Moore, John

, an eminent English prelate, was the son of Thomas Moore of Market- Harborough in Leicestershire, where he was born. He was admitted June 28, 1662, of Clare-hall college, Cambridge, where he took the degree of B. A. in 1665, M. A. in 1669, and D. D. in 1681. He was also fellow of that college, and afterwards became chaplain to Heneage Finch, earl of Nottingham, by whose interest he rose to considerable preferments, and in particular, was promoted to the first prebendal stall in the cathedral church of Ely. His next preferment was the rectory of St. Austin’s, London, to which he was admitted Dec, 3, 1687, but he quitted that Oct. 26, 1689, on his being presented by king William and queen Mary (to whom he was then chaplain in ordinary) to the rectory of St. Andrew’s, Holborn, vacant by the promotion of Dr. Stillingfleet to the see of Worcester. On the deprivation of Dr. William Lloyd, bishop of Norwich, for not taking the oaths to their majesties, he was advanced to that see, and consecrated July 5, 1691, and was thence translated to Ely, July 31, 1707, in which he remained until his death f He died’at Ely-house, in Holborn, July 31, 1714, in his sixty-eighth year. He was interred on the north side of the presbytery of his cathedral church, near his predecessor bishop Patrick, where an elegant monument was erected to his memory.

This divine was, after his advancement to the episcopal dignity, one of the most eminent patrons of learning and learned men in his time; and his name will be carried | down to posterity, not only by his sermons published by Dr. Samuel Clarke, his chaplain (1715, 2 vols. 8vo), but by the curious and magnificent library collected by him, and purchased after his death by George I. who presented it to the university of Cambridge. Burnet ranks him among those who were an honour to the church and the age in which they lived. He assisted him (as he did many learned men) from his valuable library, when writing his History of the Reformation. He contributed also to Clark’s Caesar, and to Wilkins’s “Ecclesiastes,” by pointing out a multitude of celebrated authors who deserved notice in that useful, but now much-neglected work. His sermons were held in such estimation as to be translated into Dutch, and published at Delft in 1700. His library, consisting of 30,000 volumes, fills upthe rooms on the north and west sides of the court over the philosophy and divinity schools, and is arranged in 26 classes. It ought not to be omitted that his present majesty gave 2000l. towards fitting up this library. ¹