Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 39.djvu/13

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Mores
7
Moresby

is now in the Bodleian Library. The remainder was chiefly acquired by Thomas Astle [q. v.] and John Nichols [q. v.]

While at Oxford in 1746 Mores assisted in correcting an edition of Calasio's 'Concordance,' projected by Jacob Ilive [q. v.], the printer, and published in 1747, 4 vols. fol. In 1749 he printed in black letter 'Nomina et Insignia Gentilitia Nobilium Equitumque sub Edvardo Primo Rege militantium. Accedunt classes exercitus Edvardi Tertii Regis Caletem obsidentis,' 4to, Oxford. He also printed a few copies, sold after his death, of an edition of Dionysius of Halicarnassus's' De claris Rhetoribus,' with vignettes engraved by Green; the preface and notes were not completed. He applied, without success, to several continental scholars for assistance in the notes. An imperfect reissue is dated 1781, 8vo.

Mores made a few collections for a history of Merchant Taylors' School. In 1752 he printed in half a quarto sheet some corrections made by Francis Junius [q. v.] in his own copy of his edition of Ceedmon's 'Saxon Paraphrase of Genesis,' and other parts of the Old Testament (Amsterdam, 1655), and in 1754 he issued in quarto fifteen of the drawings from the manuscript of Cædmon in the Bodleian, the plates of which were purchased by Gough and deposited in that library. He is stated in Pegge's 'Anonymiana' (cent. vi. No. 14) to have commenced a transcript of Junius's dictionaries, with a design of publishing them. He formed considerable collections for a history of Oxford, and especially that of his own college, whose archives he arranged and calendared. He commissioned B. Green to execute many drawings of Oxford and the neighbourhood, which were included in Gough's bequest. His manuscripts relating to Queen's, with his collections about All Souls', fell into the hands of Astle, who presented the former to John Price of the Bodleian.

Mores assisted John Bilson in his burlesque on All Souls', a folio sheet printed in 1752, entitled 'Preparing for the Press ... a complete History of the Mallardians,' to which he contributed the prints of a cat said to have been starved in the library, and of two grotesque busts carved on the south wall of the college.

In 1759 he circulated queries for a 'Parochial History of Berkshire,' but made little progress. His collections were printed in 1783 in Nichols's 'Bibliotheca Topographica Britannica,' vol. iv. No. xvi, together with his 'Account of Great Coxwell, Berkshire,' vol. iv. No. xiii, where his family had been originally seated, and his excellent ' History of Tunstall, Kent,' vol. i. No. 1, with a memoir of him by R. Gough.

In the latter part of his life Mores projected a new. edition of Ames's ' Typographical Antiquities.' On the death of John James of Bartholomew Close, the last of the old race of letter-founders, in June 1772, Mores purchased all the old portions of his immense collection of punches, matrices, and types which had been accumulating from the days of Wynkyn de Worde. From these materials he composed his valuable 'Dissertation upon English Typographical Founders and Founderies,' of which he printed eighty copies. John Nichols, who purchased the whole impression, published it with a short appendix in 1778, 8vo. He also included Mores's 'Narrative of Block Printing' in his ' Biographical Memoirs of William Ged,' &c., 8vo, 1781.

His manuscript, 'Commentarius de Ælfrico Dorobernensi Archiepiscopo,' which Astle bought, was published under the editorship of G. J.Thorkelin in 1789, 4to, London. In the British Museum are the following manuscripts by Mores: 1. Epitome of Archbishop Peckham's 'Register,' 1755 (Addit. MSS. 6110, 6111, 6112, 6114). 2. Kentish Pedigrees by him and Edward Hasted (Addit. MS. 5528). 3. List of rectories and vicarages in Kent (Addit. MS. 6408). 4. Copies of his letters to John Strype, 1710 (Addit. MS. 5853), and to Browne Willis, 1749, 1751 (Addit. MS. 5833). 5. Monuments of the Rowe family (Addit. MS. 6239). 6. Letters to Edward Lye, 1749-61 (Addit. MS. 32325). He wrote also part of Addit. MS. 5526 (copy of John Philpott's 'Visitation of Kent,' 1619) and of Addit. MS. 5532 (copy of Robert Cook's 'Visitation of Kent,' 1574), and assisted Andrew Coltee Ducarel [q. v.] in his abstract of the archiepiscopal registers at Lambeth (Addit. MSS. 6062-109).

A whole-length portrait of Mores was engraved by J. Mynde after a picture by R. van Bleeck.

[Gough's Memoir referred to; Rawl. MS. J. fol. 18, pp. 115-16; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. v. 389-405, and elsewhere; Nichols's Illustr. of Lit.; Addit. MSS. 5841 f. 294, 6401 f. 10; Evans's Cat. of Engraved Portraits, vol. ii.; notes kindly furnished by the provost of Queen's College, Oxford.]

G. G.


MORESBY, Sir FAIRFAX (1786–1877), admiral of the fleet, son of Fairfax Moresby of Lichfield, entered the navy in December 1799, on board the London, with Captain John Child Purvis, whom he followed in 1801 to the Royal George. In March 1802 he joined the Alarm, with Captain (afterwards Sir William) Parker (1781–1866)