Conyers Middleton
Middleton, after some dispute, consented to pay, taking Bentley's written promise to return the money if the claim should be finally disallowed.[3] 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.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".Colbatch brought an action against him, and Middleton wrote a longer and more temperate rejoinder (possibly helped by Charles Ashton).The chief justice John Pratt advised the two doctors to avoid scandal by a compromise, and Bentley finally accepted an apology.Middleton in 1723 published a plan for the future arrangement of the books; but with swipes at Bentley for retaining some manuscripts (the priceless Codex Bezae 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.In 1731 Middleton was appointed first Woodwardian Professor of Geology, 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.In 1733, however, an anonymous pamphlet (by Philip Williams the public orator)[5][6] declared that his books ought to be burnt and he should be banished from the university, unless he made a recantation.[7]On the other hand, Alexander Pope thought he and Nathaniel Hooke were the only prose writers of the day who deserved to be cited as authorities on the language.[11] In 1726, prompted by the Harveian Oration by Richard Mead,[12] with an appendix by Edmund Chishull, Middleton offended the medical profession with a dissertation[13] contending that the healing art among the ancients was exercised only by slaves or freedmen.In professing to indicate a short and easy method of confuting Tindal, he laid emphasis on the indispensableness of Christianity as a mainstay of social order.Middleton's reputation was enhanced by this work; but, as was later pointed out, he drew largely from a rare book by William Bellenden, De tribus luminibus Romanorum.The Introductory Discourse and the Free Inquiry [16] addressed "the miraculous powers which are supposed to have subsisted in the church from the earliest ages."Middleton suggested two propositions: that ecclesiastical miracles must be accepted or rejected in the mass; and that there is a distinction between the authority due to the early Church Fathers' testimony to the beliefs and practices of their times, and their credibility as witnesses to matters of fact.
John Giles EccardtRichmond, North YorkshireHildershamTrinity College, CambridgeHinderwellSt Peter's School, YorkMonks HortonDrake of AshElizabeth MontaguBishop of ElyRichard BentleyDoctor of Divinityregius professor of divinityguineasJohn ColbatchKing's BenchCharles AshtonJohn PrattJohn MooreCodex BezaeHenry Hare, 3rd Baron ColeraineHorace WalpoleWoodwardian Professor of GeologyNoah's FloodZachary PearceEdward Harley, 2nd Earl of OxfordSamuel ParrplagiarismWilliam BellendenAlexander PopeNathaniel HookeRichard ChallonerTridentine CreedThomas SewardHenry MowerHarveian OrationRichard MeadEdmund ChishullJohn WardJoseph LetherlandWilliam Heberden the elderDaniel WaterlandMatthew TindalGiovanni PozzoCiceroJohn Hervey, 2nd Baron HerveyChurch FathersThomas SherlockThomas AshtonJulius BateAnselm BaylyZachary BrookeThomas ChurchJoseph ClarkeWilliam CookeWilliam DodwellRalph HeathcoteJohn JacksonJohn RotheramThomas RutherforthThomas SeckerMethodistJohn WesleyReflections on the variations, or inconsistencies, which are found among the four EvangelistsDorchesterBoughroodRadnorshireJohn TrenchardThomas GordonSarah ScottSir Leslie StephenDictionary of National BiographyCatholic Encyclopediapublic domainChisholm, HughEncyclopædia BritannicaJohn Woodward (1665 – 1728)University of CambridgeCharles Mason