burnt one paper against the utility of prayer. It is also said that Bolingbroke surreptitiously preserved a copy of this paper, after advising Middleton's executors to destroy it (Nichols, Anecd. v. 423; Walpole, George II, 1846, i. 224). The paper, however, which Bolingbroke returned with advice against publication, appears to have been a Latin dissertation upon miracles of a decidedly heterodox kind (Bolingbroke's letter of 11 Sept. 1751, in British Museum Addit. MS. 32457, and list of fragments in Addit. MS. 32459).
Middleton took some sons of the nobility into his house as pupils. According to Cole, the regular tutors were much annoyed by his encroaching upon their province. His income was about 600l. or 700l. a year. He is said to have had a share in educating the once famous Mrs. Montagu, granddaughter of his first wife. He was very intimate with John, lord Hervey [q. v.], to whom he dedicated his ‘Cicero,’ and who was erroneously credited with translations of some of the orations. Middleton's letters to him contained the substance of the treatise upon the Roman senate, and were published, with Hervey's replies, by Dr. Knowles in 1778. Middleton's relations with most of the eminent divines of his day were uncomfortable. He carried on a friendly correspondence with Warburton for a time, and Warburton was blamed (in 1738) for complimenting him in the first volume of the ‘Divine Legation’ as a ‘formidable adversary to the freethinkers.’ They afterwards had a dispute about the ‘Letters from Rome,’ which Middleton defended against Warburton in a postscript to the fourth edition (1741). This put an end to their friendship.
A portrait of Middleton, engraved by Ravenet after J. G. Echardt, is prefixed to his ‘Works.’ A medal, taken by Giovanni Pozzo at Rome in 1724, was copied by Wedgwood. The original portrait by J. G. Echardt is in the National Portrait Gallery, London. He was athletic in his youth, but injured his health by an injudicious diet, intended to suppress a tendency to corpulence.
Middleton's fame as a writer of pure English has rather faded. Parr declared that he was scarcely excelled by any one but Addison. He seems to have been admired by Landor, who introduces him, with less deviation than usual from historical accuracy, in an imaginary conversation with Magliabecchi. His writings are among the ablest of those produced by the deist controversy, and with Warburton's ‘Divine Legation’ show the tendency of the discussion to pass into an historical criticism. He touched upon many points raised by modern investigators of the history of religion, without, however, noticing their full significance.
Middleton's works are: 1. ‘A full and impartial Account of all the late Proceedings … against Dr. Bentley,’ 1719. 2. ‘Second Part’ of the above, 1719. 3. ‘Some Remarks upon a Pamphlet entitled “The Case of Dr. Bentley further stated and vindicated” …,’ 1719. 4. ‘A True Account of the Present State of Trinity College in Cambridge under the oppressive rule of their Master, Richard Bentley, late D.D.,’ 1720. 5. ‘Remarks, paragraph by paragraph, upon the Proposals lately published by Richard Bentley for a new Edition of the Greek Testament and Latin Version,’ 1721. 6. ‘Some further Remarks … containing a full Answer to the Editor's late Defence …,’ 1721. 7. ‘Bibliothecæ Cantabrigiensis ordinandæ Methodus quædam …,’ 1723. 8. ‘De Medicorum apud Veteres Romanos degentium Conditione Dissertatio; quà contra viros celeberrimos Jac. Sponium et Rich. Meadium, M.D., servilem atque ignobilem eam fuisse ostenditur,’ 1726. This was in answer to the Harveian oration by Mead, with an appendix by Edmund Chishull [q. v.], and was answered by John Ward [q. v.], Joseph Letherland, and others, to whom Middleton replied in the next: 9. ‘Dissertationis … contra anonymos quosdam … auctores Defensio,’ 1727. Middleton wrote an ‘Appendix seu Definitiones, pars secunda,’ but having met Mead upon friendly terms at the Earl of Oxford's house, suppressed it. It was published in 1761 by Dr. William Heberden the elder [q. v.], with an English letter from Middleton to another opponent, Charles La Motte (see Nichols, Lit. Anecd. i. 266–8, v. 519–20). 10. ‘A Letter from Rome, showing an exact Conformity between Popery and Paganism …,’ 1729. To the 4th edition in 1741 was added a ‘Prefatory Discourse’ and ‘Postscript.’ 11. ‘A Letter to Dr. Waterland, containing some Remarks on his “Vindication of Scripture” …,’ 1731. 12. ‘A Defence of the Letter to Dr. Waterland …,’ 1731. 13. ‘Some further Remarks on a Reply to the Defence of the Letter to Dr. Waterland …,’ 1732. 14. ‘Oratio de Novo Physiologiæ explicandæ munere, ex celeberrimi Woodwardi Testamento instituto, habita Cantabrigiæ in Scholis publicis,’ 1732. 15. ‘Remarks on some Observations addressed to the Author of the Letter to Dr. Waterland,’ 1733. 16. ‘A Dissertation concerning the Origin of Printing in England; showing that it was first introduced … by … William Caxton …,’ 1734–5. The substance of this was reprinted in the ‘Origin of Printing,’ by Bowyer and Nichols, in 1774; second edition 1776, with appendix 1781.
