Welsh Journals

129 MAURICE MORGAN- This gentleman, who was so well known in his day for his distinguished and extensive knowledge, and was the author of the ingenious " Essay on the Character of Falstaff," was born in the year 1725 or 1726. There was a namesake of his Lieut. Col. Maurice Morgan, M.P. for Yarmouth, in the Isle of Wight, from April 1725 until his death on 24 April 1733, who was made a Captain and Lieutenant Colonel in the 3rd Regiment of Foot Guards (now called the Scots Guards) on 16 March 1722, and still held that commission in 1730, according to a M.S. Army List in the Record Office. He was also Deputy Governor of the Isle of Wight from Jan. 1731 until his decease, and was probably a son, or at all events, a near kinsman to Col. Anthony Morgan of the Life Guards, who also was M.P. for Yarmouth 1695-1710, and 1715-27, and for Lymington 1727 until his death in 1729, and held the office of Lieutenant Governor of the Isle of Wight. A former Sir Anthony Morgan, who was Commander of the English Auxiliaries in the French Army, and received the honour of Knighthood on 19 Nov. 1660, may have been of the same family, but what exact relationship existed between these four persons is impossible to say, and beyond the similarity in the names, there is no actual evidence to go upon, though undoubtedly all were of Welsh descent. Maurice Morgan, the subject of this article, was a native of Blaenbylen, in Pembrokeshire, and is mentioned by Fenton as follows:—"Hence, retracing part of my road, I visit Blaenbylen, the inhabited residence within these sixty or seventy years of a most respectable family of the name of Morgan, whose possessions in this county were very exten¬ sive, well wooded, contiguous, and finely circumstanced in.