Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 39.djvu/253

 the autumn of 1713 he finished a new library at Bake, and was eager to stock it with the best works and editions. He was a student of botany and ornithology, making great collections on the birds of Cornwall and Devon, helping Ray, as is acknowledged in the preface in the second edition of the ‘Synopsis Methodica Stirpium Britannicarum,’ and promising to send Dr. Sherard a catalogue of his specimens for insertion in the ‘Philosophical Transactions,’ but a lingering illness did not permit him to carry this design into effect. The books in his study were full of notes, and the margins of his copy of Willoughby's ‘Ornithology’ were crowded with observations. Unfortunately the whole of his library and manuscripts was destroyed by fire in 1808. Moyle died at Bake on 10 June 1721, and was buried at St. Germans on 13 June, a monument being placed to his memory at the end of the north aisle, near the chancel. He married at Bideford, Devonshire, 6 May 1700, Henrietta Maria, daughter of John Davie of that town. She died on 9 Dec. 1762, aged 85, and was buried at St. Germans on 15 Dec. They had issue two sons and one daughter.

After Moyle's death Thomas Sergeant edited the ‘Works of Walter Moyle, none of which were ever before published,’ 1726, 2 vols. It contained in the first volume: 1. ‘Essay on the Constitution of the Roman Government.’ 2. ‘A Charge to the Grand Jury at Liskeard, April 1706.’ 3. ‘Letters to Dr. William Musgrave of Exeter.’ 4. ‘Dissertation on the age of Philopatris, a Dialogue commonly attributed to Lucian.’ 5. ‘Letters to and from Tancred Robinson, Sherard, and others.’ The second volume comprised: 6. ‘Remarks upon some Passages in Dr. Prideaux's Connection.’ 7. ‘Miracle of the Thundering Legion examin'd, in several Letters between Moyle and K——’ [Richard King of Topsham, near Exeter]. This collection was followed in the subsequent year by a reprint by Curll of ‘The Whole Works of Walter Moyle that were Published by Himself,’ to which was prefixed some account of his life and writing by Anthony Hammond (1668–1738) [q. v.] It contained, in addition to several works already mentioned: 1. ‘Xenophon's Discourse on the Revenue of Athens,’ which was translated at Charles Davenant's request, and after it had been included in his ‘Discourses on the Publick Revenues and the Trade of England,’ 1698, was reprinted in Sir William Petty's ‘Political Arithmetic,’ 1751, in Davenant's ‘Works’ in 1771, and in the ‘Works of Xenophon’ translated by Ashley Cooper and others, 1831. 2. ‘An Essay on Lacedæmonian Government,’ which was included, with three other tracts by him, in ‘A Select Collection of Tracts by W. Moyle,’ printed at Dublin in 1728 and Glasgow in 1750.

The ‘Essay on the Roman Government,’ which was inserted in Sergeant's collection, was reprinted by John Thelwall in 1796, and, when translated into French by Bertrand Barrière, was published at Paris in 1801. The series of ‘Remarks on some Passages in Dr. Prideaux's Connection’ was included in the French editions of that work which were published in 1728, 1732, 1742, and 1744. Moyle's ‘Examination of the Miracle of the Thundering Legion’ was attacked in separate publications by the Rev. William Whiston and the Rev. Thomas Woolston, and Thomas Hearne, in his volume of ‘John of Glastonbury,’ referred to some of Moyle's criticisms on the ‘Shield’ of Dr. Woodward (Rel. Hearnianæ, ed. 1869, ii. 265, 290), but he was defended by Curll in ‘An Apology for the Writings of Walter Moyle,’ 1727. His ‘Remarks on the Thundering Legion’ were translated into Latin by Mosheim and published at Leipzig in 1733, discussed, with Moyle's ‘Notes on Lucian,’ in N. Lardner's ‘Collection of Ancient Testimonies to the Truth of the Christian Religion,’ ii. 229, 241–50, 355–69, and they formed the text of some letters from Charles Yorke to Warburton in ‘Kilvert's Selection from the Papers of Warburton,’ 1841, pp. 124 seqq.

Two letters from Moyle to Horace Walpole on the passage of the Septennial Bill are printed in Coxe's ‘Sir Robert Walpole,’ ii. 62–4. Several of his communications are inserted in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ for 1837, 1838, and 1839, and forty-five letters on ancient history which passed between him and two local correspondents in Devonshire are preserved in manuscript at St. John's College, Cambridge. There are frequent references to him in Sherard's correspondence (, Illustrations of Literature, i. 308–89, and, Letters, pp. 154–250). Charles Hopkins addressed an ode to him (Epistolary Poems, 1694), and John Glanvill published a translation of Horace, bk. i. ode 24, which he prepared on his death (Poems, 1725, pp. 205–6). Moyle's friends praised his ‘exactness of reasoning’ and his subtle irony, and Warburton gave him the praise of great learning and acuteness (Divine Legation, bk. ii.; notes in Works, ed. 1788, i. 464). His portrait, engraved by Vertue, was prefixed to the 1726 edition of his works.

[Vivian's Visitations of Cornwall, p. 335; Foster's Alumni Oxon.; Granger and Noble's Biog. Hist. 1806; Gosse's Congreve, pp. 32–3, 40, 79–