piety, and of deep and sound learning; inso"much that he was justly intitled to the character "of a great man." Afterwards, as we learn from the same hand, he became rector of Wambrook, in Dorsetshire, and vicar of Warcomb, in Devon, both which he lost in the grand rebellion, for his adherence to the King and the Church. At the same time, his temporal estate of 100l. per annum, was sequestered, his wife and seven children exposed to the greatest necessities, and his goods, not excepting his books and papers, entirely carried away, and himself imprisoned. He survived the Restoration many years, was restored to both his preferments, and died not till about the year 1680. It is not to be wondered at, if, under such direction, Mr. Pocock imbibed those sentiments of religion and loyalty, which distinguished him in the future conduct of his life; and still less, that he made a very considerable progress in his studies. He soon appeared eminent in all those parts of learning which are commonly taught in universities. To those arts and sciences which the ordinary discipline obliged him to be acquainted with, he added the knowledge of the best writers, both Greek and Roman. For in some papers, written by him when very young, there are such observations out of Quintilian, Cicero, Plutarch, Plato, and other authors, as speak a great deal of skill and judgment. And there B 2 there are too, in the same papers, the marks of a mighty industry: for it being sometimes his custom to note the time when he began the perusal of any treatise, it thereby appears, that the reading and considering that whole dialogue de Oratoribus, by some ascribed to Tacitus, but commonly printed with Quintilian's works, was the business only of one day. On Nov. 28, 1622, being but very little more than eighteen years old, he was admitted to the degree of bachelor of arts. And, having already made a considerable progress in the ordinary paths of learning, he began in a short time to betake himself to some of the more retired and untrodden walks of it; applying his mind, with great diligence, to the study of the Eastern languages. For which, he had the advantage of a skilful director in Matthias Pasor, a German, the son of George Pasor, a learned professor at Herborn, the author of the Greek Lexicon to the New Testament. This Matthias Pasor, having been professor of mathematics in the university of Heidelberg, whence he was driven by the late troubles which befel the Palatinate*, came to Oxford, and there being incorporated master of arts, as he had stood at Heidelbergt, for his mainte * P. Freheri Theatrum Virorum eruditione clarorum, p.1545. + Mr. Wood's Athen Oxon. vol. i. p. 440. nance, nance, he not only taught in a private chamber, the sciences he had professed in his own country; but also the Oriental tongues, reading for some time an Arabic lecture twice a week publicly in the divinity school, upon the encouragement of a pension collected from his auditors. Dr. Pocock would, upon all occasions, express a great regard to the memory of this person, whom he was wont frequently to commend, as for a very learned, so likewise for a very honest and good man. He was scholar to him for languages, at the same time that the late * Lord Radnor was for mathematics. The statutes of the college requiring some delay, he did not take the degree of master of arts till March 28, 1626. And soon after that, I suppose it was, that being arrived at as great a height in Oriental learning as Mr. Pasor could lead him to, he applied himself for farther instruction to Mr. William Bedwell, vicar of Tottenham High Cross, near London: a person to whom the praise of being the first who considerably promoted the study of the Arabic language in Europe, may perhaps more justly belong, than to Thomas Erpenius, who commonly has it. This Mr. Bedwell had made a vast progress in the * This noble person was son and heir to Richard Robarts, the first Lord Robarts of Truro, so created Jan. 16, 21 Jac. I. to whom he succeeded, and was afterwards created Viscount Bodmyn and Earl of Radnor, July 23, 23 Car. 2. know knowledge of that tongue before Erpenius had any name in the world for skill in it. And as the latter spent some time in England about the year 1606, he was obliged to the former for many directions which he received from him in that sort of learning. Besides several books which Mr. Bedwell published relating to it, he employed himself many years in preparing an Arabic Lexicon in three volumes; and was at the pains of a voyage into Holland, to peruse the papers of Joseph Scaliger, who had made a collection, as he declared*, of twenty thousand words in that language. But being, as † Isaac Casaubon complained of him, slow in his proceeding, doubtless out of a desire that the great work he was engaged in should be as perfect as might be; at length, Golius's undertaking of the same kind, who had furnished himself to the best advantage from the east, made the publication of it useless. Mr. Pocock profited much under the instructions of this learned man; and the advances he made in several uncommon sorts of literature, could not but meet with encouragement from that learned society, whereof he was a member; who, as a proof of their just regard for him, admitted him probationer fellow July 24, 1628. And now Epist. ad Steph. Ubertum, inter Josephi Scaligeri Opuscula, p. 458. + Is. Casaboni Epistolæ, Nu. 575. the the statutes of the college providing that he should speedily enter into holy orders, it was high time for him to add the study of theology to his former acquirements, which were only preparatory for it. And this, I cannot doubt but he betook himself to in the method which had been some years before recommended to the university of Oxford, by that learned and judicious prince, king James I.* namely, not by insisting on modern compendiums and tracts of divinity, but by applying himself chiefly to fathers and councils, ecclesiastical historians and other antient writers, together with the sacred text, the word of God. For though he perused the books of some late writers in divinity, it was not, I find, to form his notions in matters of religion, according to their conceptions and opinions, but to take their direction about several pieces of antiquity, in order to a general knowledge of their nature and excellency, and to distinguish the genuine from such as are of doubtful original, or manifestly spurious. This, in particular, I learn from some papers begun to be written by him Sept. 7, 1629, was the use he made of a treatise of some account, then reprinted at Oxford, namely, Ger. Vossius's Theses Theologica, out of which he collected several things of this nature and of no other. * Vid. Historiam et Antiquitates Univers, Oxon. a. D. 1616 and A.D. 1622, But |