233 



MIDDLETON, SIR HUGH. 



MIDDLETON, THOMAS. 



234 



which was followed in 1749 by 'A Free Inquiry into the Miraculous 

 Powers,' &c. This work gave even more offence than his letter to 

 Dr. Waterland ; it was attacked by Dodwell, Church, and Chapman, 

 and was generally condemned by the clergy as tending to destroy the 

 authority of miracles in general. Midrileton however disclaimed all 

 such intention ; and it must be allowed, that whatever may have been 

 his private opinions, he does not in this work advance anything which 

 could fairly be construed into an attack upon revealed religion; 

 perhaps the former controversy had made him more cautious. The 

 object of the ' Free Inquiry ' was to place the divines of his own 

 church in the awkward predicament of either denying the authority 

 of the fathers altogether, or else of admitting the truth of the leading 

 doctrines of the Koman Catholic Church, which he maintains to be 

 satisfactorily established by the testimony and miracles of the early 

 fathers. Edward Gibbon, who was then a young man at Oxford, 

 chose the latter alternative, and went over to the Koman Catholic 

 Church, sooner than abandon the authority of the fathers. [GIBBON.] 



In 1750 Middleton published 'An Examination of the Bishop of 

 London's (Dr. Sherlock) Discourses concerning the Use and Intent of 

 Prophecy,' in which he maintained that the use of prophecy, as it was 

 taught and practised by Christ and his Apostles, was drawnentirely 

 from single and separate predictions, gathered by them from the books 

 of the law and the prophets, and applied, independently of each other 

 to establish the Me.-siahship of Jesus, and that there was no foundation 

 for Dr. Sherlock's argument that the prophecies of each age were 

 intimately connected with each other and with those of the preceding 

 nge, and that the whole formed one connected series from the time of 

 the antediluvians to the prophecies of Malachi. 



Middletou died at Hildersham on the'-'sthof July 1750. Heaccepted, 

 shortly before his death, a small living from Sir John Frederick. His 

 .-u'n-ci iption to the thirty-nine articles and the canons of the church on 

 that occasion was represented by his enemies, but whether justly or 

 not it is difficult to say, as hypocritical and insincere. 



The works of Middleton, with the exception of hig ' Life of Cicero,' 

 were collected and published after his death in four volumes, 4 to, 1752, 

 and subsequently in five volumes, 8vo. Several treatises appeared in 

 this collection which bad not been published before, of which the 

 most important are: 'A Preface to an Intended Answer to all the 

 Objections made against the Free Inquiry ;' ' Some cursory Reflections 

 on the Dispute or Dissension which happened at Antioch between 

 Peter and Paul ;' ' Reflections on the Variations or Inconsistencies 

 which are found among the Four Evangelists;' ' An Essay on the Gift 

 of Tongues ;' ' Some Short Remarks on a Story told by the Ancients 

 concerning St. John the Evangelist and Cerinthus the Heretic ;' and 

 ' An Essay on the Allegorical and Litteral Interpretation of the Fall 

 of Man.' 



MIDDLETON, SIR HUGH, was the sixth son of Richard Mid- 

 dleton, Esq., who was governor of Denbigh Castle, in Denbighshire, 

 during the reigns of Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth. The name 

 was variously spelt in those times, Mydelton, Myddleton, or Midleton. 

 The date of Hugh Middletoo's birth is uuknown, and nothing has been 

 recorded of the course of his life previous to liis great undertaking of 

 forming the New River and bringing it to London, except that he was 

 a goldsmith in London, and had realised a very large property by the 

 working of some copper-mines in Wales ; and the decisive boldness 

 with which 'he" engaged in so vast aud difficult an enterprise was 

 probably the result of his bavin?, in the conducting of his own mining 

 speculations, acquired that practical knowledge of levelling, draining, 

 embanking, and all the diversity of skill aud fertility of resources 

 necessary for the management of such a work. 



Towaids the latter end of the reign of Elizabeth, the metropolis of 

 England being very inadequately supplied with water, the citizens of 

 London obtained an Act of parliament which gave them the legal 

 authority to bring water from any part of Middlesex or Hertfordshire. 

 For a considerable time however nothing was done, till, on the 23th 

 of March 1606 Hugh Middleton, "citizen and goldsmith," offered to 

 bring to London a sufficient supply of pure water at his own cost. 

 His offer was accepted ; the citizens made over to him all the powers 

 and privileges conferred by the Act; and four years were allowed to 

 complete the woik. Having made the necessary surveys and prepara- 

 tions, and fixed on the Chadwell and Amwell spriugs, near Ware, in 

 Hertfordshire, as the sources out of which bis New River was to be 

 formed, on the 20th of April 1608 he commenced a work which, consi- 

 dering the imperfect mechanical resources of that age, may justly be 

 regarded as stupendous. 



The distance from London by the road is about twenty miles, but 

 the whole course of the river is thirty-seven miles. The ground 

 through which it was to be brought presented much difficulty from 

 its diversity of bottom as well as of level. In some places it was 

 necessary to cut a channel thirty or forty feet deep ; in others, to 

 conduct the stream over valleys in troughs on wooden supports 

 upwards of twenty feet high ; and a vast number of bridges were to 

 be constructed for the accommodation of those through whose grounds 

 'ream was carried. These difficulties, together with others 

 arising from the opposition of interested aud influential persons, 

 icn'l.-red it impossible to complete the work in the stipulated four 

 }eari>, and Middleton applied lor an extension of the time, which was 

 granted. Soon afterwards however he found that his lirge property 



was entirely exhausted. He applied to his fellow-citizens for assist- 

 ance, but he applied in vain. He then solicited the king, James I., 

 who, on the '2nd of May 1612, entered into a covenant with Middle- 

 ton, by which he engaged to pay half the expense, past and future, 

 on condition of being entitled to half the property. The work was 

 now pushed forward with increased vigour, and on the 29th of 

 September 1613, five years and five months from the commencement 

 of the undertaking, and the day on which Sir Thomas Middleton, 

 Hugh's brother, was elected lord-mayor for the ensuing year, the 

 stream was admitted into the reservoir prepared for it at Sadler's 

 Wells, near Pentouville. lu the ' Biographia Britaunica ' an inter- 

 esting account is given of the ceremony on this occasion, which was 

 attended by the lord-mayor then in office, the aldermen, the recorder, 

 and many of the priucipal citizens. The whole expense of the work 

 was about 500,000i. Middleton was knighted soon afterwards, but 

 for eighteen years after the completion of his undertaking no divi- 

 dend was returned, and in the niueteenth year the first dividend only 

 amounted to 1H. 19*. Id. on each share. 



Sir Hugh Middletou was compelled to sell his shares, and to 

 support himself by the profession of what is now called a civil 

 engineer. On the 19th of October 1622, he was created a baronet for 

 the following reasons (the king by special warrant kindly excusing 

 him from the payment of the usual fine of 10952.) : " 1. For bringing 

 to the city of London with excessive charge and greater difficulty a 

 new cut or river of fresh water, to the great benefit and inestimable 

 preservation thereof. 2. For gaining a very great and spacious 

 quantity of land in Bradiug Haven in the Isle of Wight, out of the 

 bowelles of the sea; and with banks and pyles and most strange 

 defensible and chargeable mountains, fortifying the same against tho 

 violence and fury of the waves. 3. For finding out, with a fortunate 

 and prosperous skill, exceeding industry, and no small charge, in 

 the county of Cardigan, a royal and rich mine, from whence he hath 

 extracted many silver plates, which have been coined in the Tower 

 of London for current money of England. W. Camden, Clarenceux, 

 November 1, 1622." ('Harleian Misc.') On the 18th of November 

 1636, Charles I. regrauted to Sir Hugh the whole of King James's 

 shares for an annual rent of 500k Middleton is supposed to have 

 died soon afterwards, leaving a numerous family in. very indifferent 

 circumstances. 



The springs near Ware are beautifully clear and very copious ; 

 but, a great many years ago, the supply having been found inadequate 

 to the demands of the increased population, the New River Company 

 entered into an agreement with the Commissioners of the Lea River 

 to take a portion of the Lea at Ware. The fall of the New River is 

 three feet per mile, which gives a velocity of about two miles an 

 hour. Tiie average width is about twenty-one feet, and the average 

 depth about four feet in the centre ; so that, t.ikiug it at half the 

 depth, there is a section of forty-two square feet flowiug to Londou 

 at the rate of two miles an hour. -The New River, especially in 

 winter, is occasionally rendered dirty by drainage from the land and 

 villages along its course, and the company have been at great expense 

 to purify the water before it is delivered to the inhabitants of London, 

 by the erection of settling reservoirs aud other works. Bathiug in 

 the New River is entirely prohibited ; and men called walkstnen 

 mow the bed of the river every week to keep down the growth of 

 weeds, which are stopped by gratiuga seven miles from each other, 

 where the weeds are taken out. During the last few years an 

 enormous expenditure lias been incurred by the New River Company 

 in improving their supply of water by the construction of extensive 

 works consequent on enlarged arrangements with the Commissioners 

 of the River Lea, by improvements on the New River, covering their 

 London reservoirs, &c. The whole of the city of London is supplied 

 with water by the New River Company, and a considerable proportion 

 of other parts of the metropolis also ; the total quantity of water 

 furnished by this company being more than one-third of the entire 

 London supply. 



MIDDLETUN, THOMAS, a celebrated dramatist in the reigns of 

 Elizabeth, James I., aud Charles I., tho events of whose life are even; 

 less known than those of moat of his contemporaries : indeed not a 

 single circumstance is recorded respecting him by a writer of his o\vn 

 time; and excepting the fact that he was appointed chrouologer to 

 the city of London in 1620, mentioned by OUys in his manuscript 

 notes to Langbaiue, we are absolutely ignorant of his biography. Ha 

 is supposed by Malone to have died in 1626. 



The plays written by Middleton are very numerous : three of them, 

 ' A Mad World, my Masters,' ' The Mayor of Queenborough,' and the 

 ' Roaring Girl,' are in Dodslcy's Collection, and the rest can only be 

 procured separately. The ' Roaring Girl ' is extremely valuable, as 

 giving a picture of London manners iu the author's time ; it is inter- 

 spersed with much of the slang which we find in Beaumont and 

 Fletcher's ' Beggar's Bush," and the heroine is a real character, the 

 notorious Moll Cutpurse, who was introduced by Nat. Field, a con- 



temporary dramatist, in his piece, ' Amends for Ladies." A play of 

 Middleton's, called ' The Witch,' has gained celebrity from the cir- 

 cumstance that Shakspere is supposed by some to have borrowed 

 from it his incantations in ' Macbeth.' Besides the numerous pieces 

 by himself alone, Middleton assisted Rowley in 'The Changeling,' 

 ' The Spanish Gipsy,' and ' The Fair Quarrel,' and both him and 



