Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 39.djvu/252

Moyle  of the Privy Council, vi. 239). When he was called to the bar does not appear, but he was reader at Gray's Inn, in 1443 became a serjeant-at-law, and a king's Serjeant in 1454 (, Serjeants-at-Law, pp. 35, 36). In the same year he was the bearer of a message from the lords to the commons, refusing to interfere on behalf of the speaker, Thorpe, imprisoned by process of law, and on 9 July he was appointed a judge of the king's bench (''Cal. Pat. Rolls'', p. 296). This office he held till his death. In 1459, 1460, and 1461 he was appointed by parliament a trier of petitions from Gascony and parts abroad. He was one of those knighted in 1465 on the occasion of the coronation of Edward IV's queen, Elizabeth. He died about 1470, seised of numerous lands in Devonshire and Somerset, and his will was proved on 31 July 1480. Through his wife Margaret he acquired the manor of Stevenston in Devonshire. His son John was father of Sir Thomas Moyle [q. v.]

 MOYLE, WALTER (1672–1721), politician and student, born at Bake in St. Germans, Cornwall, on 3 Nov. 1672, was the third, but eldest surviving son of Sir Walter Moyle, who died in September 1701, by his wife Thomasine, daughter of Sir William Morice [q. v.], who was buried at St. Germans on 22 March 1681–2. He was a grandson of John Moyle, the friend of Eliot. After having been well grounded in classical learning, probably at Liskeard grammar school, he matriculated from Exeter College, Oxford, on 18 March 1688–9, and a set of verses by him was inserted in the university collection of poems for William and Mary, 1689, but he left Oxford without taking a degree. About 1708 he contributed towards the erection of the new buildings at Exeter College opposite the front gate and stretching eastwards, and his second son was a fellow of the college (, Exeter Coll., 1893 ed., pp. viii, 90). On 26 Jan. 1690–1 he was specially admitted at the Middle Temple, and gave himself up to the study of constitutional law and history. At first Moyle frequented Maynwaring's coffee-house in Fleet Street and the Grecian near the Temple, but to be nearer the realms of fashion he removed to Covent Garden, and became a regular companion of the wits at Will's. About 1693 he translated four pieces by Lucian, which were included (i. 14–66) in the version issued in 1711 under the direction of Dryden, who, in the ‘Life of Lucian,’ praised Moyle's ‘learning and judgment above his age.’ Dryden further, in his ‘Parallel of Poetry and Painting’ (Scott's ed. xvii. 312), called Moyle ‘a most ingenious young gentleman, conversant in all the studies of humanity much above his years,’ and acknowledged his indebtedness to Moyle for the argument on the reason why imitation pleases, as well as for ‘all the particular passages in Aristotle and Horace to explain the art of poetry by that of painting’ (which would be used when there was time to ‘retouch’ the essay). Dryden again praised him in the ‘Discourse on Epick Poetry’ (cf. ‘Memoir of the Rev. Joshua Parry,’ pp. 130–2). Moyle appreciated the rising merit of Congreve. Charles Gildon [q. v.] published in 1694 a volume of ‘Miscellaneous Letters and Essays’ containing ‘An Apology for Poetry,’ in an essay directed to Moyle, and several letters between him, Congreve, and John Dennis are included in the latter's collections of ‘Letters upon Several Occasions,’ 1696, and ‘Familiar and Courtly Letters of Voiture, with other Letters by Dryden, Wycherley, Congreve,’ 1700, and reprinted in Moyle's ‘Works’ in 1727. So late as 1721 Dennis issued two more volumes of ‘Original Letters,’ containing two addressed to Moyle in 1720 in terms of warm affection, although he had been absent from London for ‘twenty tedious years.’

Moyle sat in parliament for Saltash from 1695 to 1698. He was a zealous whig, with a keen desire to encourage British trade, and a strong antipathy to ecclesiastical establishments. In conjunction with John Trenchard he issued in 1697 ‘An Argument showing that a Standing Army is inconsistent with a Free Government, and absolutely destructive to the Constitution of the English Monarchy,’ which was reprinted in 1698 and 1703, and included in the ‘Pamphleteer,’ x. 109–40 (1817). It caused such ‘offence at court that Mr. Secretary Vernon ordered the printer to attend him to discover the author,’ and it produced several other pamphlets, the most famous being Lord Somers's ‘A Letter ballancing the necessity of keeping of a Land-Force in Times of Peace.’

Moyle's favourite study was history, and he speculated in his retirement from public life, in 1698, on the various forms and laws of government. He had read all the classical authors, both Greek and Latin, with the intention of compiling a history of Greece, and at a later period of life he ‘launched far into ecclesiastical history.’ His constant regret was that he had not travelled abroad, but to compensate for this loss he devoured every book of travel or topographical history. In