MIDDLETON, Conyers, English divine: b. York, or Richmond, Yorkshire, 27 Dec. 1683; d. Hildersham, near Cambridge, 28 July 1750. He was educated at Cambridge and was elected a fellow there in 1706. He married soon after ward, thus losing his fellowship, and for a short time was rector of Coveney in the Isle of Ely, a rectory in the gift of his wealthy wife. He received his D.D. at Cambridge in 1717. He was appointed university librarian in 1721. and was in Italy in 1724-25. His 'Letter from Rome' (1729) dealt at some length upon the adaptation of pagan beliefs and ceremonies in the Roman Catholic Church and was highly praised by the orthodox English clergy, and occasioned great indignation among the Catho lics. His controversy with Waterland, in which he urged the then heretical theory that theo logians should not attempt to maintain the historical accuracy of the Bible in all instances, brought a storm of criticism and he was obliged to make some qualifications regarding his statements in order to retain his Cambridge degrees. He next engaged upon a life of Cicero, which to a great extent was related in the statesman's own words, and which gained a high reputation as a model of style, but was later found to be largely a plagiarism from a rare book of Williath Bellenden's Tribus Lumin ibus Romanorum.' He then returned to the
field of theological controversy, publishing his 'Introductory Discourse' (1747), and his 'Free Inquiry' (1748), attacking the miraculous powers supposed to have been inherent in the Church from early times. While this con" troversy was in progress Middleton died. He attained a high reputation as a master of prose style, Pope, in particular, considering him an authority upon the language; while Parr ranked him next to Addison. His modern rating, how ever, depends upon his strength as a contro versialist ; wherein, although he was extremely bitter, he exhibited keenness of perception and contempt for superstition, while in many re spects his opinions antedated those later ac cepted by modern students of religious history. His collected writings, with the exception of the 'Life of Cicero' (2 vols., 1741), were published (4 vols., 1752; 5 vols., 1755). Consult Stephen, L., 'English Thought in the Eighteenth Cen (Chap. 6, 1786).