Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 37.djvu/381

 Sault, at two guineas a sheet, under the direction of Dr. Midgley, while elsewhere he insinuates that William Bradshaw [q. v.] was the real writer. Midgley certainly owned the copyright of the work previously to 27 Dec. 1693 (, Lit. Anecd. i. 413); and that he acquired it as, at least, joint author is a view in which Hallam has received vigorous support. But the theory that Midgley and Bradshaw supplemented and continued Manley, though the one generally held during the eighteenth century, will not suffer investigation (cf. Warton's note to Pope, and ‘A Letter from W. Bishop to Dr. Charlett on the “Turkish Spy,”’ in Bodleian Letters, i. 223).

In 1684 a Genoese named Giovanni Paolo Marana published at Paris a small volume in French entitled the ‘Espion Turc.’ A second volume followed in 1685, a third in 1686, and a fourth at Amsterdam in 1688. The substance of these four volumes appeared in English in the first volume of the familiar ‘Turkish Spy’ in 1687. It is practically certain, therefore, that the first volume of the ‘Letters’ was composed, not by Manley, but by Marana, and it is at least very probable that the Italian was the author of the remainder of the work. This theory, which affords a solution to a perplexed question, has been ably reconciled by Bolton Corney (in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ for 1841) not only with Midgley's possession of the copyright, but with the fact that the last seven volumes appeared first in English and at London. Marana, Corney contends, met with obstacles to publication in France. In Holland, to the freer press of which country he had recourse, his work was held in little esteem. Rhodes, the publisher of the popular English translation of the first volumes, was in frequent communication with Holland, and may well have purchased the inedited manuscript of the last seven volumes. Midgley, it is suggested, advanced the purchase-money and so obtained the copyright. He employed his ‘operative’ Bradshaw on the translation, which he very slightly edited.

The chief permanent interest of the once popular ‘Letters’ is derived from the fact that they inaugurated a new species of literary composition. The similar idea of a description of England as if by a foreigner was suggested by Swift as a good and original one in the ‘Journal to Stella,’ and was utilised by Ned Ward and by many successors, but Montesquieu's ‘Lettres Persanes’ (1723) is the best classical example. Many subsequent writers, including Charles Lamb, have been under obligations to the ‘Letters’ (Notes and Queries, 1st ser. i. 334, 3rd ser. v. 260, 5th ser. xii. 353;, Curiosities, 1840, pp. 136–7; , Lives of the Poets, 1753, iv. 4; Gent. Mag. 1840 and 1841 passim; Brit. Mus. Cat. under ‘Muhammad, the Turkish Spy’ pseud.) 

MIDLETON, (1660?–1728), lord chancellor of Ireland. [See .]

MIDNIGHT (MARY). [Pseudonym of, q. v., and , q. v.]

MIEGE, GUY (1644–1718?), miscellaneous writer, born in 1644, was a native of Lausanne. He was educated at the school in that town, and became an ‘academist’ about 1658. After studying philosophy for over two years, he left Switzerland in January 1660–1, and arriving in London in the following March, was witness of the coronation of Charles II on 23 April. For two years he served the household of the Earl of Elgin. He then obtained the post of under-secretary (in June 1663) to Charles Howard, earl of Carlisle [q. v.], ambassador-extraordinary to Russia, Sweden, and Denmark. He was absent with the embassy from July 1663 till January 1664–5. From the following April till 1668 he travelled in France at his own expense, and while abroad prepared for the press, from notes taken at the time, ‘The Relation of the Three Embassies,’ published anonymously in London in 1669, with the consent of the Earl of Carlisle. This appeared also in French in Rouen, 1669; Amsterdam and Rouen, 1670; Amsterdam, 1672, 1700; and, with a preface by Prince Galitzen, Paris, 1857; a German edition was published at Frankfort and Leipzig in 1701. A condensed version of the English edition was printed in Harris's ‘Navigantium Bibliotheca,’ London, 1705, ii. 177–213, and the account of the earl's reception in Moscow (in an abridged form) in Dumont and Roussel's ‘Corps Universel Diplomatique,’ Suppl. v. 648–9 (Ceremonial Diplomatique, vol. ii.).

In 1678 Miege was living in Panton Street, Leicester Fields, teaching the French language and geography. He is best known by