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 wrote, a weekly periodical called ‘The Country Spectator.’ The first number appeared 9 Oct. 1792, the last on 21 May 1793 (, Reminiscences of Oriel, &c. ii. 414). This periodical—an echo of Addison and Steele—attracted the attention of Dr. John Pretyman, archdeacon of Lincoln, and brother of Bishop Pretyman, and he made Middleton tutor to his sons, first at Lincoln and then at Norwich. In 1795 Middleton was presented by Dr. Pretyman to the rectory of Tansor, Northamptonshire, and in 1802 to the consolidated rectory of Little and Castle Bytham, Lincolnshire. At this time he began his well-known work on the Greek article, being incited by a controversy on this subject, in which Granville Sharp, Wordsworth, master of Trinity, and Calvin Winstanley engaged (1798–1805). The volume appeared in 1808 as ‘The Doctrine of the Greek Article applied to the Criticism and the Illustration of the New Testament,’ London, 8vo. It was praised in the ‘Quarterly Review’ (ii. 187 ff.) as a learned and useful work, and went through five editions (2nd edit. 1828, by Professor James Scholefield; 3rd edit. 1833, by H. J. Rose; 1841, 1858). In 1809 Middleton obtained a prebendal stall at Lincoln, and in 1811 exchanged Tansor and Bytham for the vicarage of St. Pancras, London, and the rectory of Puttenham, Hertfordshire. In 1812 he became archdeacon of Huntingdon. On his removal to London in 1811 he undertook the editorship of the ‘British Critic’ (new series), and took an active part in the proceedings of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. He endeavoured, unsuccessfully, to raise funds for a new church in St. Pancras parish.

The act of 1813 which renewed the charter of the East India Company erected their territories into one vast diocese, with a bishop (of Calcutta) and three archdeacons. The number of Anglican clergy in India was very small. The bishopric, the salary of which was 5,000l., was offered to Middleton. He was consecrated at Lambeth Palace on 8 May 1814, and reached Calcutta on 28 Nov. 1814. Difficulties had been prophesied with the natives on religious grounds, but the bishop's arrival and subsequent visitations created no alarm or disturbance. He found the Bible Society established at Calcutta, but declined an invitation to join it. He had difficulty (1815) with the presbyterian ministers who were maintained by the court of directors of the East India Company. In 1815 he organised the Free School and the Orphan School at Calcutta, and in May of the same year formed a diocesan committee of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, a society which, when he left England, had placed 1,000l. at his disposal in furtherance of its views. On 18 Dec. 1815 he left Calcutta to make his primary visitation, attended by a party of about 450 people. The whole journey was one of about five thousand miles. He had an interview with the nabob of the Carnatic at Madras, traversed Southern India, visited Bombay, Goa, Ceylon, and the Syrian Christians at Cochin. During this visitation, which ended in 1816, the bishop made no heathen converts. His view, frequently expressed, was that the ‘fabric of idolatry’ in India would never be shaken merely by the preaching of missionaries. He trusted rather to the general diffusion of knowledge and the arts to pave the way for Christianity. The first duty of the Anglican church was to bring the European inhabitants under its influence, and to set up a high standard of moral and religious life. About September 1820 the bishop's house was struck by lightning while the family was at dinner, but no one was injured (India Gazette, quoted in Selections from the Asiatic Journal, i–xxviii. 399).

On 15 Dec. 1820 Middleton laid the foundation-stone of Bishop's Mission College, on a site within three miles of Calcutta. The establishment of this college was the bishop's favourite scheme. The institution was to consist of a principal and professors, and of students who were afterwards to be provided for as missionaries and schoolmasters in India. On 19 April 1821 the bishop again visited Cochin to ascertain the condition of the Syrian church there, and in December held his third visitation at Calcutta. He died on 8 July 1822 of a fever, in the fifty-fourth year of his age and the ninth of his episcopate. He was buried in Calcutta Cathedral.

The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, to which he left 500l. and five hundred volumes from his library, joined the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge in subscribing for a monument to him in the nave of St. Paul's Cathedral. This memorial—a marble group by J. G. Lough—represents Bishop Middleton blessing two Indian children kneeling before him. In accordance with Middleton's will all his writings in manuscript were destroyed, including a memoir on the Syrian church. While in India he collected Syriac manuscripts and learnt Hindustani, but gave up the study of Greek. His ‘Sermons and Charges’ were published, with a memoir, in 1824 by Archdeacon Bonney. Middleton was a fellow of the Royal Society (elected