Conyers Middleton - Later Life

Later Life

Middleton stayed in Rome during a great part of 1724 and 1725. Henry Hare, 3rd Baron Coleraine, a fellow collector, was his companion on this journey. Middleton made a collection of antiquities, of which he later published a description; he sold it to Horace Walpole in 1744.

His first wife died on 19 February 1731. In 1731 Middleton was appointed first Woodwardian Professor, and delivered an inaugural address in Latin, pointing out the benefits which might be expected from a study of fossils in confirming the history of Noah's Flood. He resigned the chair in 1734, on his second marriage.

Middleton's sceptical tendency became clearer, and Zachary Pearce accused him of covert infidelity. He was threatened with a loss of his Cambridge degrees. Middleton replied in two pamphlets, making such explanations as he could. In 1733, however, an anonymous pamphlet (by Philip Williams the public orator) declared that his books ought to be burnt and he should be banished from the university, unless he made a recantation. Middleton made an explanation in a final pamphlet, but for some time remained silent on theological topics. His relationship with Edward Harley, 2nd Earl of Oxford was damaged.

Middleton's major work, his Life of Cicero (1741), was a success. He was attacked by Samuel Parr in 1787, however, for knowing plagiarism: Parr claimed it was based on De tribus luminibus Romanorum, a scarce work by William Bellenden. Middleton's second wife Mary died in 1745, and he returned to controversial theology in 1747. He looked for ecclesiatical preferment, but was unpopular with the bishops.

Middleton lived at Hildersham, near Cambridge, and married again shortly before he died, on 28 July 1750.