Conyers Middleton - Dispute With Bentley

Dispute With Bentley

Middleton was one of the thirty fellows of Trinity College who on 6 February 1710 petitioned the Bishop of Ely, as visitor of the college, to take steps against Richard Bentley the Master, at odds with the fellowship. In 1717, he became involved in a dispute with Bentley over the awarding of degrees. George I visited the university, and the degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred on 32 people, including Middleton. Bentley, as regius professor of divinity, demanded a fee of four guineas from each of the new doctors in addition to the established complimentary "broad-piece". Middleton, after some dispute, consented to pay, taking Bentley's written promise to return the money if the claim should be finally disallowed. He was then created doctor. Having vainly applied for a return of the fee, he sued for it as a debt in the vice-chancellor's court. After various delays and attempts to make up the quarrel, the vice-chancellor issued a decree (23 September 1718) for Bentley's arrest. Bentley's refusal to submit to this decree led to further proceedings, and to his degradation from all his degrees by a grace of the senate on 18 October.

The matter was then pursued in a pamphlet war and Bentley brought an action against the publisher of the anonymous On the Present State of Trinity College (1719), which was the work of Middleton with John Colbatch. Middleton claimed (9 February 1720) the pamphlet as his own; Bentley continued to prosecute the bookseller, until Middleton made a declaration of his authorship before witnesses. Bentley then laid an information against him in the king's bench, based on a passage in the pamphlet about the impossibility of obtaining redress in "any proper court of justice in the kingdom". The proceedings were slow, and meanwhile Middleton took advantage of Bentley's proposals for an edition of the New Testament to attack him in a sharp pamphlet. Bentley replied, using terms of gross abuse directed mainly against Colbatch, to whom he chose to attribute the authorship. Bentley's reply was condemned by the Cambridge heads of houses. Colbatch brought an action against him, and Middleton wrote a longer and more temperate rejoinder (possibly helped by Charles Ashton).

When Middleton's case was heard in the court of king's bench (Trinity term 1721), he was found guilty of libel. Sentence was delayed. Friends subscribed towards his expenses, and he obtained the intercession of a highly-placed person for a lenient sentence. The chief justice John Pratt advised the two doctors to avoid scandal by a compromise, and Bentley finally accepted an apology. Middleton, however, had to pay his own costs, and expenses of his opponent.

The dispute flared up again, to end on a note of bathos. Middleton's supporters (14 December 1721), passed a vote through the university Senate making him a librarian—a salaried "Protobibliothecarius" of the university library—a new post, on the pretext of the king's recent donation of Bishop John Moore's library. Middleton in 1723 published a plan for the future arrangement of the books; but with swipes at Bentley for retaining some manuscripts (the Codex Bezæ among them) in his own house, and on the court of king's bench. Bentley appealed to the court, and on 20 June 1723 Middleton was fined, and ordered to provide securities for good behaviour for a year. Middleton went off to Italy. On his return he renewed his old suit for the four guineas. Bentley did not oppose him, and in February 1726 Middleton at last got back his fee, together with 12s. costs.