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 Short History of the late \lr 
 I'eter . Inthony Mottcux a \'atwe 
 of I ^rance whilom J >rainatist < hina 
 Merchant and litctioneer who 
 departed this life on tJie i8th of 
 l-ebruary 1718 (old style] being 
 then precisely fifty-eight years old 
 tty Henri van Laun 
 
 - / 
 
 Privately Printed
 
 This short history of the late Peter Anthony Motteux is 
 reprinted by the kind permission of Messrs. J. C. Nimmo 
 and Bain, 0/14, King William Street, Strand, W.C.,for 
 whom it was written as an introduction to their new edition 
 of Motteux 's translation of Don Quixote, illustrated by 
 sixteen beautiful etchings, made purposely for this work by 
 the celebrated Spanish artist JR. de los Rios.
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE 
 
 OF 
 
 PETER ANTHONY MOTTEUX. 
 
 IT is an uncommon occurrence for a man to leave 
 his native land at the age of twenty-five, settle in 
 a foreign country, and after residing there for a 
 few years, render himself so completely master 
 of its language as to write in it comedies, operas, 
 farces, epilogues, prologues, and poems, which are 
 acknowledged to be as good as most of those which 
 were written by the wits of the times in which he 
 lived. Such a man was Peter Anthony Motteux, a 
 native of France, born at Rouen, in Normandy, on 
 the 18th of February, 1660, who was probably a sou 
 of a merchant of that town, Antoine le Motteux ', and 
 who, on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, in 
 1685, came over to England, where he lived at first 
 with his godfather and relation, Paul Dominique, 
 a merchant of considerable standing in the City, 
 but afterwards is said to have become himself the 
 head of a large East India warehouse in Leadeuhall 
 
 1 In Eugene and Ernile Haag La France Protestaitte, 1857, pt. 14, 
 it is said " that in a list of refugees of Houen, made in IfJJio, are 
 mentioned several children of a merchant named Antoine le 
 Motteux, who left France at the revocation of the Edict of 
 Nantes." We shall meet the names of some of the male children 
 later on.
 
 4 LIFE OF MOTTEUX. 
 
 Street/- and also to have oceupied a good place iii the 
 foreign department of the Post-office. 3 He acquired 
 such an intimate knowledge of the English language, 
 that in the year 1691, old style, he already edited 
 a Monthly Miscellany, called The Gentleman's 
 Journal, of which the first number appeared on 
 the 1st of January. This Miscellany was con- 
 tinued for three years, and consisted of " News, 
 History, Philosophy, Poetry, Musick, Translations, 
 &c.," all contained in " A Letter to A Gentleman 
 in the Country." The first volume is dedicated to 
 the Earl of Devonshire, " who so naturally recon- 
 ciling greatness with affability, and the highest 
 capacity with the nicest gallantry, must be ac- 
 counted an exact pattern even to the most accom- 
 plished, and a kind protector to the meanest Ad- 
 dresser/' and contains a goodly number of verses 
 written by Nahum Tate, Prior, Chs. Dryden, Sir 
 Charles Sedley, Durfey, Tbs. Brown, Sergeant, 
 John Dennis, and many others, as well as by the 
 editor himself. It is astonishing that a Frenchman 
 like M. Motteux, who had scarcely been six years 
 in England, could write verses like the following, 
 " which were sent on May-day with a Nosegay" 4 
 
 You that adorn'd the meadows where I rove, 
 And lost in sorrows linger out my days, 
 
 Go, beauteous flowers, go to the Nymph I love, 
 Whilst banisli'd here her faithful lover stays. 
 
 2 Sir Walter Scott says in bis edition of The Works of John 
 Dryden, vol. xi. p. 67, that Motteux was a bookseller. I have seen 
 this nowhere mentioned, and venture to think that Sir Walter 
 must have been mistaken. 
 
 3 A. Chalmers, The General Biographical Dictionary, 1815, 
 vol. xxii. 
 
 4 The Gentleman's Journal, May, 1692,
 
 LIKE OF MOTTKUX. 5 
 
 Like you, she's blooming, gentle, gay, and sweet, 
 Like you, from Nature she derives each grace ; 
 
 And on her lovely cheeks yourselves you'll meet, 
 For Rose and Lily never leave the place. 
 
 Like Flora, where she comes she makes the Spring, 
 Enamour'd Fauns and Shepherd round her move, 
 
 The pretty birds with tuneful voices sing, 
 And Zephyr in warm sighs declares his love. 
 
 Go, haste, this day perhaps she may be kind ; 
 
 Now Phcebus smiles, so may her radiant eyes. 
 Gently (lest you displease) the Nymph remind 
 
 Of an unhappy wretch who for her dies. 
 
 You see, my love, my torments, and my cares, 
 Describe 'em feelingly, and let her know 
 
 You owe your birth to rny continual tears, 
 
 And strive my languishment by yours to show. 
 
 Tell her, her beauty soon like yours will fade-, 
 Like yours, alas ! no more to bloom again. 
 
 To bless our eyes alone you were not made, 
 But to impart your sweets arid ease our pain. 
 
 Die on that breast whose killing charms outdo 
 Yours, and whate'er mistaken men admire : 
 
 Whilst here in vain (not half so blest as you) 
 I wish that at her feet I may expire. 
 
 At the begiimiug of the second number there is 
 an " Advertisement," in which it is said that " the 
 Rigor of the Weather, and the Author's indisposi- 
 tion, have kept back this journal a week at least, 
 you may expect the next in the first week of every 
 month duely. The Author . . . cannot insert such 
 things as any ways reflect on particular Persons, or 
 are either against Religion, or good manners."
 
 6 LIFE OF MOTTEUX. 
 
 And then, with a humour which can even now 
 be understood, the "Advertisement" finishes as 
 follows : " Such persons as have anything to com- 
 municate, may be pleas'd to send it at the Black- 
 boy Coffeehouse in Ave Mary Lane, not forgetting 
 to discharge the postage." 
 
 Each number of the first volume of this Mis- 
 cellany has about from twenty-six to thirty-six 
 pages, one or more songs with the music, and was 
 probably sold for a shilling. Some of the tales and 
 verses appear rather tainted with the spirit of the 
 age, and very few of the poetical riddles and fables 
 could even be quoted at the present time. But the 
 short account of the foreign political and literary 
 news is very fairly compiled, and was most likely 
 written by M. Motteux himself. 
 
 The second volume of the Miscellany consists of 
 four hundred and twenty-eight pages, and is divided 
 in monthly parts, and paginated all through ; it has 
 for its device a hand holding a bunch of flowers, 
 with the Latin motto, "E pluribus unum." It is 
 dedicated to Charles Montague, one of the Lords 
 Commissioners of their Majesties Treasury, and the 
 dedication ends in the following words : "As I 
 cannot imagine any good quality that is requisite 
 to the accomplishment of a gentleman which is not 
 already conspicuous in you, beyond the power of 
 my expressing, I must content myself to join with 
 the rest of your admirers, and beg to subscribe 
 myself, sir, your most humble and most obedient 
 servant, Peter Motteux." This volume, as well as 
 the third, which has only two hundred and fifty-
 
 LIFE OF MOTTKUX. 7 
 
 eiglit pages, is inferior to the first, and even broader 
 in the tendency of many of its inserted pieces. In 
 the last number of the second volume there is a 
 very free paraphrase of Ovid's fifth elegy of the first 
 book. 
 
 In the year 1693, our author published in 
 London, at R. Bentley's, a parody, in French, on 
 Boileau's Ode on the Taking of Numur by Louis XIV., 
 in 1692, which shows that he had not yet forgotten 
 his own language. Whenever the French satirist 
 praises Louis XIV., M. Motteux lauds William 
 of Orange, or ridicules the French King. For 
 example, Boileau begins : 
 
 Quelle douce et sainte ivresse 
 Aujourd'hui me fait la loi, 
 Chastes Nyraphes du Pernesse 
 N'est-ce pas vous quo je vo si ? 
 Accourez, troupe savante, 
 Des sons que ma lyre enfante 
 Ces arbres sont rejouis, 
 Marquez en bien la cadence ; 
 Et vous, vents, faites silence : 
 Je vais parler de Louis. 
 
 and M. Motteux writes : 
 
 Grand Druide, quclle ivresse 
 A ta muse fait la loi ? 
 Quel avorton du Permesse, 
 Quelle Ode est-ce que je vois ? 
 Cette Montagne savante 
 De la souris qu'elle enfante 
 Va rSgaler nos coteaux ; 
 Boileau marque la cadence ; 
 Vieux Gaulois, faites silence, 
 Je vais parler en Despre aux.
 
 8 LIFE OF MOTTEUX. 
 
 Aud when Boileau, in another couplet, says of the 
 French King : 
 
 N'en doute point, c'est Lui-meme, 
 
 Tout brille en lui, tout est Roi, 
 
 Dans Bruxelles Nassau bleme 
 
 Commence a trembler pour toi. (Namur) 
 
 En vain il voit le Batave, 
 
 Desormais docile esclave, 
 
 Range sous ses etendards. 
 
 En vain au lion Belgique 
 
 11 voit 1'aigle Germanique 
 
 Uni sous les Leopards. 
 
 M. Motteux parodies this stanza as follows : 
 
 C'est Guillaume, c'est lui-meme ; 
 Tout brille en lui, tout est Roi ; 
 Dans Versailles Louis bleme 
 Commence a trembler pour toi. 
 II craint de voir le Batave, 
 Au Francais docile esclave, 
 Arracher les etendards ; 
 II craint le lion Belgique, 
 II craint 1'aigle Germanique, 
 Mais surtout les Leopards. 
 
 In the year 1694 Motteux edited Sir Thomas 
 Urquhart's translation of Rabelais' Heroic Deeds 
 and Sayings of Gargantua and Pantagruel, and 
 dedicated this edition to Admiral Russell, after- 
 wards Earl of Orford. He also wrote a preface to 
 Urquhart's translation, which has become a classical 
 introduction to this author, even in his own native 
 country, France. Nahum Tate, Pittis, Oldys, Drake, 
 and Motteux printed some verses in praise of Rabe- 
 lais, after the preface, of which those of the editor 
 have certainly a strong Pantagruelistic flavour. 
 
 M. Motteux published, the following year, 
 a translation from the French of An Account of
 
 LIFE 01' AlOLTKVX. 9 
 
 Marocco, written by M. Piolindc Saint Olon, who was 
 French ambassador in that country iu 1693. Accord- 
 ing to the dedication to SirWm. Trumball,one of the 
 Lords Commissioners of His Majesty's Treasury, the 
 author seems at that time not to have been very 
 wealthy, for he speaks of Sir William's "obliging 
 goodness, singular humanity, or rather charity, 
 which, as it extends to many of our unhappy 
 Refugees, has made me (him) a sharer in the effects 
 of your (his) bounty " 
 
 Mary, the daughter of James II., and the wife 
 of William III, died oil the 28th of December, 1694, 
 and was buried on the 5th of March of the follow- 
 ing year. Motteux came out that year with a 
 poem, called Maria, occasioned by the death of 
 Her Majesty, and addressed to three persons of 
 honour. This poem has the usual number of loyal 
 lamentations, and begins, of course, as follows : 
 
 Weep, Britons, ease your pangs of grief; 
 
 Your breasts, o'erswoln with unborn sighs, 
 
 Now heave and labour for relief; 
 
 The melting vapours claim a passagethrough your eyes. 
 
 He manages to praise " Noble Montague/' the 
 Marquess of Normandy, and the ' 'immortal Dorset," 
 and imitates and paraphrases the fourteenth Ode 
 of Horace, of which we give the beginning : 
 
 Vain is our hope, and vain our strife, 
 
 To stem the rapid stream of life ; 
 
 None can that Flux of Moments, Time, control ; 
 
 Driv'n down the boisterous Torrent all 
 
 Impetuously we roll ; 
 
 Into that boundless Ocean sure to fall 
 
 Where, as Time ends, Eternity begins, 
 
 And man is ever lost, or endless pleasure wins.
 
 10 LIFE OF MOTTEUX. 
 
 There are a few smart, epigrammatic sayings in 
 this monody, for Motteux cannot long put on a 
 mourning countenance. He remarks, for example: 
 The King still courted, while the Husband swayed, 
 The Queen commanded, and the wife obeyed. 
 Her Royal hands, above debasing pride, 
 Could wield a sceptre, yet a needle guide. 
 
 And a little further on he writes : 
 
 By her example Industry was blest, 
 
 E'en City Matrons darling Sloth disclaim, 
 
 And sleeping Deans awake at Great Maria's name. 
 
 But his flattery is as fulsome as that with which 
 Louis XIX. was bespattered, and if the taciturn 
 Dutchman ever read Motteux's lines, he must have 
 grimly smiled in being addressed as " godlike Wil- 
 liam," and in being called " dauntless like a god." 
 
 The same year, Motteux, Nahum Tate, Richard- 
 son, and other literary men, wrote some verses 
 before a skit, The History of the Athenian Society fur 
 the resolving all nice and curious questions, in which 
 the real Society of that name was ridiculed by 
 Charles Gildou, under the name of " a gentleman, 
 who got secret intelligence of their whole proceed- 
 ings." M. Motteux also added a Latin translation 
 of his own English verses. The Athenian Society 
 was an association of wits, established in 1690-1691, 
 by John Dunton, an author and bookseller, to 
 answer curious queries in divinity, physic, law, 
 philosophy, poetry, mathematics, trade, &c.; review 
 all publications, and insert all interesting experi- 
 ments in their weekly paper, the Athenian Mercury, 
 which extended to twenty volumes, and which gave 
 rise to a great deal of ridicule. In 1691, Swift, 
 who was then living at Sir William Temple's place,
 
 LIKE OK MOTTKUX. 11 
 
 Moor Park, addressed in sober earnest to the 
 Society a very dull ode, which, according to Dr. 
 Johnson, was the cause of SwifVs malevolence to 
 Dryden, because the latter, on perusing these verses, 
 is credited with having said, " Cousin Swift, you 
 will never be a poet." 
 
 In 1696, was acted at the Theatre, Lincoln's Inn 
 Fields, a comedy, in five acts, called Love's a Jest, 
 by Motteux, aud his first attempt to write for 
 the stage. This play, dedicated to Charles, Lord 
 Clifford, of Lanesborough, in the usual fulsome 
 style of that time, Avas printed with a Preface, 
 admitting its great success, and in which the 
 audience is thanked for its indulgence to a stranger. 
 The author states frankly that he " would borrow 
 from his own countrymen, but Moliere, and most 
 of 'em have been so gleaned, that there's scarce 
 anything left," and that he has " far'd better 
 among the Italians, for he must own himself in- 
 debted to 'em for the hint of the two last scenes, 
 where Love is made in Jest, and also for some speeches 
 and thoughts here and there." He also says that he 
 will freely use, and as freely acknowledge, whatever 
 he takes from foreign plays; admits that Th. Shad- 
 well is right when, in his Preface to The Miser, he 
 states that English dramatists borrow from foreigners 
 out of laziness, and not out of poverty of wit, 5 and 
 ends his Preface as follows : 
 
 5 Shadwell, whose Miser was acted in 1671, says more than this 
 in the Prologue : 
 
 French plays in which true wit 's as rarely found, 
 
 As mines of silver are on English ground .... 
 
 For our good-natured nation thinks it fit 
 
 To count French toys good wares ; French nonsense, wit.
 
 12 LIFE OF MOTTEUX. 
 
 " Nor will I value the base and notoriously false 
 insinuations of envious impotent Poetasters, and, 
 least of all, those of a pitiful, conceited, noisy, 
 scribling, would-be quack, below naming ; one whose 
 wretched riddles, songs, &c., were denied a place in 
 my late Miscellanies, though, like other things of his, 
 recommended by himself, as if written by a lady. 
 Such an insiduous traducer is well coupled with an 
 idle, sharping, dialogue-monger, whose zany he is ; 
 like him, so base as to detract in the most bar- 
 barous manner, from those who never wrong'd him, 
 and so cowardly as to deny it. But they might as 
 well charge those of ruining themselves by marriage, 
 who have not yet committed that folly, as of ruining 
 a bookseller by books, by which he owns he was a 
 gainer. Had I but room I would stigmatise that 
 brace of libellers ; for, how despicable soever such 
 scoundrels may be, they are to be feared as well as 
 hated ; for what is more to be hated than a professed 
 liar, or more to be feared than a public slanderer." 
 
 These are " brave words," as Fluellen says, but 
 they certainly do not seem to be written by a 
 Frenchman. The names of the two gentlemen 
 whom Motteux so fiercely attacks, will now hardly 
 be discovered, and perhaps it is as well that they 
 should remain in oblivion, if only half of what the 
 irate dramatist says, is true. The author's sneer at 
 marriage appears to prove that he was still a 
 bachelor, though this is no conclusive evidence, for 
 in nearly all his works, as well as in most of those 
 which were written about that time, marriage is 
 attacked in coarse and obscene language. 
 
 The prologue to Love's a Jest describes more
 
 LIFE OF MOTTKUX. 13 
 
 energetically than elegantly the crowd on the road 
 to Epsom, and ends with the folloAving lines : 
 
 At the least hiss you'd swear his (the author's) soul 
 
 were fled, 
 
 But a sound clap can raise him from the dead ; 
 He's cock-a-hoop, and scarce can talk to you, 
 E'gad, he cries, I knew the play would do. 
 But if another hiss his ears but reaches, 
 Down sinks at once his heart into his breeches. 
 Yet scorns our writer threatening foes to fear ; 
 The generous Britons will a stranger spare ; 
 Thus low the Frenchman bows then learns of you to 
 
 dare. 
 
 His satire bites but like a lover's kiss, 
 And none of you, he's sure, can take 't amiss. 
 
 The " stranger " can at least write well enough 
 to please the " generous Britons," and in the 
 epilogue spoken by Mr. Mynns, as one of Gipsies, 
 and in which the fortunes of the audience are told 
 in language which cannot even be quoted, he claims 
 the applause of the ladies because he " spared your 
 (their) blushes here to-day.'' The ladies of that 
 time must have laid on their paint very thickly, so 
 that their blushes could not be seen ; but, in any 
 case, the dramatist has not spared them as lie pre- 
 tends to have done. The intrigue of the comedy 
 turns chiefly upon the permission given to Lord 
 Lovewell to marry Miss Francelia Gaymood, a per- 
 mission which is afterwards withdrawn by her 
 father, Sir Thomas, because Squire Illbred offers to 
 take her without any dowry. There is an under- 
 plot in which Frankly, the lover of Miss Kitty, a 
 sister of Lady Single, dresses himself as a chamber- 
 maid, to get admission into the house, and is made 
 love to by young Gaymood, a character which is
 
 14 LIFE OF MOTTEUX. 
 
 very well drawn, though not better than that 
 of his friend Railmore. The last scene of the 
 fourth act in which Railmore persuades Lady Single 
 to love, is cleverly written. Squire Illbred marries 
 Frankly, whom he believes to be a woman, but in 
 the end everything comes right, and all the lovers 
 marry their beloved fair. The song of the smith 
 and his wife in the first act, and of the girl and 
 boy in the last, are filthy in the extreme. 
 
 In 1696, Namur was retaken from the French by 
 William III., and Motteux, to show his loyalty, 
 wrote the words of a short cantata, sung at a 
 musical entertainment at the theatre, Lincoln's Inn 
 Fields, which has very little merit, but in which 
 he gives vent to his feelings by saying : 
 
 Haste, Loyal Britons, haste, prepare ; 
 William, Victorious William comes, 
 Sound, sound ye trumpets, beat ye drums; 
 A martial sound best greets a martial ear. 
 Haste, loyal Britons, haste prepare ; 
 William, victorious William comes. 
 
 In the following year, Motteux wrote The Loves of 
 Mars and Venus, a musical piece in three acts, which 
 was represented with Ravenscroft's Anatomist, or the 
 Sham Doctor, to which he also added two pro- 
 logues and an epilogue. Each of its acts concludes 
 with an act of Motteux's Masque, supposed to be 
 exhibited for the amusement of the characters in 
 the Anatomist, and which relates to the well-known 
 history of Vulcan, Venus, and Mars. It has not 
 much to recommend itself but the music and a few 
 songs, which are rather too sprightly to be quoted. 
 We give, as a sample, the song of Vulcan and the
 
 LIFE OK MOTTKUX. 
 
 chorus of Cyclops striking the anvil, to he found in 
 the second act of the play. 
 
 Come, away ; strike and sing, 
 
 Ting, ting, ting, terry terre, terry ting, &c. 
 
 Let us make the caves ring. 
 
 Ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting 
 
 While we forge thunderbolts for Heaven's King 
 
 Ting, ting, ting. 
 
 Steropes, one of the Cyclops, holding a. red-hot holt, 
 This he'll fling, ting, ting, ting, 
 At cowards at sieges, and atheists at prayers : 
 At a husband, who by his wife's chastity swears. 
 
 Chorus of Cyclops. 
 This he'll fling ting, ting, ting. 
 
 At promising courtiers, and fools that believe 'em ; 
 At poor rogues that give bribes and rich rogues that 
 This he'll fling, &c. [receive 'em ; 
 
 At a weathercock priest who ne'er thinks as he teaches. 
 At a Cit in his Buff with his heart in his breeches. 
 This he'll fling, &c. 
 
 At beaux who protest they of favours ne'er boast, 
 Yet drink the fair's health ev'ry night with a toast. 
 This he'll fling, <fec. 
 
 At masks, who at fifty would follow Love's trade ; 
 At a female of twenty that swears she's a maid. 
 This he'll fling, &c. 
 
 At a couple who swear that they never repented, 
 At a Briton who says he can long live contented. 
 This he'll fling, &c. 
 
 At a ninny who finds a gallant with his wife, 
 Then begs both their pardons for making a strife. 
 This he'll fling, &c. 
 
 This musical piece contains the usual praise of 
 VOL i. c
 
 16 LIFE OF MOTTKUX. 
 
 William III., which seems all the greater because 
 it is Mars, the god of War, who says : 
 
 Let future Heroes there appear ; 
 
 Place Greece's, Rome's, and brave Britannia's there. 
 
 Let Alexander, Caesar, Arthur meet 
 
 And all their Laurels lay at greater William's feet. 
 
 William, more God -like, and as brave, 
 
 Shall only fight th' endanger'd world to save : 
 
 William, my other self shall be ; 
 
 Inspired by Themis and by me. 
 
 Of course broad innuendoes, and something more, 
 are not wanting. The printed play of Mars and Venus 
 is dedicated to Colonel Codrington, " because/' says 
 Motteux, " I cannot more effectually enforce the 
 moral of this piece, which exposes the frailty of a 
 warrior, than by prefixing to it the name of one 
 who, with the bravery and gallantry of Mars, has 
 no alloy of its vices. You formerly reapt the 
 Muses' laurels, and now those of Mars/' 6 
 
 A short time after the joint efforts of Ravens- 
 croft and Motteux, was brought out in the same 
 theatre of Lincoln's Inn Fields a play called The 
 Novelty, or Every Act a Play, of which the first 
 act is a short pastoral called Thyrsis, written by 
 Oldmixon, the second act a comedy taken from the 
 
 6 This Colonel was probably a certain Christopher Codrington, 
 born at Barbadoes in 1668, elected in 1689 a probationer Fellow of 
 All Souls' College, Oxford, who afterwards entered the army, was 
 at the siege of Namur in 1695, became at the conclusion of the 
 peace of Ryswick captain-general and governor- in-chief of the 
 Leeward Caribbee islands, and died in 1701. He is interred in 
 All Souls' College, Oxford, of which college he was a great bene- 
 factor, and where his statue is in the library. And was the 
 colonel whose name appeared about twenty years later, in The 
 Original Weekly Journal, March 15th, 1718, in the following ad- 
 vertisement, any relative of Christopher? "Last Wednesday 
 Colonel Codrington, a Gloucestershire gentleman, was married to 
 Mrs. Elizabeth Bethell, niece to the Lord Cadogan, who gives 
 4,000 portion with her."
 
 I.Il'E OK MOTTKL'X. 17 
 
 French, called All Without Money, in which are 
 depicted the attempts of a poor beau, Needmore, 
 and his saucy valet, Speedwell, to prevent a lady 
 from coming to supper, as they have no money to buy 
 provisions, and to which comedy Garrick was greatly 
 indebted for his Lying Valet ; the third act, a very 
 poor masque, called Hercules ; the fourth, a 
 tragedy, The Unfortunate Couple, abbreviated 
 and slightly altered from The Unnatural Brother, a 
 tragedy of Filmer's, iu five acts, which was repre- 
 sented in the beginning of the year in the same 
 theatre, but without any success ; whilst the fifth act, 
 which is by far the best, is called Natural Magic, 
 a farce in the Italian manner, with a Pantaloon 
 and a Columbine, and in which all sorts of prac- 
 tical jokes are played to frighten the first gen- 
 tleman, who is an " old miser." It is strange that the 
 name of Isabella, the heroine of the farce, is forgotten 
 to be printed in the list of personages. The Novelty 
 is said to have been written " by M. Motteux and 
 other hands," but, with the exception of Oldmixon 
 and Filmer, the rest seems to have been penned 
 by M. Motteux himself. On the title-page, the 
 printed play is dedicated to Charles Csesar, and the 
 dedication is signed Peter Motteux, who certainly 
 wrote the prologue and epilogue. 
 
 On the occasion of the Peace of Ryswick, con- 
 cluded in the month of September, 1G97, Motteux 
 published a musical interlude and a panegyric poern, 
 spoken by way of prologue, which were both per- 
 formed the same year at the theatre, Lincoln's Inn 
 Fields. 
 
 In that theatre was played, the following year, a
 
 18 LIFE OF MOTTEUX. 
 
 tragedy in blank verse, and in five acts, by Motteux, 
 called Beauty in Distress, with a plot which is 
 rather complicated, but based on the old French 
 unities of time, action, and place. This tragedy 
 seems to have been a great success, and is dedicated to 
 the Honourable Henry Heveningham, a gentleman 
 of an old Norfolk family, of whom Motteux says "that 
 your ancestors can be traced up ... long before the 
 Conquest .... enriching your scutcheon in the 
 Holy Wars by extraordinary achievements of honour, 
 .... one particularly, killing, in single combat, the 
 champion of the Saracens before the King and the 
 whole army." ' The author boasts in the preface 
 of its " being the happy occasion of recommending 
 me to her Royal Highnesses (the Princess Royal, 
 afterwards Queen Anne) Bounty, her princely gift 
 alone outweighing the benefit of a sixth repre- 
 sentation." And then he goes on to say: "This 
 most excellent and pious princess being pleased 
 to encourage thus an inoffensive writer, doubt- 
 less that he may still keep to strict morality, even 
 in the circumstances of a melancholic fortune/' 
 
 M. Motteux speaks of " keeping to strict 
 morality," but he has certainly not done so in 
 any of his plays ; and the mention of " a melan- 
 cholic fortune" seems also to prove that the author 
 was not then in very good circumstances. At the 
 end of the Preface the poet gives a character of 
 
 7 No mention is made of this valiant slayer of the Saracens' 
 champion in F. Blomefield's Topographical History of the County of 
 Norfolk, vol. v. , though he gives an account of the Heveningham 
 family, in speaking of Keteringham Manor. A relative of Mot- 
 teux's patron, and probably his father or uucle, was Sir William 
 Heveningham, who died in 1678, and was one of the judges of 
 Charles the First.
 
 LIFE OF MOTTETX. 19 
 
 himself iu verse, "inscribed to a reverend clergyman," 
 in which he seems to draw for facts more upon his 
 imagination than upon truth, expresses a wish : 
 
 Oh ! that my Muse in some retreat might sing 
 Britain's great ruler, and Heaven's greater king. 
 
 and apologizes for his brother poets, whose " lays 
 at first were sacred to the Deity/' but who are 
 now " kept close and bare," and have the town 
 for a cage, where they " must starve or sing." 
 
 Prefixed to this tragedy is a letter from a divine 
 of the Church of England to the author, intro- 
 ducing to his notice a translation of Father 
 Caffaro's letter about the lawfulness and unlawful- 
 ness of plays. The original letter was published in 
 Paris in 1 694, as a preface to the collected edition of 
 Boursault's plays, and was answered by Bossuet, and 
 censured by the Pope. This letter is followed by a 
 poetical epistle of John Dry den to the author. The 
 beginning of this epistle, in Drydeu's manly verse, 
 pleads guilty to Jeremy Collier's accusation of 
 indecency brought against the stage, but depre- 
 cates the virulence of the attack. After this, our 
 Anglo-Gallic dramatist is, of course, highly extolled, 
 and the epistle ends thus : 
 
 It moves our wonder, that a foreign guest 
 Should overmatch the most, and match the best. 
 In underpraising, thy deserts I wrong : 
 Here, find the first deficience of our tongue : 
 Words, once my stock, are wanting to commend 
 So great a poet, and so good a friend. 
 
 In the tragedy itself, three gentlemen, Don 
 Vincentio, his brother Don Ricardo and Don 
 Fabiano, are in love with a lady, called Placentia,
 
 20 LIFE OF MOTTEUX. 
 
 represented by Mrs. Bracegirdle, who was of an 
 unimpeachable character, but whom it was the 
 fashion to admire a fashion to which Dryden 
 alludes in his epilogue to King Arthur and who 
 left the stage in 1707, in the very height of her 
 fame. Don Ricardo, the villain of the tragedy, 
 has lost a certain Laura's fortune " all at play/' 
 and still pretends to love her, though he is really 
 enamoured of Placentia, in love with Fabiauo, a 
 gentleman, her superior in rank, and to whom she 
 is finally married, whilst Ricardo is stabbed by 
 Laura, who poisons herself. This tragedy contains 
 several poetical passages, and, as a sample, we give 
 the speech of Vincentio, wh6, disguised as a Moor, 
 under the name of Morat, pretends to recommend 
 hypocrisy : 8 
 
 We all for Love, Revenge, or Int'rest feign, 
 And all, for difFrent ends, seem difTrent men, 
 Then shift like players, and are ourselves again. 
 Ev'n the most wise, with studied labour, hide, 
 When flatter' d, Joy; and when exalted, Pride. 
 Old maids, if such there be, dissemble Youth ; 
 Young widows, Sorrow ; wives and husbands, Truth, 
 The heir feigns Joy, if his sick friends' revive, 
 Yet almost dies for grief when they're alive ; 
 The trader rails at thieves who forests range, 
 Courts, prays, yet cheats, and shakes a whole exchange. 
 The common jilt, with face and passion feigned, 
 Hugs some rich fool, nor leaves him, till he's drained. 
 Dissembling's all mankind's prerogative 
 We know 'tis used by all, yet still believe, 
 And thus are all deceived, and all alike deceive. 
 
 In the Poems on State Affairs there is A Dia- 
 logue between Motteux and Patron Heveninyham, 
 
 8 Act. iv. IxmJon, 1703, vol. ii. p. 251.
 
 LIVE OK MOTTEUX. 21 
 
 the patron is called there " Henningham/'' which 
 evidently is a printer's error, according to which 
 the latter is accused of having himself written the 
 Dedication ; at least the poet is made to say : 
 
 I told you, sir, it would not pass ; 
 Why should you make me such an ass ; 
 To own, for sake of piteous pelf, 
 Your dedication to yourself ? 
 The cheat is out; for all the town 
 Full forty years your style has known. 
 
 This shows, as we have already remarked, that 
 Motteux was not reputed wealthy at that time. The 
 dialogue is coarse, the poet banters his patron, who 
 replies by boasting of his vigour, and says that he 
 wrote below himself: 
 
 For fear I should my fancy raise, 
 
 Above the level of your plays. 
 
 Whereupon the poet replies, quoting a line from 
 Dryden's commendation : 
 
 But better judges know my merit, 
 
 And would be ready to declare it, 
 
 Were not words wanting to commend 
 
 So great a poet, good a friend. 
 
 But since you criticize me so, 
 
 Equip me, pray, and let me go. 
 
 The patron offers him five guineas ; the poet 
 exclaims : " What do you mean ? you promised 
 ten ;" and threatens to " take it out in satire," 
 whereupon he is kicked out of doors. 
 
 In the summer of 1699, Motteux brought out at 
 Drury Lane, Beaumont and Fletcher's play The Island 
 Princess, altered into an opera, of which the music 
 is composed by Purcell, Clarke, and Leveridge. 
 He added to it a new interlude called The Four 
 Seasons, which is so broad that in the present
 
 22 LIFE OF MOTTEUX. 
 
 age we can hardly imagine it to have been repre- 
 sented in public. Motteux's alteration of Beaumont 
 and Fletcher's play is worse than Nahum Tate's, 
 whose tragic-comedy was acted twelve years before, 
 and is itself inferior to the original. Our Anglo- 
 Gallic dramatist dedicated his alteration to the 
 Honourable Popham Conway, who must have been 
 a wonderful man, for, says our author, " Wherever 
 you appear you captivate the hearts of one sex, 
 and raise the envy and admiration of the other." 
 
 The prologue is partly a song, and this is the 
 first couplet : 
 
 You've been with dull prologues here bantered so long, 
 
 They signify nothing, or less than a song. 
 
 To sing you a ballad this time we thought fit ; 
 
 For sound has oft nickt you, when sense could not hit. 
 
 Then ladies be kind, 
 
 And gentlemen mind ! 
 
 Wit- Carpers 
 
 Play-Sharpers 
 
 Loud Bullies, 
 
 Tame Cullies, 
 
 Sore Grumblers 
 
 Give ear, ev'ry man ! 
 Mobb'd Sinners, 
 In pinners, 
 Kept toppers 
 Bench hoppers. 
 High-fliers 
 Pit-plyers 
 Be still if you can, 
 You're always in mischief for leading the van. 10 
 
 The epilogue was written by Farquhar, and is 
 
 10 The original edition of this play, published byLintott, in 1699, 
 is different from the Interlude, printed for E. Basset, the same 
 year, and which certainly is changed for the worse.
 
 LIFE OF MOTTEUX. 23 
 
 far from decent. In the Poems on Affairs of 
 State" is printed a skit, in verse, called The Con- 
 federate ; or the First Happy Day of the Island 
 Princess," of which many of the allusions are now 
 lost, but which proves in what regard Motteux was 
 held. It says : 
 
 And opera with loud applause is played, 
 Which famed Motteux in soft heroicks made. 
 
 The poem ends thus : 
 
 Should Dennis fall, wnose high majestic wit 
 An(d) awful judgment like two tallies tit, 
 Adieu strong odes and every loi'ty strain, 
 The tragic rant, and proud Pindaric vein. 
 Should tuneful Durfey now resign his breath 
 The lyric muse would scarce survive his death : 
 But should divine Motteux untimely die, 
 The gasping nine would in convulsions lie. 
 For these bold champions safer arms provide, 
 And let their pens the double strife decide. 
 
 In 1701 Motteux wrote the words of a masque, 
 Acis and Galatea, acted the same year at Drury Lane 
 Theatre, of which the story is taken from the thir- 
 teenth book of Ovid's Metamorphoses. The music was 
 by John Eccles, and the masque was afterwards acted 
 at Lincoln's Inn Fields. 12 " The subject seems to 
 have been a favourite one, for the poet Gay wrote an 
 English pastoral opera of the same name, with music 
 by Handel, which was played in 1732 with great 
 success, whilst two ballets, representing the adven- 
 tures of Acis and Galatea, were performed at Drury 
 Lane in 1728 and 1749 successively. A scene in 
 
 11 London, 1703, vol. ii. p. 248. 
 
 12 Baker and Jones, in their Bioyrapkia Dramatica, say : "With 
 this masque are published the rest of the musical entertainments, 
 in an opera called the Mad Lover.'" This "rest" is not to be found 
 in the edition I have consulted, and which was printed in 1723.
 
 24 LIFE OF MOTTEUX. 
 
 Motteux's masque between Roger, Joan, and Acis 
 is more than free. 
 
 The same year, when this masque was first played, 
 Motteux published a translation of the celebrated His- 
 tory of the Renowned Don Quixote de la Mancha, 
 written in Spanish, by Cervantes, and which is said 
 on the title-page to have been " translated from the 
 original by several hands, and published by Peter 
 Motteux/' It is now impossible to say how many 
 hands were employed, and to whom these hands 
 belonged ; but it is strange that none of the wits 
 and literary men of the period ever laid claim to 
 the honour of having assisted in this translation. 
 If Motteux owes anything to strangers, it is to 
 Shelton, whose translation, first published in 1612 
 1620, he is said to have partly adapted to the times in 
 which he wrote, whilst he also retained a few of the 
 jokes and of the interpolations of J. Philips, who 
 published his very bad and coarse paraphrase of 
 Don Quixote, in 1687. But, unless proofs to the 
 contrary be brought forward, we must ascribe 
 chiefly to M. Motteux the merit of having written 
 the racy, idiomatic, and spirited translation of 
 a work which is, perhaps, more difficult than 
 any other to render in a foreign tongue. J. Ozell, 
 a great friend of Motteux's, and who was con- 
 sidered to be well acquainted with the language 
 and literature of Spain, brought out, in 1719, 
 one year after Motteux's death, a revised edition of 
 this translation, but only states, in the Preface, that 
 he has compared it with the original Madrid 
 edition, printed from the author's own manu- 
 script, whereby many misinterpretations have been
 
 LIFE OF MOTTEUX. ~O 
 
 rectified, ami not a few omissions supplied. 
 Well-known Spanish scholars, such as Prescott and 
 Ticknor, have bestowed great praise on Motteux's 
 translation, and Tytler says that his version is by 
 far the best we have yet seen of the romance of 
 Cervantes. Its numerous editions seem to bear 
 witness to the truth of this assertion. 
 
 The four books of Motteux' s translation are dedi- 
 cated, in succession, to Henry Thynne who was pro- 
 bably a brother of Thomas Thynne, of Longleat, mur- 
 dered on the 12th of February, 168:2, by order of 
 Count Konigsmarck Edward Coke, the Right Hon. 
 Henry Boyle(Chancellor of Her Majesty's Exchequer), 
 and Colonel Stanhope. It seems that M. Motteux 
 was then neither at the head of " a large East India 
 warehouse," nor was " connected with the foreign 
 department of the Post Office," for, in the dedication 
 of the first book, he says : " The favours of the 
 generous English always outstrip merit, and it is the 
 character of the nobility to be kind to strangers. 
 Those favours I have received from you, sir, the 
 
 world will judge of by their being yours Your 
 
 own generosity, not my acknowledgments, must be 
 the estimate of your bounty." 
 
 In the dedication of the second book it appears that 
 Motteux has even an eye to future favours, for he 
 says : " The finest flowers, principally those of 
 foreign growth, require the highest shelter and the 
 warmest sun. Then where should wit fly in these 
 tempestuous times, but where the nobility and 
 greatness of a house may protect it from the 
 storm ; where a generous hospitality emboldens it 
 to intrude, and the warmth of fortune mav cherish
 
 26 LIFE OF MOTTEUX. 
 
 and enliven it. The blessing of a plentiful estate 
 sets you above all anxieties in this life/' Is Mot- 
 teux not anxious to participate in all these blessings 
 and in this hospitality ? In any case, he mentions 
 Coke's " charming and virtuous partner/' and ends 
 by owning to the world how much he has been 
 obliged to his generosity. 
 
 The dedication of the third volume speaks of 
 the translator's obligations, and of the acts of gene- 
 rosity of Mr. Boyle ; he compares him to Mecaenas, 
 and praises his qualifications as a patron. 
 
 The last volume is inscribed to Colonel Stan- 
 hope, 13 and the dedication is ingeniously written. 
 The translator says : "Expecting . . . to be attacked 
 by the critics, and believing that the most I could pre- 
 tend to was a handsome retreat, I thought it my best 
 way to secure the whole, by having the rear brought 
 up by a leader, whose very reputation would be 
 
 sufficient to keep the enemy in awe Those 
 
 papers, sir, are no small part of the treasures of 
 Spain, and since you had so great a share in the 
 glory of enriching your country with the wealth of 
 that nation, you must be content to have a part in 
 
 13 Colonel Stanhope, who afterwards became Earl Stanhope, 
 was wouuded at the siege of Xamur in 1695, and for two years 
 afterwards had been travelling with his father in Spain, so 
 that he knew Spanish very well. In 1702 he became member of 
 Parliament for Cockermouth, distinguished himself in 1705 at the 
 siege of Barcelona, became commander-in-chief of the British 
 forces in Spain, and took Port Mahon in 1708, defeated the 
 Spaniards in 1710 at Almenara and Saragossa, and was himself 
 taken prisoner at Brihuega the same year. I, therefore, imagine 
 that the dedication to Colonel Stanhope must have been inserted 
 between the years 1705 and 1710, though the first edition of 
 Motteux's translation was published in 1701. I have only 
 been able to consult the third edition of Don Quixote, printed 
 in 1712.
 
 LIFE OF MOTTEUX. 
 
 97 
 
 impropriating Cervantes to the use of the English. 
 You .... will now generously protect an honest 
 Spaniard like Cervantes, though you have so lately 
 been one of the foremost in an action no less fatal 
 to his nation than glorious to the undertakers." 
 The early edition of Motteux's translation of Don 
 Quixote contain many quaintly spelled words and 
 peculiar phrases which generally have been pre- 
 served in all later reprints. 
 
 In 1701 was performed at both the theatres 
 a musical interlude, called Britain's Happiness, 
 written by M. Motteux, of which " the scene was 
 a prospect of Dover Castle and the sea. This 
 interlude had long before been intended only for an 
 introduction to an opera, which, if ever finished, 
 was to have been called The Loves of Europe, every 
 act showing the manner of a different nation in 
 their address to the fair sex." 14 
 
 On the 16th of January, 1705, was acted at 
 Drury Lane, an opera, after the Italian manner, 
 called Arsinoe, Queen of Cyprus, translated from 
 the Italian by Motteux, in which the celebrated 
 Mrs. Tofts was the principal singer. This opera 
 seems to have been a great success, for it was 
 played fifteen times, although the words are not 
 superior to those of any other play set to music. 
 When it was revived two years later, it was sup- 
 ported by several Italians who sang their parts in 
 the original language, while the English singers sang 
 in their own tongue. 
 
 Sixteen days after the first performance of 
 Arsinoe was brought out, in the same theatre, 
 14 Baker's Biographia Dramatica, vol. ii. 1812.
 
 28 LIFE OF MOTTEUX. 
 
 a comedy in three acts, The Amorous Miser ; 
 or the Younger the Wiser, written by Motteux, of 
 which the subject is an old miser, Pedro, who 
 wants to marry a lady with whom his son Frederick 
 is in love, and agrees to forfeit twenty thousand 
 crowns in case he should break off the match. The 
 marriage is to take place as soon as the bride's 
 brother, a captain of dragoons in the French army, 
 shall have arrived. Diego, a servant of a friend of 
 Frederick's, and " a fellow of parts/' pretends to 
 be the captain, and comes to Pedro's house accom- 
 panied by thirty dragoons and several women and 
 children. They eat up all the miser's provisions, 
 drink his wine, take liberties with his maid- servants, 
 steal his linen, and behave in such a manner, that 
 he finally is glad to resign the young lady to his 
 son. The third act of this comedy is as long as 
 the first and second together. Strange to say, 
 this play is not very broad, and the author has 
 adhered to the opening lines of the prologue, which 
 run as follows : 
 
 To-night, gallants, you're to expect from hence, 
 No satyr, smut, or luscious .... scenes, 
 The Poet's mannerly and cautious too, 
 And neither will affront himself, nor you ; 
 Faith both are needless, since 'tis done each day, 
 By you who judge, and him who writes a play. 
 
 In the epilogue, the author complains that 
 " foreign whims so much debauch the town" that 
 people go " to hear L'pine Italian squeak," and 
 that " 'twas not so when Ben and Shakespear writ," 
 who lived in the days " when English humour 
 English hearts could please." Vanbrugh, about
 
 LIFE 01 .MOTTKUX. 29 
 
 this time attempted Italian opera at the II ay- 
 rnarket, and hence, probably, Mottcux's remarks. 1 ' 
 
 In spite of his attack on the " Italian squeak," 
 the next play which M. Motteux brought out was a 
 pastoral opera, The Temple of Lore, translated from 
 the Italian, and acted at the llaymarket in the 
 month of March of the year 1705. That the words 
 are not worth much is admitted in the prologue, for : 
 
 Should here the notes the turn of words control ; 
 Words are but bodies, music is the soul. . . . 
 'Tis hard to raise, or save, in every place 
 With manly English an Italian grace. 
 
 In the epilogue he has a hit at some rival opera 
 company, and still complains of being " tied to 
 notes, tied hand and feet." 
 
 The next year, 1707, another opera of Motteux's, 
 Thomyris, Queen of Scythia, was acted at Drury 
 Lane, and though the music was Italian, the words 
 are original. The scene lies in the country of 
 the Massagetes, in Scythia. The queen was repre- 
 sented by Signora Margarita, and Orontes, her son, 
 either by Mr. Hughes or Signor Valentino, and, 
 whilst all the actors sang in English, it is possible 
 that the siguora and the signor sang in Italian, 
 for in the libretto, an Italian translation of the 
 words to be sung by them is always given. The 
 author again speaks, in the Preface, of the diffi- 
 culty of applying words to " songs so full of pa- 
 thetic notes and nice graces, in a language per- 
 haps too manly for such composures." What the 
 author does not say is that Siguora Margarita cie 
 
 15 According to Geneste, Some Account of the English Star/e, 
 vol. iii. p. 329, the Haymarket was not opened until April !tth, 
 1705. Perhaps the play and epilogue were printed after this date.
 
 30 LIFE OF MOTTEUX. 
 
 L'Espine, who now is no longer called Cf an Italian 
 squeak/' acted the heroine. 
 
 Farewell Folly ; or the Younger the Wiser, acted 
 the same year at the Theatre Royal, is little more 
 than an alteration and enlargement of The Amorous 
 Miser, made rather more broad, and interspersed 
 with some songs, and a very free interlude called 
 The Mountebank ; or the Humours of the Fair. At 
 the end of the first act, Mimic, an actor paraphrases 
 Shakspeare's " All the World's a Stage/' and opens 
 his speech with the four following lines : 
 
 Sure all mankind the player's old motto shares, 
 
 The players act all the world, and all the world the 
 
 players. 
 
 Some have such parts, they well may blush to own 'em : 
 Yet totus mundus agit histrionem. 
 
 Mimic, Digger, Squire Lubbard, Salathiel, Mariana, 
 and Mrs. Lodgemare, are all new characters. The 
 epilogue is clever, and we give the beginning of it : 
 
 If a play takes, we boldly may address ye : 
 But if 'tis damned, we dare not even caress ye. 
 You hiss, as if some serpent did possess ye. 
 Aware of this, I come prepared to-day, 
 And to their fortune leave the poet and the play. 
 Prologues and epilogues, though much they cost, 
 In this wise age, like words, of course, are lost ; 
 For, like Court suitors, 'tis their common fate, 
 
 To come to beg too early, or too late 
 
 And we're such criticks in decorum grown 
 
 We find two meanings where there scarce is one. 
 
 Another opera of Motteux's, Love's Triumph, was 
 performed at the Haymarket Theatre in 1708, in 
 which Signor Valentino, " who sings in Italian/' as 
 stated in the " list of persons," and Signora Mar- 
 garita again appear. It is a free adaptation from
 
 LIFE OF MOTTEUX. 31 
 
 an Italian opera, and is neither better nor worse 
 than such adaptations generally are. The dedication 
 to Thomas Frankland, Esq., who was then Postmaster- 
 General, 10 and M. Motteux's chief in the Post-Office, 
 is sensibly written, for, says the adapter, " it is 
 to be wished indeed that music might be made to 
 
 the words, and not the words to the music 
 
 There does not seem to be so great care taken that 
 the words may not be a disgrace to good music, 
 nor to have them plainly uttered, understood, and 
 
 properly acted with spirit (rood music with 
 
 bad words is like good wine with bad company/' 
 I think that this dedication breathes, on the whole, 
 a manlier spirit than any other of M. Motteux's, 
 and it is clear that the author was at that time in 
 more or less independent circumstances, for he ends 
 his dedication thus: "I will only add that the favours 
 of the great, and my good fortune, have made me 
 so easy as to decline being a rent-charge to the 
 generous, by the way of addresses of this nature." 
 
 In the same year our author published a transla- 
 tion of the fourth and fifth book of the works of Rabe- 
 lais, called Pantagruel ! s Voyage to the Oracle of the 
 Bottle, as well as the Pantagruelian prognostication, 
 other pieces of the author, and his historical letters. 
 The translator's preface is manly, sensible and 
 scholarly, and his explanatory remarks have often 
 been translated into French, a proof that they are 
 
 16 According to W. Lewins, Her Majesty's Mails, 18fif>, second 
 edition, Thomas Frankland, a Yorkshire squire of good estate, 
 was appointed Postmaster-General in 1690, and later on was made 
 a baronet by Queen Anne. In 1696, Sir Robert Cotton was 
 named joint Postmaster; but "why two chiefs were appointed 
 instead of one is not clear." 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 OZ LIFE OF MOTTEUX. 
 
 considered valuable even in the native land of the 
 original author. 
 
 In 1712 M. Motteux published A Poem in Praise 
 of Tea, from which it appears that he was a confirmed 
 teetotaller, and even abjured coffee, for he says : 
 
 "Tis vain in wine to seek a solid joy, 
 All fierce enjoyments soon themselves destroy, 
 Wine fires the fancy to a dangerous height, 
 With smoky flame and with a cloudy light. 
 From boisterous wine I fled to gentle tea ; 
 For calms compose us after storms at sea. 
 In vain would coffee boast an equal good ; 
 The crystal stream transcends the flowing mud, 
 Tea even the ills from coffee sprung repairs, 
 Disclaims its vices, and its virtue shares. 
 
 He sees, in a vision, the gods of Olympus, after 
 dinner, when " Bacchus boisterous grew," take their 
 cup of tea, prepared by fair Hebe. This poem 
 continues the even tenor of its way, in its attacks 
 on the juice of the grape, and in its praises of its 
 favourite beverage, for 
 
 Wine proves most fatal when it most invites, 
 Tea is most healthful when it most delights. 
 .... Healing tea, the only liquid gold ! 
 Improved by age, see how it age improves, 
 And adds new pleasure and old pain removes. 
 What greater good from tea can mortals reap ? 
 It lengthens life, while thus it shortens sleep. 
 
 Of course King William is brought in, for " Tea 
 promotes what William recommends," which may 
 be "improvement of commerce," or, perhaps, "teeto- 
 talism." The name of King William was to M. 
 Motteux what the head of Charles the First was 
 to Uncle Dick it could not be kept out of his 
 writings. The Dutch hero died on the 8th of March,
 
 LIFE OF MOTTEUX. 33 
 
 1702, and it is difficult to see why he should have been 
 dragged iu some rhymes written iu praise of tea, and 
 published ten years later. The poem ends with the 
 following odd alliterative connection between wine 
 and war : 
 
 Immortals, hear, said Jove, and cease to jar ! 
 Tea must succeed to wine, as peace to war ; 
 Nor by the grape let men be set at odds, 
 But share, in tea, the nectar of the gods. 
 
 Did M. Motteux practise what he preached in 
 those hard-drinking days in which he was living, 
 and did he refuse to be solaced by "the cup that 
 cheers and does inebriate ?" 
 
 According to Lowndes, The Bibliographer's 
 Manual, Motteux also assisted in the translation of 
 Bayle's Dictionary and Montaigne's Essays, but I 
 can find no proofs that he ever did so. 
 
 He wrote, however, several epilogues and pro- 
 logues to plays of his friends, which seem to be aU 
 tainted with the peculiar coarseness of the times. 
 I imagine that the epilogue to Sir John Vanbrugh's 
 Mistake, a free imitation of Moliere's DepitAmoureux, 
 and which was acted in 1706, is about the broadest. 
 
 M. Motteux is also said to have writ; en a farce 
 called Love Dragooned, but it seems never to have 
 been printed or played. 
 
 His last work was sent forth a year after his 
 death. In 1719 the Reverend John Harris pub- 
 lished a History of Kent, in a large folio, profusely 
 illustrated, of which only the first volume has ap- 
 peared. In the list of subscribers I find the name 
 of Peter Motteux, of Leadenhall Street. The book 
 is dedicated to the King, and after the dedication
 
 34 LIFE OF MOTTEUX. 
 
 comes an "Ode in Praise of Kent, part of which 
 was formerly sung at a feast of the gentlemen of 
 that county, which/' says the reverend historian, 
 " I inserted because I promised it to the late 
 M. Motteux." This ode has very little poetical 
 merit. 
 
 What connection M. Motteux ever had with 
 Kent is now almost impossible to say, unless his 
 wife Priscilla 17 belonged to that county, and this is 
 only a mere supposition. 
 
 We have, as yet, hardly spoken of our author's 
 private life or of his domestic relations. There is, 
 indeed, very little known of either the one or 
 the other, for no account has ever been given of 
 them, even by men who knew him well. The 
 notices of his career to be found in biographical 
 dictionaries are very scanty, and consist of hardly 
 a dozen lines. All say that he was a rich East- 
 India merchant in Leadenhall Street, was con- 
 nected with the foreign department of the Post- 
 Office. had a wife, and was of licentious habits, and 
 died a very peculiar death ; and then they give an 
 incomplete list of his works, and pass on to the 
 biography of another gentleman, whose name comes 
 next in alphabetical order. We will attempt to 
 elucidate M. Motteux's career a little more, even 
 with the very meagre records which exist. 
 
 M. Motteux came to England in 1685, when he was 
 already twenty-five years old. He seems hardly to 
 have frequented any of his fellow-refugees, or visited 
 
 17 That his wife was named Priscilla, is mentioned in the register 
 of St. Andrew Undershaft, for the year 1705, where Motteux's 
 son, Anthony, was christened.
 
 LIFE OF MOTTEUX. 35 
 
 their favourite place of meeting, the Rainbow Coffee- 
 house in Marylebone, but only to have made 
 friends with Englishmen. According to a remark 
 I made about the Preface of his first comedy, 
 Love's a Jest, acted in 1696, he was then single, 
 but we may take it for granted that he saw the 
 error of his ways, and married a few years after- 
 wards, for on the third of October, 1705, was 
 christened, in the church of St. Andrew Under- 
 shaft, St. Mary Axe, a son of his, who was called 
 Anthony after his father or grandfather; and on the 
 13th of April, 1710, another son, who received the 
 name of Francis. Peter Motteux seems to have had 
 several brothers, for in the list of the directors of 
 the French Hospital in London, we find, in 1729, the 
 name of John Motteux, who is probably the same 
 as the " eminent Hamburgh merchant," who died in 
 1741, 18 whilst in the registers of the afore-mentioned 
 church are inscribed, between the years 1713 and 
 1718, the christenings of four sons and two daughters, 
 and the deaths of two boys, all children of a certain 
 Timothy Motteux and Jane his wife, and which 
 Timothy was most likely a younger brother of the 
 author. A certain Mr. Peter Motteux was married 
 in March, 1750, to a Miss West, of Bishopsgate 
 Street, 19 whilst Mr. Arthur Motteux, a director of 
 the French Hospital in London, in 1759, was 
 probably a son or nephew of old Peter Motteux ; 
 and another, John Motteux, also a director of that 
 hospital, in 1763, was certainly a descendant of 
 the same stock. The name is not so common 
 
 18 The Gentleman's Magazine, December, 1741. 
 
 19 The Gentleman's Magazine, March, 1750.
 
 36 LIFE OF MOTTEUX. 
 
 in England as Brown, Jones, Smith, or Robinson, 
 and is not not to be found in any of the Post- 
 Office Directories for this year (1880). But the 
 family seems to have been in existence about sixty 
 years ago, for a Mr. John Motteux is mentioned as 
 residing in 1819 at his seat, Beacham Wells, in the 
 county of Norfolk. - 
 
 As for the easy circumstances of Mr. Peter An- 
 thony Motteux, I suspect that he was not so well 
 off as it is generally supposed, and that he was 
 not even comparatively independent until the year 
 1708. His dedications, as we have already noticed 
 with the exception of the one to Thomas Frank- 
 land are as fawning as those of the ordinary 
 Grub Street scribblers of the day ; and that he 
 was considered poor by the general public, as late 
 as the year 1703, is proved by The Dialogue between 
 Motteux and his Patron Heveningham, which we 
 have mentioned, and in which M. Motteux is 
 found haggling about a few guineas, the price of a 
 dedication. It may be argued that this Dialogue is 
 a satire, but no one will, even ironically, repre- 
 sent a wealthy author who is not a miser, as 
 quarrelling about the price of a dedication. The 
 following epistolary puff, printed in the Spectator, 
 No. 288, January 30th, 1711-12, though written in 
 a humorous way, as from a tradesman recommend- 
 ing his wares, seems also not to have been indited 
 by a well-to-do merchant. 
 
 SIB, Since so many dealers turn authors, and write 
 quaint advertisements in praise of their wares, one, who 
 
 20 Excursions in the County of Norfolk, vol. ii. 1819.
 
 LIKE OF MOTTEUX. 37 
 
 from an author turned dealer, may be allowed, for the 
 advancement of trade, to turn author again. 
 
 I will not, however, set up, like some of them, for selling 
 cheaper than the most able honest tradesman can ; nor do 
 I send this to be better known for choice and cheapness 
 of China and Japan wares, tea, fans, muslins, pictures, 
 arrack, and other Indian goods. Placed as I am, in 
 Leadenhall Street, near the India Company, and the centre 
 of that trade, thanks to my fair customers, my warehouse 
 is graced as well as the benefit days of my plays and operas; 
 and the foreign goods I sell are no less acceptable than 
 the foreign books I translated Rabelais and Don Quixote. 
 This the critics allow me, and, while they like my 
 wares they may dispraise my writing. But as it is not 
 so well known yet that I frequently cross the seas of late, 
 and speak in Dutch and French, besides other languages, 
 I have the conveniency of buying and importing rich 
 brocades and Dutch atlases, with gold and silver or 
 without, and other foreign silks of the newest modes and 
 best fabrics, fine Flanders lace, linen, and pictures, at the 
 best hand ; this my new way of trade I have fallen into 
 I cannot better publish than by an application to you. 
 My wares are fit only for such as your readers ; and I 
 would beg of you to print this address in your paper, 
 that those whose minds you adorn may take the ornaments 
 for their persons and houses from me. This, sir, if I may 
 presume to beg it, will be the greater favour, as I have 
 lately received rich silks and fine lace to a considerable 
 value, which will be sold cheap for a quick return, and 
 as I have also a large stock of other goods. Indian silks 
 were formerly a great branch of our trade ; and since 
 we must not sell them we must seek amends by dealing 
 in others. This, I hope, will plead for one who would 
 lessen the number of teasers of the Muses, and who, 
 suiting his spirit to his circumstances, humbles the poet to 
 exalt the citizen. Like a true tradesman I hardly ever 
 look into any books but those of accounts. To say the 
 truth, I cannot, I think, give you a better idea of my 
 being a downright man of traffic than by acknowledging 
 I oftener read the advertisements than the matter of even
 
 38 LIFE OF MOTTEUX. 
 
 your paper. I am under a very great temptation to take 
 this opportunity of admonishing other writers to follow 
 my example, and trouble the town no more ; but, as it 
 is my present business to increase the number of buyers 
 rather than sellers, I hasten to tell you that I am, sir, 
 
 Your most humble and most obedient servant, 
 
 PETER MOTTEUX. 
 
 There exists another letter of Motteux's, 21 
 written in a bold and firm hand, dated as late as 
 the 26th of May, 1714, and addressed to the 
 "Honoured . . . Does " [here the handwriting 
 is torn off] " at his house in Bloomsbury." The 
 letter is as follows : 
 
 "SiR, The pictures in the enclosed catalogue being right 
 originals and to be sold fairly, as was my former sale a 
 year ago, will, I hope, plead an excuse for my presump- 
 tion, in which I have been encouraged the rather as it 
 gives me this opportunity to let you know that I have 
 Joseph Scaliger's picture from the life, which is not in this 
 collection, but at my house in Leadenhall Street, and will 
 not be dear. I am, with deep respect, sir, 
 
 u Your most humble and most obedient servant, 
 
 " P. MOTTEUX." 
 
 I may be wrong, but I imagine that the tone 
 of this letter is not that of a wealthy man. M. 
 Motteux either sells his own pictures two years 
 in succession, or acts as an auctioneer or agent for 
 others. There cannot be the least doubt that 
 Motteux was an auctioneer, for after his death the 
 
 21 Manuscript Department, British Museum.
 
 Lll'E OF MOTTEUX. 39 
 
 following advertisement appeared in the daily 
 papers : 
 
 " The late M. Motteux's collection of valuable pictures 
 will, in a few days, be sold by auction, for the benefit of 
 his widow and children, at his auction-room over the little 
 Piazza in Covent Garden, whereof more particular notice 
 will be published." 2 
 
 This advertisement does uot sound like the notice 
 of the sale of the effects of a man who has died rich ; 
 besides, in the same papers are several advertisements 
 of the sales of other collections of books, pictures, 
 wines, &c., which are quite differently worded. I 
 am afraid that it cannot now be discovered what posi- 
 tion M. Motteux held in the Post Office, for there are 
 no records older than 1797 ;' 3 but, in any case, he 
 cannot have been very well paid, for the Controller of 
 the Foreign Department of the Post Office, under Sir 
 R. Cotton and Ths. Frankland, had only a salary of 
 150 a year, whilst the Alphabet-keeper had 100, 
 and six clerks each X50 a year.- 4 
 
 And now we approach the most extraordinary 
 part in the career of this literary tradesman, 
 namely, his death. And here we shall let the 
 semi-official documents speak. The following ad- 
 vertisement appeared in the papers of that time r* 
 
 " Whereas, on Tuesday the 18th of February last, a 
 
 22 The Daily Courant, February 25, 27, 2B, and March 3, 
 1718. 
 
 23 Sir Francis Freeling (1764-1836) who became surveyor 
 in the General Post-Office in 1787, ordered every record of earlier 
 date to be sent away and destroyed ; an act of literary vandalism 
 for which, I trust, Sir Francis got his reward. 
 
 24 W. Lewins, Her Majesty's Mails, 1865, second edition. 
 
 25 The Daily Courant, March, 20, 21, 22, 25, 1718.
 
 40 LIFE OF MOTTEUX. 
 
 gentleman in a scarlet cloak, with a sword, in company with 
 another person, was carried to White's Chocolate House, 
 St. James's, where the coach waited from about 9 o'clock 
 to near 11, and then carried him and the other person, 
 and let them down at Star Court, in the Butcher Eow, 
 oehind St. Clement Dane's Church, 26 and the gentleman 
 being found dead the next morning in a house in that 
 court, and it being violently suspected that he was mur- 
 dered there, the coachman is earnestly desired forthwith 
 to come to Mrs. Motteux, at the ' Two Fans,' in Leaden- 
 hall Street, to give an account what condition the 
 gentleman was in when he set him down. Every master 
 coachman is desired to examine his driver that day, for 
 the better finding out the person who drove the coach. 
 And if the master shall bring his servant to Mrs. Motteux, 
 shall have 4 guineas, and his servant 6, and if the person 
 who drove the coach conies alone, he shall have 10 guineas 
 reward and his charges ; he shall come into no trouble, 
 but may very much contribute, by his evidence, to dis- 
 cover this supposed murderer." 
 
 This advertisement of the widow states distinctly 
 where her husband died. It was inserted, because on 
 
 " Monday last (the 3rd of March) 27 the Coroner's inquest 
 sat again upon the body of M. Motteux, the China man, 
 [merchant] who was found dead at a house of ill-fame 
 [the original notice has a stronger word] in Star Court, 
 behind St. Clement's Church ; but the coachman that 
 
 26 About half a century has elapsed since a clearance was made 
 .... of Butcher Row, a street of tenements between the back 
 of St. Clement's and Ship Yard, in the Strand, and named from 
 the butchers' shambles there. The houses here were mostly built 
 in Queen Elizabeth's reign, and chiefly of wood and plaster, with 
 overhanging stories. They were wretched fabrics, the receptacles 
 of filth in every corner, the bane of old London, and a sort of 
 nestling- place for the plague. The ceilings of these houses were 
 low, with large un wrought beams, and lighted by small casement- 
 windows. The cant name of the place among coachmen in the 
 days of the Spectator, was ' the Pass,' or 'The Straits of St. 
 Clements. 1 '' John Tiinbs' London and Westminster, vol. i. 1868. 
 
 2 ? The W eddy Journal Saturday's Post, March 8. 1719.
 
 LIFE OF MOTTEUX. 41 
 
 carried him being not found (;is was reported), they 
 deferred giving their verdict to that day month. The old 
 woman who kept the house [I change here, again, a word] and 
 her daughter, with two or three of her doxies, were com- 
 mitted to Newgate, there being strong circumstances to 
 believe that they murdered him." 
 
 But a fortnight passed and no coachman made 
 his appearance. Then official notices were put in 
 the London Gazette'* and the Original IVeekly 
 Journal stating that 
 
 " Her Majesty has been pleased to promise her most 
 gracious pardon to any person concerned in the suspected 
 murder of M. Motteux, except him or her by whose hands 
 the murder was committed, and a reward of 50 to any 
 person who makes a discovery of the murderers." 
 
 And this same Weekly Journal, perhaps at the 
 moment of going to press, states, a page further on, 
 that the hackney-coachman who carried M. Motteux 
 to the house in Star Court has been discovered, 
 is in custody, and will give evidence about the 
 murder. 3 " 
 
 We now approach the end. The coachman has 
 given his evidence. The supposed criminals arc 
 discovered and brought to justice. This is what one 
 of the papers says : 31 
 
 "Five persons were tried for the murder of M. Motteux. 
 It appeared that M. Motteux, 011 his way to White's 
 
 28 March 22, 29, April 5, 1718. 
 
 29 March 22, 1718. 
 
 30 That murder and injury were then not uncommon in London 
 is proved by the fact that on the same page of the Joui-nul an 
 account is given of a woman being found murdered in Hyde Park, 
 with seven or eight wounds about her, " and the surgeons are of 
 opinion that she was ravished." 
 
 31 The Original Weekly Journal, April 26 May 3, 17 IS.
 
 42 LIFE OP MOTTEUX. 
 
 Chocolate House, picked up Mary Roberts, one of them, 
 and carried her thither and staid two hours, leaving her 
 in the coach; and she sending for him, he went in the 
 same coach with her to Star Court, where it appeared 
 he went in and was seen to kiss the said Roberts in the 
 kitchen, and then was lighted with her up the stairs, the 
 others being present. At one of the clock a surgeon was 
 sent for, and told a gentleman was at this .... house, 
 and dead in a fit, who coming to view the body found he 
 had been strangled, as appeared by others coming after- 
 wards. The prisoners alleged he died in a fit, but several 
 marks abouthis neck and breast were found to be occa- 
 sioned by violence. One of the witnesses living at the 
 next door, with several others, proved the house to be a 
 common disorderly house, where several tumults and dis- 
 orders are committed, and all the evidence agree that he 
 went out in health, and was seen to be well in the house 
 till he went up-stairs, which the prisoners denied, pre- 
 tending he was ill and was helped out of the coach and 
 placed in a chair, and afterwards removed up-stairs. The 
 jury brought them in ' Not Guilty.' " 
 
 Another Journal of the same date 32 contradicts 
 this statement by merely saying that the Grand 
 Jury at Westminster found bills of indictment 
 against five persons in Newgate, four females 
 and a foot-soldier, for the murder of M. Motteux, 
 the China man in Leadenhall Street, and states that 
 these five persons were tried at the Old Bailey, that 
 the soldier was acquitted, but a special verdict 
 brought against the four women. 
 
 I imagine that the first statement is the cor- 
 rect one, for nothing more was heard of the trial, 
 nor can anything about it be found in the news- 
 papers or in the legal reports of that time. It is 
 
 32 The Weekly Journal, April 26; May 13, 1718.
 
 LIFE 01 MOTTEUX. 43 
 
 just possible that the trial may have been conducted 
 in private. 33 
 
 Thus died, on his 58th birthday, Peter Anthony 
 Motteux, who was buried in the chureh of St. 
 Andrew IJndershaft, at the corner of Coruhill and 
 St. Mary Axe, on the 22nd of February, 1718, and 
 who wrote wittily and fluently, but might have led 
 a better life, and, above all, have died under more 
 favourable circumstances. 
 
 HENRI VAN LAUN. 
 
 33 At the end of the third volume of Duchat's French edition of 
 Rabelais, Amsterdam, 1741, is given a modified translation of 
 Mottenx's Preface and Notes to that author. This translation is 
 preceded by a short life of Mr. Motteux, which contains the 
 following poetical epigram, alluding to his death : 
 
 Ci-git, qui par pure impuissaiice, 
 Faisant un trop puissant effort, 
 Mourut le jour de sa naissance, 
 En serraut son col par trop fort.
 
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