Molloy, Charles, Esq.

, descended from a very good family in the kingdom of Ireland, was born in the city of Dublin, and received part of his education at Trinity college there, of which he afterwards became a fellow. At his first coming to England he entered himself of the Middle Temple, and was supposed to have had a very considerable hand in the writing of a periodical paper, called “Fog’s Journal,” and afterwards to have been the principal writer of another well-known paper, entitled “Common Sense.” All these papers give testimony of strong' abilities, great depth of understanding, and clearness of reasoning. Dr. King was a considerable writer in the latter, as were lords Chesterfield and Lyttelton. Our author had large offers made him to write in defence of sir Robert Walpole, but these he rejected: notwithstanding which, at the great change in the ministry in 1742, he was entirely neglected, as well as his fellow-labourer Amherst, who conducted “The Craftsman.” Mr. Molloy, however, having married a lady of fortune, was in circumstances which enabled him to treat the ingratitude of his patriotic friends with the contempt it deserved. He lived many years after this period, dying so lately as July 16, 1767. He was buried at Edmonton, July 20. He also wrote three dramatic pieces, 1. “Perplexed Couple,” 1715, | 12mo. 2. “The Coquet,” 1718, 8vo. 3. “Half-pay Officers,” 1720, 12mo. None of which met with any very extraordinary success.

Harris, in his edition of Ware’s “Writers of Ireland,” mentions another Charles Molloy, a native of the King’s County, and a lawyer pf the Inner Temple, who wrote “De Jure Maritime et Naval i, or a Treatise of Affairs Maritime, and of Commerce,” first published at London in 1676, and still known by many republications, the last of which was in 1769, 2 vols. 8vo. He died under fifty years of age, in 1690, at his house in Cranes-court, Fleet-street. Harris gives some account also of a Francis Molloy, of King’s County, professor of divinity in the college of St. Isidore at Home, who wrote “Sacra Theologia,” Rome, 1666, 8vo “Grammatica Latino-Hibernica compendiata,” ibid. 1677, 12mo. Edward Lluyd, who has made an abn stract of this in his “Archeeologia Britannica,” says that it was the most complete Irish grammar then extant, although imperfect as to syntax, &c. He says also, what is less credible, that Molloy was not the author of it; although the latter puts his name to it, and speaks of it in the preface as his own work. Molloy’s other work is entitled “Lucerna Fidelium,” Rome, 1676, 8vo, which although the title is in Latin, is written in Irish, and contains an explanation of the Christian religion according to the faith of the church of Rome. ¹