Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 46.djvu/15

, Porta Mosis, not. misc., 90), and was assisted in his researches, among others, by Georgio Cerigo and by Nathaniel Canopius the protosyncellus, who afterwards resided in Balliol and Christ Church (, Athenæ, ed. Bliss, ii. 657). He left Constantinople in August 1640, and after a pause at Paris after Christmas, where he met Gabriel Sionita and Hugo Grotius, he reached London in the spring of 1641. Laud was then in the Tower, where Pococke visited him (, i. 19). He found that the archbishop had placed the endowment of the Arabic chair beyond the risk of attainder by settling (6 June 1640) certain lands in Bray, Berkshire, for its perpetual maintenance. In November 1641 Laud presented a further collection of manuscripts to the university, many of which were doubtless the fruits of Pococke's and Greaves's travels.

After a brief residence at Oxford, which was now disturbed by the civil war, Pococke was presented by his college in 1642 to the rectory of Childrey in Berkshire (Living-book of Corpus Christi College). He is represented as a devout and assiduous parish priest; but his connection with Laud and his royalist convictions, coupled with an over-modest manner and lack of ‘unction,’ did not recommend him to his parishioners. They cheated him of his tithes and harassed him by quartering soldiers at the rectory (, i. 22, 23). The sequestrators of Laud's estates, moreover, illegally laid hands on the endowment of the Arabic lecture, but were compelled to restore it under pressure from Dr. Gerard Langbaine [q. v.], provost of Queen's, John Greaves, and John Selden [q. v.] Selden, as burgess of the university, also procured for Pococke a special protection under the hand of Fairfax dated 5 Dec. 1647, against the exactions of the parliamentary troops (ib. i. 24). The committee appointed (1 May 1647) for ‘the visitation and reformation of the university of Oxford and the several colleges and halls thereof’ brought fresh troubles. At first it seemed as if Pococke was to be taken into favour by the visitors; for they appointed him to the professorship of Hebrew, vacant by the death of Dr. John Morris on 21 March 1647–8 (, Alumni Oxon. s.v.), together with the canonry of Dr. Payne, whom they had ejected. The king, then a prisoner at Carisbrooke, had already nominated Pococke for the professorship and canonry (, Annals, ed. Gutch, ii. 555;, l.c. 27, 28). Pococke was one of the twenty delegates appointed by the committee of visitation, on 19 May 1648, to answer ‘de omnibus quæ ad rem Academiæ publicam pertinent’ (Regist. Convoc. T., apud, Register of the Visitors to Oxford, p. 102, Camden Soc.), but, apparently under the advice of John Greaves, he omitted to appear before the visitors, or to reply to their summons (, i. 28). When he also failed to take the ‘engagement’ of 1649 he was dismissed from his canonry (24 Oct. 1650,, i. 31; 1651 acc. to , Annals, ed. Gutch, ii. 629); Peter French, Cromwell's brother-in-law, was appointed in his place. On 30 Nov. 1650 Pococke wrote to Horn of Gueldres: ‘I have learnt, and made it the unalterable principle of my soul, to keep peace, as far as in me lies, with all men; to pay due reverence and obedience to the higher powers, and to avoid all things that are foreign to my profession or studies; but to do anything that may ever so little molest the quiet of my conscience would be more grievous than the loss, not only of my fortunes, but even of my life’ (, i. 32). Accordingly he was deprived of the two ‘lectures,’ probably in December 1650; for in that month a petition was addressed to the visiting committee on his behalf, signed not only by his friends, but by many of the new men appointed by the visitors (, Register of Visitors, p. lxxxiii n.), including the vice-chancellor, proctors, several heads of houses, and numerous fellows, masters of arts, and bachelors of law, who begged that the ‘late vote, as to the Arabic lecture, at least,’ should be suspended in view of Pococke's great learning and peaceable conduct. Strongly seconded by Selden, this remonstrance was successful, and Pococke continued to hold both lectures, without the canonry, and resided at Balliol when he came to Oxford in the vacations to deliver his courses (, Athenæ, ed. Bliss, iv. 319). In 1655, at the instance of a few fanatical parishioners, he was cited before the commissioners at Abingdon under the new act for ejecting ‘ignorant, scandalous, insufficient, and negligent ministers.’ The leading Oxford scholars, headed by Dr. John Owen (1616–1683) [q. v.], warned the commission of the contempt they would draw upon themselves if they ejected for ‘ignorance and insufficiency’ a man whose learning was the admiration of Europe; and, after several months of examination and hearing witnesses on both sides, the charge was finally dismissed (see, i. 35–42).

In spite of such interruptions Pococke continued his studies at Childrey. He had married about 1646 Mary, daughter of Thomas Burdet, esq., of West Worldham, Hampshire, by whom he had six sons and three daughters. At the end of 1649 (, i. 33) he published at Oxford, and dedicated to Selden, his