THE LIFE OF E. MOORE, BY MR. CHALMERS. HAVING lately published what information I could collect respecting the life of Moore', the present article will be little else than a transcript, with a few additional particulars from more recent inquiry. For the account of his family I am indebted to Dr. Anderson, who received his information from Mr. Toulmin of Taunton. Edward Moore was the grandson of the reverend John Moore, of Devonshire, one of the ejected nonconformists, who died Aug. 23, 1717, leaving two sons in the dissenting ministry. Of these, Thomas, the father of our poet, removed to Abingdon in Berkshire, where he died in 1721, and where Edward was born March 22, 1711-12, and for some time brought up under the care of his uncle. He was afterwards placed at the school of East Orchard in Dorsetshire, where he probably received no higher education than would qualify him for trade. For some years he followed the business of a linen-draper, both in London and in Ireland, but with so little success that he became disgusted with his occupation, and, as he informs us in his preface, " more from necessity than inclination," began to encounter the vicissitudes of a literary life. His first attempts were of the poetical kind, which still preserve his name among the minor poets of his country. In 1744, he published his Fables for the Female Sex, which were so favourably received, as to introduce him into the society of some learned and some opulent contemporaries. The hon. Mr. Pelham was one of his early patrons, and, by bis Trial of Selim, he gained the friendship of lord Lyttelton, who felt himself flattered by a compliment turned with much ingenuity, and decorated by wit and spirit. But as, for some time, Moore derived no substantial advantage from patronage, his chief dependance was on the stage, to which, within five years, he supplied three pieces of considerable, although unequal, merit. The Foundling, a comedy, which was first acted in 1748, was decried from a fancied resemblance to the Conscious Lovers. It is however, of a more lively cast, and the characters and incidents are more natural and probable. His Gil Blas, which appeared in 1751, met with a more severe fate, and, 1 British Essayists, vol. xxvi. pref. to the World. VOL XIV. |