The poetical works: of Edward Moore. With the life of the author.

THE LIFE OF EDWARD MOORE.

OF the life of this ingenious writer few particulars are known, and none respecting his descent, birth, education, or death; at least none which we have been able to discover.

Mr. Moore was bred a linendraper, but whether from a stronger attachment to the study than the coun|ter, from a more ardent zeal in the pursuit of fame than in the search after fortune, or whether from the cause assigned by our Author himself in the Preface to the quarto edition of his works in 1756, that

"his marriage with the Muses, like most other marriages into that noble family, was more from necessity than inclination,"

he quitted business to join the retinue of these ladies; and he certainly had a very happy and pleasant talent in poetry. In his Trial of Selim the Per|sian, which is a compliment to the first and worthy Lord Lyttelton, he has shewn himself a perfect master of the most elegant kind of panegyrick, that which is couched under the appearance of accusation; and his

Fables for the Female Sex, not only in the freedom and ease of the verfification, but also in the forcibleness of the moral and poignancy of the satire, approach nearer to the manner of Mr. Gay than any of the numerous imitations of that author which have been attempted since the publication of his Fables.

As a dramatick writer Mr. Moore has by no means met with the success his pieces have merited, which are three in number, The Foundling and Gil Blas, comedies, and The Gamester, a tragedy. The first has been condemned for its supposed resemblance to the celebrated comedy of The Conscious Lovers; and The Gamester met with a cold reception for no other apparent reason but because it too nearly touched a favourite and fashionable vice†. Yet on the whole his plots are interesting, his characters well drawn, his sentiments delicate, and his language poetical and pleasing; and what crowns all and more forcibly claims for his Writings publick notice, the greatest purity pervades the whole, the obvious tendency of every piece being the promotion of morality and vir|tue; as is indeed observed by the Author himself in the Preface already referred to, when speaking of his

Writings in general;

"Such as the Work now is I sub|mit it to the publick. Defects in it there are many.—Its merit (if it has any, and I may be allowed to name it) is its being natural and unaffected, and tending to promote virtue."

Mr. Moore married a lady of the name of Hamil|ton, daughter to the Tabledecker to the Princesses: she had a poetical turn, and has been said to have assist|ed her husband in the writing of his plays. One spe|cimen of her poetry was handed about before their marriage, and has since appeared in different collec|tions of songs. It was addressed to a daughter of the famous Stephen Duck, and begins with the following stanza:

Would you think it my Duck! for the fault I must own, Your Jenny at last is quite covetous grown; Tho' millions if Fortune should lavishly pour I still should be wretched if I had not More.

After half-a-dozen other stanzas, in which with great ingenuity and delicacy, and yet in a manner that ex|presses a sincere affection, she has quibbled on our Au|thor's name, she concludes with the following lines:

You will wonder my Girl! who this dear one can be Whose merit can boast such a conquest as me; But you sh' n't know his name, tho' I told you before; It begins with an M, but I dare not say More.

In the year 1753 Mr. Moore commenced a weekly

miscellaneous paper entitled The World, by Adam Fitz-Adam, in which undertaking he was assisted by Lord Chesterfield and other distinguished characters. This paper was collected and published in four vo|lumes; and Mr. Moore died soon thereafter.

Notes

• †

  The Gamester was also objected to as too prosaick in the language, and too horrible in the catastrophe, as observed and apologized for by the Author in his Preface to The Gamester, quarto edition of 1756.