MIDDLETON, Thomas, English drama tist: b. probably in London about 1570; d. New ington Butts, July 1627. Little is known of his life, but his writings testify to the excellence of his education before his entry at Gray's Inn in 1593 (or 1596). Several minor prose works preceded what seems to be his first play, 'Old Law,' written with Rowley in 1599. From that time on he wrote constantly for the stage, now alone, now with Rowley, Massinger or Dekker. Among these works are several masques, of which the best and most dramatic is 'The World Lost at Tennis.' Middleton's 'Witch' is his best known work because of the claim often made since its publication in 1778, that it must have furnished hints for the song of the witches in Shakespeare's (Macbeth); but Mid dleton's verse, which is particularly reminis cent of 'Romeo and Juliet,' and his imitation of Shakespeare, as, for example, of 'Hamlet' and (Tempest,' possibly of 'Pericles,' too, in 'The Mayor of Quinborough,> make such a view untenable. It is more likely that the songs were taken from Middleton's play and inserted into the acting edition of 'Macbeth.' The
most successful play by Middleton was 'A Game of Chess,' which satirized the wooing of the Spanish Infanta and was stopped by Privy Council; it packed the playhouses because of its political and Protestant tone. Among his other plays are 'Michaelmas Term' (1607), a story of city intrigue; 'A Trick to Catch the Old One' (1608), his best comedy of intrigue; 'The Roaring Girl); 'The Spanish Gipsy,' which, like the 'Mayor of Quinborough> and 'A Mad World,' has the Hamlet-like trick of a play within a play; and 'Women Beware Women,' his best single play. As a rule Mid dleton is erratic and ill-sustained, and his char acters low and coarse, but sometimes wonder fully analyzed. Consult the editions by Dyce (1840) and Bullen (1886), and Swinburne's essay in the Nineteenth Century for January 1866. Middleton's best plays appear in a vol tune of the 'Mermaid Series' (1887).