engineer. Translated from the French of De Clairac, London, 1759, 8vo.
  6. 'Treatise on Artillery,' a compendious work, London, 1757; with Supplement, London, 1768.
  7. 'New System of Mathematics, to which is prefaced an Account of the First Principles of Algebra,' London, 1769, 8vo; another edit. London, 1771.

[Muller's writings; Watt's Bibl. Brit.; Gent. Mag. 1784, i. 475.]

H. M. C.

MÜLLER, WILLIAM (d. 1846), writer on military and engineering science, describes himself as an officer of Electoral Hanoverian cavalry, who, about the close of last century, became the first-appointed public instructor (docent) in military science in the university of Gottingen, which conferred upon him the degrees of doctor of philosophy and master of arts (Müller, Relations of the Campaign, 1809, Preface; Handbuch der Groben Geschutzes). He states that during the ten years he held that post he made a vast number of experiments in artillery, and so far as his time and pecuniary resources admitted, tra-