Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 39.djvu/203

 in Star Court, Butcher Row, near St. Clement's Church. He went to the house with a woman named Mary Roberts, after calling at White's chocolate-house, and soon after midnight an apothecary was called in, who found him dead. The woman Roberts said that Motteux had been ill in the coach, and never spoke after they reached the house. He was buried at St. Andrew Undershaft, 25 Feb., and an inquest was held. The keeper of the house, her daughter, and others were committed to Newgate, and a reward of ten guineas was offered by Mrs. Motteux, of the 4 Two Fans,' Leadenhall Street, to the coachman who drove Motteux to Star Court if he would state in what condition the gentleman was in when he set him down. The coachman was found, and on 22 March a pardon was offered to any one, not the actual murderer, who had been concerned in the matter, and 50l. reward to any one discovering the murderer. The persons in custody were tried at the Old Bailey on 23 April. The defence was that Motteux had had a fit, and the prisoners were all acquitted, 'to the great surprise of most people' (there is a long report in Political State, 1718, pp. 254, 425-36; see, too, Applebee's Original Weekly Journal, 26 April to 3 May 1718; Daily Courant, March and April 1718; and Mist's Journal, 26 April 1718, where it is said that the jury brought in a special verdict against the women, which was to be decided by the twelve judges).

Motteux had sons baptised at St. Andrew Undershaft on 3 Oct. 1705 and 13 April 1710. By his will, dated 23 Feb. 1709, and proved 24 Feb. 1717-18 by his wife Priscilla, sole executrix, Motteux (grocer and freeman of London) left his property to be divided equally among his wife and children, Peter, Henrietta, and Anthony, and others who might afterwards be born; 10l. were left to the poor of St. Andrew Undershaft. The son Peter, a surgeon, of Charterhouse Square, married Miss West in 1750, and died a widower in November 1769, leaving a daughter, Ann Bosquain; the other son, John Anthony, died in December 1741, a very eminent Hamburg merchant, leaving a widow, Ann. Motteux had a brother Timothy, merchant and salter, who was naturalised in March 1676-7 (Hist. MSS. Comm. 9th Rep. pt. ii. p. 87), and died in 1746, leaving money to his nephews and to the Walloon and Dutch churches. He was a director of the French Hospital in London (London Mag.; Gent. Mag. 1741, 1746, 1750, 1769; wills at Prerogative Court of Canterbury).

According to Pope Motteux was loquacious; 'Talkers I've learned to bear; Motteux I knew' (Satires of Dr. Donne, iv. 50); 'Motteux himself unfinished left his tale' (Dunciad, ii. 412); and in the 'Art of Sinking in Poetry,' chap, vi., he speaks of Motteux and others as 'obscure authors, that wrap themselves up in their own mud, but are mighty nimble and pert.' Motteux's claims to be remembered now rest upon his racy versions of Rabelais and Cervantes.

 MOTTLEY, JOHN (1692–1750), dramatist and biographer, was the son of Colonel Thomas Mottley, an adherent of James II in his exile, who entered the service of Louis XIV, and was killed at the battle of Turin in 1706; his mother was Dionisia, daughter of John Guise of Ablode Court, Gloucestershire. John was born in London in 1692, was educated at Archbishop Tenison's grammar school in the parish of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, and obtained a clerkship in the excise office in 1708. Owing to an 'unhappy contract 'he was compelled to resign his post in 1720, and thenceforth gained a precarious subsistence by his pen. He made his debut as a dramatic author with a frigid tragedy in the pseudo-classic style, entitled 'The Imperial Captives,' the scene of which is laid at Carthage, in the time of Genseric, who with the Empress Eudoxia and her daughter plays a principal part. The play was produced at the Theatre Royal, Lincoln's Inn Fields, in February 1719-20. At the same theatre was produced in April 1721 Mottley's only other effort in tragedy, 'Antiochus,' an extremely dull play, founded on the story of the surrender by Seleucus Nicator of his wife Stratonice to his son Antiochus. Both tragedies were printed on their production. In comedy Mottley was more successful. His dramatic opera, 'Penelope,' in which he was assisted by Thomas Cooke (1703-1756) [q. v.], a satire on Pope's ' Odyssey,' and his farce 'The Craftsman, or Weekly Journalist' (both performed at the Haymarket, and printed in 1728 and 1729 respectively), are not without humour. His comedy, 'The Widow Bewitched,' 