Theologian and classical scholar; born at Richmond, Yorkshire, England, Dec. 27, 1683; graduated at Cambridge 1702, and became a fellow of Trinity College 1706. He was for years engaged in an acrimonious quarrel with Richard Bentley; wrote A Letter from Rome showing an Exact Conformity between Popery and Paganism (1729); became principal librarian of Cambridge (1722); was Woodwardian Professor of Mineralogy 173134. His best known works are an uncritical and highly eulogistic Life of Cicero (1741); Introductory Discourse (1747); and the Free Inquiry (1748), violent attacks on ecclesiastical miracles. Died at Hildersham, July 28, 1750.
Personal
You have doubtless heard of the loss I have had in Dr. Middleton, whose house was the only easy place one could find to converse in at Cambridge. For my part I find a friend so uncommon a thing, that I cannot help regretting even an old acquaintance, which is an indifferent likeness of it, and though I dont approve the spirit of his books, methinks tis pity the world should lose so rare a thing as a good writer.
Life of Cicero, 1741
The style of Middleton, which is commonly esteemed very pure, is blemished with many vulgar and cant terms; such as, Pompey had a months mind, &c. He had not been successful in the translations of those many epistles of Tully which he has inserted, which, however curious, yet break the thread of the narration. Mongault and Melmoth have far exceeded him in their excellent translations of these pieces; which are, after all, some of the most precious remains of antiquity
. It is a pleasing and useful work, especially to younger readers, as it gives a comprehensive view of a most interesting period in the Roman history, and of the characters principally concerned in those important events.
A man of real taste and politeness. His Life of Cicero will live to do him honour when his other works are forgotten.
The style of Middleton is considered to be as pure English as can be read; and whether Hume did, or did not, form his own style upon that of this author, it is certain that the late Mr. Fox (no mean arbiter in literary taste) always spoke warmly of the biography of Cicero, by Middleton; for its style as well as its matter . There was scarcely a family of distinction at the time [of its publication] but what possessed a copy of Middletons Cicero.
Never was there a mind keener or more critical than that of Middleton. Had the doctor brought to the examination of his favourite statesmans conduct but a very small part of the acuteness and severity which he displayed when he was engaged in investigating the high pretensions of Epiphanius and Justin Martyr, he could not have failed to produce a most valuable history of a most interesting portion of time. But this most ingenious and learned man, though
So wary held and wise | |
That, as twas said, he scarce received | |
For gospel what the church believed, |
Middletons Life of Cicero may be considered as a most important branch of Roman history. It is ah admirable work. The life of that great man spreads over the whole interesting period of the dying convulsions of the Republic . The eventful life of Cicero; his splendid public services; his exalted patriotism; his surprising industry; his immense erudition; his profound sagacity; his incorruptible integrity; his almost Christian philosophy, are thoroughly apparent in his works, and elegantly delineated in Middletons life of him.
Reviewing the whole of the celebrated orators public career, and the principal transactions of his timesmixing up questions of philosophy, government, and politics with the details of biography, Middleton compiled a highly interesting work, full of varied and important information, and written with great care and taste. An admiration of the rounded style and flowing periods of Cicero seems to have produced in his biographer a desire to attain to similar excellence; and perhaps no author, prior to Johnsons great works, wrote English with the same careful finish and sustained dignity. The graces of Addison were wanting, but certainly no historical writings of the day were at all comparable to Middletons memoir.
General
Dr. Conyers Middleton, of Cambridge, hath just written and put out a twelve penny pamphlett in English, to prove Caxton the first printer in England; and makes the Ruffinus or Hieronymus de Fide, printed in Oxford anno 1468, to be a cheat, as if there were no such book then printed there, or at least if there were such a book printed there, he says, the date should be 1478. He runs down Atkins book about printing, as he does also the register at Canterbury, making the record to be a forgery, because the register is now wanting. But his whole performance is poor and mean, and tho he endeavours to rob Oxford of an honour that no one pretended to take from her, yet Middleton detrahere ausus hærentem capiti, multa cum laude, coronam, hath plainly shewd, that he envys us this glory, which no one need wonder at, that considers a much bolder stroke of his lately, which made a great noise, and very deservedly blasted his reputation, which was his book (for he is known to be the author, tho his name be not to it) to prove that Moses was not an inspired writer. Tis certain, that Middleton is an ingenious man, but if he soars at all, and considerable, very uncommon, must be that genius that succeeds.
This man was endowed with penetration and accuracy. He saw where his principles led [Free Inquiry into the Miracles]; but he did not think proper to draw the consequences.
Dr. Middleton was a man of no common attainments: his learning was elegant and profound, his judgment was acute and polished, his taste was fine and correct: his style was so pure and harmonious, so vigorously flowing without being inflated, that, Addison alone excepted, he seems to me without a rival.
Conyers Middleton being the original author of the feud which so greatly agitated the University and interested the public, felt himself called upon to vindicate the conduct of the majority, who had so readily embraced his cause. This distinguished writer was not one of those who are early familiar with the press; his present pamphlet happens to be the first published specimen of a style, which for elegance, purity, and ease, yields to none in the whole compass of English literature. In this first essay he showed himself to possess all the talents, and to understand the use of all the weapons of a controversialist. The acrimonious and resentful feeling which prompted every line is in some measure disguised by the pleasing language, the harmony of the periods, and the vein of scholarship which enlivens the whole tract.
This celebrated man was the most malignant of a malignant crew. In his Review of Bentleys Proposals for Editing the Greek Text of the Greek Testament, he stings like a serpent,more rancorous party pamphlets never were written. He hated Waterland with the same perfect malignity; and his letters to Warburton, published in a quatro collection of his Miscellaneous Tracts, show that he could combine the part of sycophant, upon occasion, with that of assassin-like lampooner. It is, therefore, no unacceptable retribution in the eyes of those who honour the memory of Dan. Waterland and Bentley, men worth a hecatcomb of Middletons, that the reputation of this venomous writer is now decaying,upon a belief at last thoroughly established that in two at least, and those two the most learned, of his works, he was an extensive plagiarist.
He was a man of war from his youth; and, had his judgment been equal to his learning, he might have obtained a place in the first rank of English letters . If we were disposed to allow his rigid orthodoxy,and this would be a large demand upon the charity of a theological critic,it is impossible to deny his passion for controversy. He seems never to have been so much pleased as when, by broaching some startling point of disputation, he succeeds in horrifying the mind of his more orthodox brethren.
Whatever may be the cause, there is a vein of bitterness in his later controversial writings. Middleton has the tone of a disappointed man. Probably he felt himself to be in a false position. He is more open to the charge of insidious hostility to Christianity than such writers as Tindal and Collins; for, whilst expressing sentiments almost identical with those of the deists, he retained ecclesiastical preferment to the end of his life. Disappointment at the discovery that he had forfeited his chances of higher preferment by overstepping the conventional limits of orthodoxy, and possibly some of the discontent often felt by men doomed to academical retirement whilst ambitious to be regarded as men of the world, may have contributed to sour him. At any rate, we feel a certain suspicion of his loudly expressed claims to disinterested love of truth, and contempt for the trammels of worldly ambition. His best-known book. The Life of Cicero, is the chief foundation of his claims to a peculiar excellence of style; but his other writings, in spite of the blemishes of sentiment, showed a juster appreciation of the true conditions of the argument than any hitherto noticed, and may be counted as amongst the most powerful agents in the intellectual development of the time. Middleton, who had held his own against Bentley, could not summarily be put down as an ignorant dabbler in matters too deep for him.
It has been considered that Middletons covert attacks upon the credibility of miracles and other matters of Protestant creed, marked the beginning of a new tide of critical religious speculation in England. His Free Inquiry into Miraculous Powers caused quite a sensation when it appeared in 1747. The arguments of Middleton were ridiculed by Wesley, and scandalised Gray, but they strengthened the hands of Hume, and they helped to mould the conscience of Gibbon.
Following the various lines which the literature of the century presents to us, we find in Middleton a distinct type, which is clearly distinguished from what has gone before, and is carried on consistently in certain features to the end. His learning, within its limits, is clear, practical, and free from pedantry. All his equipment is well assorted and adaptable; there is nothing about it either of cumbrousness or mystery. His style is exact, logical, and full of common sense; if it is bald it therein reflects the limitations of the man.
His place here, however, is that of the most distinguished representative of the absolutely plain stylenot colloquial and vernacular like Bentleys, but on the other hand attempting none of the graces which Addison and Berkeley in their different ways achieveda style more like the plainer Latin or French styles than like anything else in English.