Hurstbourne and Burbage. On Sherlock's translation to London, in 1748, he accompanied his patron, by whom he was appointed archdeacon of Colchester in 1749. From Sherlock also he received in succession the valuable livings of St. Andrew Undershaft, St. James's, Piccadilly (1750), and St. George's, Hanover Square (1759). In 1744 he defended Sherlock's 'Tryal of the Witnesses' against the strictures of Thomas Chubb [q. v.], in a tract entitled 'The Evidence of the Resurrection cleared from the exceptions of a late Pamphlet,' which was reissued in 1749 under the new title, 'The Sequel of the Trial of the Witnesses,' but without other alteration. He delivered the Boyle lectures for four years in succession, 1759-62. The lectures were not published (Nichols, Lit. Anecd. vi. 455). He was consecrated Bishop of St. David's, in succession to Robert Lowth [q. v.], 30 Nov. 1766, and in 1774 was translated to Bath and Wells, which see he retained until his death in 1802. He was a good average prelate, and, we are told, was 'much esteemed through his diocese for his urbanity and simplicity of manners, and reverenced for his piety and learning.' He warmly supported Hannah More [q. v.] in the promotion of Christian education in the Cheddar Valley, her schools being always 'honoured with his full sanction' (Roberts, Life of H. More, iii. 40, 136). Almost in the last year of his life, when she was threatened with prosecution by the farmers, under an obsolete statute, for her 'unlicensed schoolmasters,' he invited her to dinner at the palace, and 'received her with affectionate cordiality' (ib. p. 102). He died at his house in Grosvenor Square, 13 April 1802, and was buried in Grosvenor Chapel, South Audley Street.
Moss was a fellow of the Royal Society. With the exception of the above-mentioned reply to Chubb, his only printed works consisted of one archidiaconal charge, 1764, and some occasional sermons. There is a portrait of him in the vestry of St. James's Church, Piccadilly.
Out of a fortune of 140,000l., he bequeathed 20,000l. to his only daughter, wife of Dr. King, and the remaining 120,000l. to his only surviving son, Dr. Charles Moss (1763-1811), a graduate of Christ Church, Oxford (B.A. 1783 and D.D. 1797), and chaplain of the House of Commons in 1789, whom his father had appointed archdeacon of Carmarthen, January 1767, and archdeacon of St. David's in the December of the same year. He also gave him the sub-deanery of Wells immediately after his translation in 1774, and the precentorship in 1799, and three prebendal stalls in succession; in 1807 he was made bishop of Oxford, and died on 16 Dec. 1811.
[Cassan's Lives of the Bishops of Bath and Wells, pp. 175-8; Britton's Wells Cathedral, p. 82; Roberts's Life of Hannah More; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. iv. 223, vi. 453.]
MOSS, JOSEPH WILLIAM (1803–1862), bibliographer, was born at Dudley, Worcestershire, in 1803. He matriculated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford, 21 March 1820, and while an undergraduate developed an ardent interest in classical bibliography. He graduated B.A. 1825, M.A. 1827, M.B. 1829, and settled in practice at Dudley.
He was elected fellow of the Royal Society on 18 Feb. 1830, but published nothing of a scientific nature. In 1847 he removed from Dudley to Longdon, near Lichfield, and in 1848 to the Manor House, Upton Bishop, near Ross, Herefordshire. In 1853 he again removed, to Hill Grove House, Wells, Somerset, where he died 23 May 1862. Towards the end of his life he was regarded as an eccentric recluse.
His claim upon posterity rests entirely upon his 'Manual of Classical Bibliography,' which, he says, was put to press early in 1823. The work was published in 1825, in two volumes, containing upwards of 1250 closely printed pages; and, considering the extreme youth of the author he was not quite one-and-twenty it is a very remarkable production. The advertisements declare that the 'Manual' combines the advantages of the 'Introduction' of Thomas Dibdin [q. v.], the 'Catalogues Raisonnés' of De Bure, and the 'Manuel' of Brunet. The author claimed to have consulted upwards of three thousand volumes, exclusive of innumerable editions and commentaries, to have produced a work fuller and more critical than the similar works by Michael Maittaire [q. v.], Dr. Edward Harwood [q. v.], and Dibdin, and to have been the first to include notices of critical publications connected with each author, together with the literary history of the translations made into the principal languages of Europe. In spite of very serious omissions, both among the editions and the translations, of some gross blunders, and of a lack of critical insight, the book remains a standard work of reference, especially with those who study the subsequent depreciation in the market value of editions of the classics.
Favourable reviews of the 'Manual' appeared in the 'Literary Chronicle' (1825), in the 'News of Literature' (1825), and in the Gentleman's Magazine' (1825, Suppl.) On the other hand, the 'Literary Gazette' (1825), in three articles, severely attacked
