Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 41.djvu/368

 and ecclesiastical power (printed by Goldast, i. 13 ff.), which was translated into English in the sixteenth century and twice published by Berthelet (2nd edit. 1540); but Dr. Riezler has shown (pp. 144–8) that it is not by Ockham, but probably by Pierre du Bois. The ‘Sermones Ockam’ preserved in a fifteenth-century manuscript in the Worcester Cathedral Library (74 Qu.), and extending to 270 pages, are of a practical character, and contain occasional translations of sentences and phrases into French, and here and there anecdotes (e.g. one about Londoners on p. 141): everything points to their being the work of some other Ockham.

Ockham is not to be confounded with William de Ocham, who appears as archdeacon of Stow in 1302 (see, Chartul. Univ. Paris'. vol. ii. pt. i. p. 486).

The name is spelt in a multiplicity of ways, but the form ‘Occam,’ which is now fashionable on the continent, seems to have the slightest contemporary support, most of our older authorities writing the name with at least one k. 

OCKLAND, CHRISTOPHER (d. 1590?), Latin poet. [See .]

OCKLEY, SIMON (1678–1720), orientalist, came of a ‘gentleman's family’ of Great Ellingham in Norfolk, where his father lived, but he was born at Exeter in 1678. He was apparently brought up in Norfolk, where Sir Algernon Potts of Mannington took an interest in the studious boy (Dedication to Account of Barbary). At the age of fifteen he entered (1693) Queens' College, Cambridge, where, according to Hearne, ‘being naturally inclin'd to ye Study of ye Oriental Tongues, he was, when abt 17 years of Age, made Hebrew Lecturer in ye said College, chiefly because he was poor and could hardly subsist’ (Remarks and Collections of Thomas Hearne, ed. Doble, i. 245). He took holy orders before he was twenty, and became curate at Swavesey, Cambridgeshire (near St. Ives), under the vicar, Joseph Wasse, as early as 1701 (Swavesey Parish Register); and in 1705 he succeeded to the vicariate by presentation of Jesus College, Cambridge, on the recommendation of Simon Patrick, bishop of Ely, ‘wch Bp pretends to be his Patron, tho' (like some other Prelates) 'tis only Pretence, he having as yet given him nothing to support himself and Family’ (, l.c., i. 246). Ockley had married very young, and the parish register at Swavesey records the baptisms of six children between May 1702 and September 1708, two of whom (Avis and Edward) died young. He never obtained any richer preferment, but remained vicar of Swavesey till his death. Hearne (l.c.) states that he would have received a better parsonage from his college but for ‘a certain Accident, wch redounded much to his Disgrace’—probably