Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 37.djvu/380

 , Cambridge, in October 1567, proceeded B.A. in 1570–1, and was elected a fellow of his college 28 June 1572 (, Hist. of Queens' College, pp. 324–31). The president and fellows in 1574 denied him permission to proceed to the degree of M.A. at Cambridge, and he consequently took that degree at Oxford. But his title to it was not recognised by his Cambridge colleagues, and he was deprived of his fellowship in July 1575, for not having commenced M.A. within the period prescribed by the college statutes. On appealing to Lord Burghley, chancellor of the university, he was restored to his fellowship, but not to his seniority (Lansdowne MS. 20, art. 76). He was incorporated M.A. at Cambridge in 1576, proceeded B.D. in 1582, and vacated his fellowship in or about 1590. For many years he held the rectory of Hardwick, Cambridgeshire. It seems that he was elected master of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, at the end of the reign of Elizabeth, in the room of Dr. Thomas Jegon [q. v.], of whom the queen disapproved, but on the accession of King James Jegon was restored, although Middleton made a fruitless attempt to retain possession (, Athenæ Cantabr. ii. 446). Middleton died on 14 June 1613, and was buried in Hardwick churchyard, where a monument, with an English inscription, was erected to his memory (Addit. MS. 5823, f. 180).

Middleton's only known work, although he is said to have written others, is ‘Papisto Mastix, or the Protestants Religion defended. Shewing briefeley when the great compound heresie of Poperie first sprange; how it grew peece by peece till Antichrist was disclosed; .... and when it shall be cut down and withered,’ London, 1606, 4to. It is dedicated to Dr. Humphrey Tendall, master, and to the fellows of Queens' College. The work has the secondary title: ‘A Briefe Answere to a Popish Dialogue between two Gentlemen; the one a Papist, the other a Protestant.’

 MIDGLEY, ROBERT, M.D. (1655?–1723), alleged author of the ‘Turkish Spy,’ son of Ralph Midgley of Brerehagh in the West Riding of Yorkshire, by Frances, daughter of George Burniston of Potter Newton in the same riding, was born in 1653, graduated B.A. at St. John's College, Cambridge, in 1673, and removing to Christ's College, proceeded M.B. in 1676 and M.D. in 1687. In the latter year he was admitted (22 Dec.) a candidate of the College of Physicians. He resided in the parish of Bassishaw, London, and was licenser of the press in 1686 and subsequent years. He died on 16 Oct. 1723. Midgley married twice; first, Isabella, daughter of George Neale, M.D., of Leeds, who died on 17 Feb. 1706-7, and was buried in the parish church, Leeds; secondly, Mary, daughter of Admiral Sir John Cox. His nephew Robert Midgley (1684–1761), son of the Rev. Joseph Midgley of Thirsk, Yorkshire, by Sarah, daughter of John Pybus, proceeded B.A. from Trinity Hall, Cambridge, 1703, M.A. in 1733, was master for fifty-three years of Coxwold free school, and author of the ‘Compendious Schoolmaster,’ to which his portrait is prefixed. He died on 24 May 1761. The inscription on his monument in Husthwaite Church appears together with his portrait engraved by James Fittler in 1790 in Nichols's ‘Lit. Illustrations,’ i. 767–9 (Gent. Mag. 1761;, Cat. of Portraits).

For the English version of ‘Plutarch's Morals’ (London, 1684–1704, 8vo) Midgley translated the treatise on the cessation of oracles and Plutarch's letter of consolation to his wife. In 1687 he published ‘A New Treatise of Natural Philosophy, freed from the Intricacies of the Schools, adorned with many curious Experiments, both Medicinal and Chymical, as also with several Observations useful for the Health of the Body’ (London, 12mo). The same year he edited ‘The History of the War of Cyprus’ (a translation of Antonio Maria Graziani's Latin history of the conquest of Cyprus by the Turks). In 1689 he published a tract entitled ‘Popery Banished. With an Account of their [sic] base Cheats, especially making the Word of God of no effect,’ Edinburgh, 4to. The ‘Key to Hudibras,’ published by L'Estrange in 1713, is said to have been derived from Midgley.

But Midgley is chiefly remembered as the ‘editor’ of the celebrated ‘Letters writ by a Turkish Spy, who liv'd five and forty years … at Paris: giving an Account … of the most remarkable transactions of Europe … from 1637 to 1682’ (London, 1687–93, 8 vols. 8vo; 26th edit. 1770), the composition of the greater part of which is, on very precarious grounds, ascribed to him by Hallam (Lit. of Europe, 1839, iv. 554). Mrs. Manley asserted that her father, Roger Manley [q. v.], wrote the first two (and best) volumes; Dunton, in his ‘Life and Errors,’ asserts that the greater part of the ‘Letters’ were written by one