He was the son of Arthur Moore (c. 1660 – 4 May 1730), MP for Great Grimsby, and his 2nd wife Theophila Smythe, dau.

of William Smythe Esq., Paymaster of the Band of Pensioners, now known as The Honourable Corps of Gentlemen at Arms, and Lady Elizabeth Berkeley.

In 1727, he wrote his only play, The Rival Modes, and the Drury Lane company under the direction of Colley Cibber and Robert Wilks acted it.

In The Dunciad of 1727, Pope presents Moore as a "phantom poet" whom all the book sellers are desperate to court.

(In contrast, Leonard Welsted had had a much greater theatrical success in 1726 with The Dissembled Woman and had received only £30 for the publication rights.)

When the book sellers reach their "Phantom Moore" in The Dunciad, all the poetry in his collection flies back to the poets it was stolen from.

In the context of The Dunciad, Moore stands not just for the generally degraded fop, nor for the imprudent heir of a fortune, but for the avarice and stupidity of book sellers (exemplified by Edmund Curll) who would publish anything at all, regardless of value, if it looked like it would sell.

Thus, Moore Smythe's calculated gesture of using his notoriety to sell seats in the playhouse and the book sellers who would count upon that notoriety to sell copies of the play were mirrored sides of a critique of an emergent mass market for literature, and Pope's primary target is the abandonment of standards of quality.