Page:The lives of the poets of Great Britain and Ireland to the time of Dean Swift - Volume 4.djvu/220

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HIS gentleman was ſon of Arthur More, eſq; one of the lords commiſſioners of trade, in the reign of Queen Anne; his mother was the daughter of Mr. Smyth, a man of conſiderable fortune, who left this his grandſon a handſome eſtate, on which account he obtained an Act of Parliament to change his name to Smyth.

Our author received his education at Oxford, and while he remained at the univerſity he wrote a comedy called The Rival Modes, his only dramatic performance. This play was condemned in the repreſentation, but he printed it in 1727, with the following motto, which the author of the Notes to the Dunciad, by way of irony, calls modeſt.

Upon the death of our author’s grandfather, he enjoyed the place of paymaſter to the band of gentlemen-penſioners, in conjunction with his younger brother, Arthur More; of this place his mother procured the reverſion from his late Majeſty during his father’s lifetime. Being a man of a gay diſpoſition, he inſinuated himſelf into the favour of his grace the duke of Wharton, and being, like him, deſtitute of prudence, he joined with that volatile great man in writing a paper called the Inquiſitor, which breathed ſo much the ſpirit of Jacobitiſm, that the publiſher thought