Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 41.djvu/369

 referring to rumours of intemperance, which Ockley indignantly repudiated some years later (1714) in a letter to the Lord-treasurer Harley, who had appointed him his chaplain in or before 1711 (, Calamities of Authors, Works, v. 189–92, ed. 1858). There is no evidence but Hearne's hint of disgrace, and Ockley's specific denial of the charge of sottishness; but the letter to Harley was explicitly called forth by some act of indiscretion reported to have been committed at the lord-treasurer's table, though it may well have been an indiscretion in conversation (as Ockley imagined), and not in wine. The uncouth scholar, who at Oxford struck Hearne (l.c. iii. 286) as ‘somewhat crazed,’ may easily be supposed to have stumbled into some maladroit speech or clumsy behaviour when he found himself bewildered among the wits and courtiers at Harley's dinner. Hearne (i. 245) records that Ockley was ‘admitted student into ye Publick Library’ on 8 Aug. 1701, for the purpose of consulting some Arabic manuscripts, and that in the spring of 1706 he again journeyed to Oxford, where he was (15 April) ‘incorporated Master of Arts’ (ib. i. 227). ‘This Journey was also undertaken purely for ye sake of ye Publick Library, wch he constantly frequented till Yesterday [i.e. 17 May], when he went away. He is upon other Publick Designs, and for yt end consulted divers of our Arabick MSSts; in wch Language he is said by some Judges to be ye best skill'd of any Man in England; wch he has in a great Measure made appear by his quick Turning into English about half of one of ye Said Arabic MSts in folio during his Stay with us, besides ye other Business upon his Hands. He is a man of very great Industry, and ought to be incourag'd, wch I do not question but he will if he lives to see Learning once more incourag'd in England, wch at present is not’ (ib. i. 246).

In spite of injurious reports and the grinding poverty of his domestic circumstances, Ockley devoted himself with passionate energy to oriental learning; and his visits to Oxford for the examination of Arabic manuscripts, together with his constant preoccupation in his studies when at home, can hardly have conduced to the good management of either vicarage or parish. But whatever he may have been as a parish priest, Ockley was a scholar of the rarest type. As his grandson, Dr. Ralph Heathcote, says, ‘Ockley had the culture of oriental learning very much at heart, and the several publications which he made were intended solely to promote it’ (, Gen. Biogr. Dict. ed. 1815, xxiii. 294). They certainly were not calculated for profit, since Hearne observes (l.c. i. 246) of Ockley's first book, the ‘Introductio ad linguas orientales’ (Cambridge, 1706), that ‘there were only 500 printed, and conseqtly he ought to have recd a gratuity from some Generous Patron to satisfy him in yt wch he could not expect from a Bookseller when ye Number was so small.’ The ‘Introductio’ was dedicated to the Bishop of Ely, and the preface exhorts the ‘juventus academica’ to devote its attention to oriental literature, both for its own merits, and also for the aid which it supplies towards the proper study of divinity. The work contains, among many evidences of research, an examination of the controversy between Buxtorf and Capellus upon the antiquity of the Hebrew points, on which, however, it is obvious that the young scholar had himself come to no fixed conclusions. In December 1706 he dates from Swavesey the preface to his translation from the Italian of the Venetian rabbi Leon Modena's ‘History of the present Jews throughout the World’ (London, 1707), to which he added two supplements on the Carraites and Samaritans from the French of Father Simon; for he was a good French, Italian, and Spanish scholar as well as an orientalist of whose acquaintance with Eastern languages Adrian Reland could write ‘vir, si quis alius, harum literarum peritus.’ His dedication of ‘The Improvement of Human Reason, exhibited in the Life of Hai ebn Yokdhan,’ to Edward Pocock, ‘the worthy son of so great a father,’ shows one source of his enthusiasm for oriental learning; and he may fairly be classed as a disciple of ‘the Reverend and Learned Dr. Pocock, the Glory and Ornament of our Age and Nation, whose Memory I much reverence’ (Ded. to Human Reason, London, 1708, with quaint woodcuts; but the British Museum copy has a later substituted title-page of a different publisher, dated 1711). This translation (from the Arabic of Ibn at-Tufail), designed to stimulate the curiosity and admiration of young students for oriental authors, contains an appendix by Ockley (printed in 1708) on the possibility of man's attaining to the true knowledge of God without the use of external means of grace; the appendix, however, disappears from the slightly abridged edition of 1731.

In 1708 Ockley published the first volume of ‘The Conquest of Syria, Persia, and Egypt by the Saracens,’ the work which under its general but less accurate title, ‘The History of the Saracens,’ achieved a wide popularity, and, to all but specialists, constitutes Ockley's single title to fame. The second volume, bringing the history down to A.D. 705 ( 86), did not appear till 1718 (London), together with