Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 38.djvu/386

 of Milton Place, Egham, who matriculated from Corpus Christi College, Oxford, on 19 June 1674, aged 22, having previously, on 13 May 1670, been admitted a student of Gray's Inn (, Register, p. 309, and Alumni Oxon. 1500-1714). He was knighted by George I in 1716, 'on what account we know not, but believe it could hardly be for his poetry.' He wrote 'Mangora, King of the Timbusians, or the Faithful Couple,' 1718, 4to, a tragedy in blank verse, which was played at Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre, 14 Dec. 1717. The scene is laid in Paraguay, and the action being full of battle, murder, and sudden death, Rich probably thought that the bustle of the piece would carry it prosperously through five acts of absurdities. Moore, it is said, stimulated the actors during rehearsals by inviting them to supper, and the audience proved too hilarious to hiss. Genest asserts that there is no particular fault to be found with the plot of the play, which, nevertheless, provoked ferocious 'Reflections on Mangora' (1718). A reply, probably by Moore, was entitled 'The Muzze Muzzled, in answer to Reflections on Mangora' (1719, 4to). All these pieces are rare. Moore died at Leatherhead on 16 April 1735.



MOORE, THOMAS (d. 1792), teacher of psalmody, was teaching music in Manchester in 1750. In 1755 the town council of Glasgow appointed him precentor of 'the new church in Bell's Yard' (Blackfriars) and teacher of psalmody in the town's hospital. In 1756 he was elected a burgess, and subsequently taught free music classes, by order of the magistrates, in the Tron Kirk, and kept a bookseller's shop, first in Princes Street and afterwards in Stockwell Street. He demitted his offices of precentor and psalmody teacher in 1787; and, from an advertisement in the 'Glasgow Courier' of 17 Nov. 1792, he appears to have died at Glasgow in that year. Moore edited several collections of psalmody, notably 'The Psalm Singer's Compleat Tutor and Divine Companion,' 2 vols. Manchester, circa 1750; 'The Psalm Singer's Pocket Companion,' Glasgow, 1756; and 'The Psalm Singer's Delightful Pocket Companion,' Glasgow, n.d. [1762]. In the 1756 collection appear, probably for the first time in Scotland, several church melodies, which were subsequently popular.



MOORE, THOMAS (1779–1852), poet, was born at No. 12 Aungier Street, Dublin, 28 May 1779. His father, John Moore, a native of Kerry, was a grocer and wine merchant; his mother, Anastasia, was the eldest daughter of Thomas Codd, a provision dealer at Wexford. Both were Roman catholics. After receiving some education from an eccentric schoolmaster named Malone, Thomas was placed at the grammar school kept by Samuel Whyte. Whyte had been R. B. Sheridan's schoolmaster as long ago as 1758, and his school was considered the best in Dublin. The instruction given in Latin was very defective, but by the help of extra lessons from an usher named Donovan, Moore, who was a remarkably clever and forward boy, contrived to acquire sufficient Latin to justify his entrance at Trinity College, Dublin, in 1794, the partial removal of the Roman catholic disabilities in 1793 having enabled his mother to realise her wish of educating him for the bar. In 1793 also, Moore, who had already lisped in numbers, made his first appearance as a poet by contributing 'Lines to Zelia' and 'A Pastoral Ballad' to the 'Anthologia Hibernica,' one of the most respectable attempts at periodical literature, he says, that had ever been ventured upon in Ireland, but which ceased after two years, 'for the Irish never either fight or write well on their own soil.' In 1795 he commenced his college course, in which he obtained a considerable reputation for wit and literature, but few of even such university honours as were then open to Roman catholics. He formed an intimate friendship with [q. v.], and narrowly escaped being drawn into the plots of the United Irishmen. His principal performance while at the college was a metrical translation of Anacreon, which the provost, Dr. Kearney, would willingly have recommended for a special reward, but doubted if the university could properly countenance anything 'so amatory and convivial.' Moore took it with him to London on going thither in 1799 to enter himself at the Middle Temple, and succeeded in arranging for its publication. It appeared in the following year, with the addition of copious notes. The publication was by subscription, and Moore was greatly annoyed to find only the provost and one fellow of Trinity among the subscribers. He found, however, a more distinguished patron in the Prince of Wales, to whom he was