[q. v.] Baxter was very desirous to have him appointed as one of the commissioners (25 March 1661) to the Savoy conference but 'could not prevail.' His own health had led Moses to have some practical acquaintance with medicine, and he was the friend of several leading physicians. But after hesitating as to his future vocation he turned to the law, and became counsel to the East India Company. He was 'a very quick and ready man.' Charles II took particular notice of him when he pleaded for the company before the privy council. The lord chancellor, Heneage Finch, first earl of Nottingham [q. v.], said that had he taken earlier to law he would easily have been at the head of his profession. He saved his college 'some hundred of pounds in a law affair.' He was made serjeant-at-law on 11 June 1688; died 'a rich batchellor' in the same year, and left considerable benefactions to his college. A short Latin poem by him is included in 'Academiae Cantabrigiensis Σωστρα,' &c., Cambridge, 1660, 4to, a congratulatory collection on the restoration of Charles II.
[Calamy's Account, 1713, p. 83; Calamy's Continuation, 1727, i. 115; Reliquiae Baxterianae, 1696, ii. 337; Chronica Juridicalia. 1739, App. p. 3; extracts from the Christ's Hospital Register of Exhibitioners, and from a manuscript Latin life of Moses by William Sampson, kindly furnished by the master of Pembroke College, Cambridge.]
MOSES, WILLIAM STAINTON (1840–1892), spiritualist, born in 1840, was eldest son of William Stainton Moses of Dorrington, Lincolnshire. He was educated at Bedford and Exeter College, Oxford, where he matriculated on 25 May 1858, graduated B.A. in 1863, and proceeded M.A. in 1865. He took holy orders, and was curate of Maughold in the Isle of Man from 1863 to 1868, and assistant chaplain of St. George's, Douglas, from 1868 to 1872, when he became interested in spiritualism, and resigned his cure for the post of English master at University College School. This office he held until 1890, when ill-health compelled his resignation. During his residence in London he devoted his leisure almost entirely to the exploration of the mysteries of spiritualism, to which he became a convert. He was one of the founders of the London Spiritualist Alliance, an active member and one of the vice-presidents of the Society for Psychical Research, a frequent contributor to 'Human Nature' and to 'Light,' and for some years editor of the latter journal. He died on 5 Sept. 1892.
Moses was a 'medium,' and conceived himself to be the recipient of spiritual revelations, which he published under the title of 'Spirit Teachings,' London, 1883, 8vo. He also wrote, under the disguised name 'M.A. Oxon.,' the following : 1. 'Carpenterian Criticism, being a Reply to an Article by Dr. W. B. Carpenter/London, 1877, 8vo. 2. 'Psychography, or a Treatise on the Objective Forms of Psychic or Spiritual Phenomena,' London, 1878, 8vo; 2nd edit. 1882. 3. 'Spirit Identity,' London, 1879, 8vo. 4. 'Higher Aspects of Spiritualism,' London, 1880, 8vo. 5. 'Spiritualism at the Church Congress,' London, 1881, 8vo. Moses also contributed introductions to 'Ghostly Visitors,' published under the pseudonym 'Spectre-Stricken,' London, 1882, 8vo, and William Gregory's 'Animal Magnetism,' London, 1884, 8vo.
[Light, 10 Sept. 1892; Foster's Alumni Oxon.; Clergy List, 1867; Univ. Coll. Cal. 1872-3, and 1889-90; Crockford's Clerical Directory, 1889; Kirk's Suppl. to Allibone's Dict. of Engl. Lit.; Proceedings of the Soc. of Psychical Research.]
MOSLEY. [See also Mosely.]
MOSLEY, CHARLES (d. 1770?), engraver, worked during the second quarter of the eighteenth century. He was much engaged upon book illustrations, and was employed by Hogarth, whom he assisted in his 'Gate of Calais,' 1749. Mosley's best plates are his portraits, which include Charles I on dorseback, after Vandyck; Nicholas Saunderson, after Gravelot; George Whitefield, after J. Smith; Theodore, king of Corsica, after Paulicino, 1739; Marshal Belleisle on horseback, and Mrs. Clive as the Lady in Lethe,' 1750. He also engraved 'The Proession of the Flitch of Bacon at Dunmow,' 1752, after David Ogborne; 'The Shooting of Three Highlanders in the Tower,' 1743; and, from his own designs, some popular satirical prints, dated 1739 and 1740. Mosley s said to have died about 1770.
[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Huber and Marini's Manuel des Curieux, &c., 1808; Dodd's manuscript Hist. of English Engravers in British Museum, Add. MS. 33403.]
MOSLEY, NICHOLAS (1611–1672), author, son of Oswald Mosley and his wife Anne, daughter of Ralph Lowe, was born at Ancoats Hall, Manchester, in 1611 (baptised at the collegiate church 26 Dec.) On the outbreak of the civil war he took the royalist side, and his estates were in consequence confiscated in 1643, but on 18 Aug. 1646 they were restored on his paying a heavy fine. In 1653 he published a philoophical treatise entitled 'ψυχοσοφια, or Natural and Divine Contemplations of the
