MIDDLETON, CONYERS, D.D. a well-known divine and scholar of the church of England, was b. in 1683 at Ricln-nond, in Yorkshire. He studied at Cambridge, where he took the degree of B.A. in 1702, was elected a fellow in 1706, and shortly after married a lady of fortune. His life was a series of bitter, and, on the whole, not very. creditable controversies, though he is said to have-been rather a likable person in private. His first aud most formidable opponent was Richard Bentley (q.v.); afterwards his polemics were chiefly of a theological character. The views he expressed and defended were generally such as to draw down upon him the imputation of being an " in dis guise," though some of them—such as that the Jews borrowed some of their customs from Egypt, and that the primitive writers in vindicating Scripture found it necessary sometimes to recur to allegory—are now established bey-ond all doubt; while a third opinion, viz., that the Scriptures are not of absolute aud universal inspiration, has since 3fiddleton's day been adopted by many of the most learned and accomplished divines even of his own church. Middleton died at Hildershain, in Cambridgeshire, July 28,
1750. His principal writings are The Ilistory of the Life of .1111 Tullius Cicero (2 vols. 1741), a work both interesting and valuable, but neither very impartial nor quite accurate. His celebrated Letter from Rome, showing an exact Conformity between Popery and Pagan ism ; or the Religion of the prese7:1 1?omans derived from that of their Heathen Ancestors (1729), provoked the most violent indignation among Roman Catholics, and is still read with interest. All his pamphlets, treatises, ctc., were collected and published under the title of Miscellaneous 11Tork,v (4 vols. Lond. 1752-57), and contain much that is curious and valuable on theological and antiquarian topics.