addressed to the Honourable House of Commons by a Sea Officer, 1745, 8vo). Nearly a year afterwards, in November, Mostyn, still in command of the Hampton Court, was hooted out of Portsmouth dockyard and harbour by workmen and sailors calling out, 'All's well! there's no Frenchman in the way!' (Charnock, iv. 431).
In the early months of 1746 Mostyn, still in the Hampton Court, commanded a cruising squadron in the Bay of Biscay. In July 1747 he was returned to parliament as member for Weobley in Herefordshire, and continued to represent the constituency till his death. On 22 March 1749 he was appointed comptroller of the navy. This office he resigned to accept his promotion to flag rank, 4 Feb. 1755, and in the summer of that year was second in command of the fleet sent to North America under the command of Vice-admiral Boscawen [q. v.] During the following year he was second in command of the western squadron under the command, successively, of Hawke, Boscawen, and Knowles. In April 1757 he was appointed a junior lord in the short-lived administration of the admiralty by the Earl of Winchilsea, which terminated in June. He died 16 Sept. 1757. A portrait of Mostyn in early youth was engraved by T. Worlidge.
[Charnock's Biog. Nav. iv. 429; official letters and other documents in the Public Record Office; other authorities in the text.]
MOTHERBY, GEORGE, M.D. (1732–1793), medical writer, born in Yorkshire in 1732, practised as a physician at Highgate, Middlesex. He died at Beverley, Yorkshire, in the summer of 1793 (Gent. Mag. 1793, pt. ii. p. 771). He compiled 'A new Medical Dictionary,' fol. London, 1776 or 1778 (2nd edit. 1785). Other editions, carefully revised by George Wallis, M.D., appeared in 1791, 1795, and 1801; the two last issues were in two volumes.
[Reuss's Register of Authors; Watt's Bibl. Brit.]
MOTHERWELL, WILLIAM (1797–1835), poet, born in Glasgow 13 Oct. 1797, was the son of an ironmonger, descended from an old Stirlingshire family. In his childhood the home was changed to Edinburgh. Here he began his education, which he completed by further school training at Paisley (residing there with an uncle). After studying classics for a year at Glasgow University (1818-19), he was received into the office of the sheriff-clerk at Paisley, and from May 1819 to November 1829 was sheriff-clerk depute of Renfrewshire. As a youth he had very advanced political opinions, but unpleasant personal relations with the ardent reformers whom he encountered transformed him into a zealous tory. For a time he was a trooper in the Renfrewshire yeomanry cavalry, and he became a respectable boxer and swordsman.
Motherwell wrote verse from an early age. The ballad 'Jeanie Morrison' was sketched in his fourteenth year, and published in an Edinburgh periodical in 1832. In 1818 Motherwell wrote verses for the Greenock 'Visitor.' He edited, with a preface, in 1819, 'The Harp of Renfrewshire,' a collection of songs by local authors. In 1824, under the pseudonym of 'Isaac Brown, late manufacturer in the Plunkin of Paisley,' he published 'Renfrewshire Characters and Scenery,' a good-natured local sketch in Spenserian stanza. In 1827 appeared in small 4to 'Minstrelsy Ancient and Modern,' a judicious collection of ballads, with a learned and discriminating introduction. This brought him into friendly relations with Scott.
In 1828 Motherwell conducted the 'Paisley Magazine,' and he edited the 'Paisley Advertiser' from 1828 to 1830, when he left Paisley to be editor of the 'Glasgow Courier.' In both Paisley papers he inserted many lyrics by himself. At Glasgow he threw himself with ardour into his work at an exciting and exacting time, and under his supervision his journal was distinguished by freshness and vigour. While editing the 'Courier' he wrote pretty largely for the 'Day,' a Glasgow periodical begun in 1832. In that year, too, he contributed a discursive preface to Andrew Henderson's 'Scottish Proverbs,' and issued his own 'Poems, Narrative and Lyrical.' In 1835 Motherwell collaborated with Hogg in an edition of Burns, to which he supplied valuable notes. His recent biographers are astray in crediting him with the bulk of the accompanying biography of Burns, which, with an acknowledged exception, is clearly the work of Hogg. Having identified himself with Orangeism, he was summoned to London in 1835 to give information on the subject before a special committee. Under examination he completely broke down, showing strange mental unreadiness and confusion, and was promptly sent home. For a time he seemed likely to recover, but the disease developed, and he died at Glasgow of apoplexy on 1 Nov. 1835.
A restrained conversationalist, Motherwell could be eager and even vehement when deeply moved, and with kindred spirits such as R. A. Smith, the musician, and others of the 'Whistle Binkie' circle he was both easy and affable. His social instinct and public spirit are illustrated in his
