Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 39.djvu/80

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
Morley
74
Morley


which ultimately extended, it is said, to more than forty quarto volumes. Of these a few have survived, and are now in the British Museum (Sloane MSS., Nos. 1259, 1272, 1273, 1289). They are dated 1677 to 1679, and not only show Morley's diligence as a student, but give an interesting picture of the state of medical education in Leyden at the time. On his return to England he published a little volume on an epidemic fever then prevalent in England, Holland, and else where, which he dedicated to the College of Physicians ('De Morbo Epidemico,' 1678-9, &c., London, 1680, 12mo). It contains an account of his personal experience of the disease, and a letter from Professor Schacht of Leyden on the same subject, besides remarks on the state of medical practice in England and Holland. This probably led to his election as an honorary fellow of the College of Physicians 30 Sept. 1680 (since, not being an English graduate, he was not eligible to become an ordinary fellow). He did not immediately settle down, for in 1683 we find him going on a voyage to the Indies, but in 1684 he was practising in London.

In the new charter granted to the college in 1686 by James II Morley was named as an actual fellow, and was admitted in the following year. This fact shows that he was a partisan of James II, and probably a Roman catholic, so that he found a difficulty in taking the oaths required by the government after the revolution, and finally, in 1700, his name was on that ground withdrawn, at his own request, from the college list. His subsequent career cannot be traced.

Morley was evidently a man of remarkably wide knowledge in medicine and other sciences, but he did nothing in later life to justify his early promise. Beside the work mentioned above he published 'Collectanea Chemica Leydensia' (Leyden, 1684, 4to), which is evidently extracted from the notebooks above referred to. It consists of a large number of chemical and pharmaceutical receipts taken from the lectures of three professors of chemistry at Leyden Mae'ts, Marggraff, and Le Mort. It was translated into German (Jena, 1696), and appeared in a second Latin edition (Antwerp, 1702, 12mo).

[Morley's works; Munk's Coll. of Phys. 1873 i. 450.]


MORLEY, MERLAI, MERLAC, or MARLACH, DANIEL of (fl. 1170–1190), astronomer, apparently came from Morley, Norfolk (cf. Blomefield, Norfolk, passim), and is said to have been educated at Oxford. Thence he proceeded to the university of Paris, and applied himself especially to the study of mathematics; but dissatisfied with the teaching there, he left for Toledo, then famous for its school of Arabian philosophy. At Toledo he remained for some time. The statements of Pits, Wood, and Blomefield that he visited Arabia are erroneous. Morley returned to England with a valuable collection of books. He was apparently disappointed at the neglect of science in England, and a passage in his book has been interpreted to mean that he was on the point of setting out again for foreign parts when he met John of Oxford (1175-1200), bishop of Norwich, who persuaded him to remain. The date of Morley's death is unknown.

Morley was author of a book called both 'Philosophia Magistri Danielis de Merlac,'and 'Liber de Naturis inferiorum et superiorum,' dedicated to John of Oxford; it is in Arundel MS. 377 ff. 88-103, and from the preface is derived all that is known of Morley's life. The Arundel MS. divides the work into two books, one, 'De superiori parte mundi,' the other, 'De inferiori parte mundi;' in it Morley quotes frequently from Arabian and Greek philosophers, and vaunts the superiority of the former; he is not free, however, from astrological superstitions. Another copy of the work is No. 95 in the Corpus Christi College, Oxford, MSS., and is erroneously catalogued under W. de Conchys (Coxe, Cat. Cod. MSS. in Coll. Oxon.) This copy lacks the preface, and mentions a third book of the work beginning 'Seneca loquens ad Lucilium,' which is not in the Aruudel MS. Pits also attributes to Morley a treatise in one book called 'De Principiis Mathematicis,' and 'alia qusedam,' which he does not specify.

[Arundel MS. 377; Coxe's Cat. Cod. MSS.; Wright's Biographia Literaria, ii. 227-30; Hardy's Descr. Cat. ii. 550; Leland's Scriptt. Ill. ed. Hall, p. 244. and Collectanea, iv. 192; Bale, ed. 1557, pp. 229-30; Pits, p. 254; Wood's Hist. and Antiquities, ed. Gutch, i. 168; Arthur Duck's De Vsu et Authoritate, vol. ii. cap. viii. p. 141; Burrows's Collectanea (Oxford Hist. Soc.), ii. 146, 171, 172, 323; Blomefield's Norfolk, iii. 477.]


MORLEY, GEORGE (1597–1684), bishop of Winchester, son of Francis Morley, esq., and Sarah, sister to Sir John Denham [q. v.], judge, was born in Cheapside, London, on 27 Feb. 1597. Both his parents died by the time that he was twelve, and his father having before his death fallen into difficulties by becoming surety for others, left him unprovided for. When he was about fourteen he was admitted king's scholar at Westminster, and in 1615 was elected to Christ Church, Oxford