Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 46.djvu/17

 lished in 1669, and translated the catechism (1671) and the principal parts of the liturgy of the church of England into Arabic (‘Partes præcipuæ liturgiæ Eccl. Angl. ling. Arab.’ 1674; later editions 1826, 1837); but his chief work in these later years was his elaborate and comprehensive commentary on the minor prophets, which issued at intervals from the university press: Micah and Malachi in 1677, Hosea in 1685, and Joel in 1691.

Pococke shared in the cathedral and college work at Christ Church. He was censor theologiæ in 1662, treasurer in 1665, and several times held proxies to act for the dean or other authority. He was present at chapters as late as July 1688. When James II visited Oxford in 1687, Pococke was the senior doctor present (, Life and Times of Wood, iii. 231, 234), and he was long a delegate of the university press. John Locke (1632–1704) [q. v.], who was long intimate with him at Christ Church, wrote of him to Humphrey Smith (23 July 1703): ‘The Christian world is a witness of his great learning, that the works he published would not suffer to be concealed, nor could his devotion and piety be hid, and be unobserved in a college, where his constant and regular assisting at the cathedral service, never interrupted by sharpness of weather, and scarce restrained by downright want of health, shewed the temper and disposition of his mind; but his other virtues and excellent qualities had so strong and close a covering of modesty and unaffected humility’ that they were apt to be overlooked by the unobservant. Though ‘the readiest to communicate to any one that consulted him,’ ‘he had often the silence of a learner where he had the knowledge of a master. … Though a man of the greatest temperance in himself, and the farthest from ostentation and vanity in his way of living, yet he was of a liberal mind, and given to hospitality. … His name, which was in great esteem beyond sea, and that deservedly, drew on him visits from all foreigners of learning who came to Oxford. … He was always unaffectedly cheerful. … His life appeared to me one constant calm’ (, ed. Bliss, iv. 322).

Pococke died on 10 Sept. 1691, at one o'clock in the morning (, Life and Times of Wood, iii. 371); ‘his only distemper was great old age’ (, i. 81). He was buried in the north aisle of the cathedral, near his son Richard (who had died in 1666), but his monument, a bust erected by his widow, which was originally on the east of the middle window in the north aisle of the nave, was removed during the restorations about thirty years ago to the south aisle of the nave. Two portraits are preserved in the Bodleian Library: one, in the gallery, represents a man in the prime of life, with light hair, moustache, and tuft on chin, dark eyes, and mild expression; the other, on the staircase, belongs to his old age, and shows white hair and pointed beard (, ed. Doble, ii. 56, says ‘the Master of University College has the picture of Dr. Pococke’). An engraving, after a portrait by W. Green, is prefixed to the 1740 edition of his works. His valuable collection of 420 oriental manuscripts was bought by the university in 1693 for 600l., and is in the Bodleian (catalogued in, Cat. Libr. MSS. pp. 274–278, and in later special catalogues), and some of his printed books were acquired by the Bodleian in 1822, by bequest from the Rev. C. Francis of Brasenose (, Annals of the Bodl. Libr. p. 161). His own annotated copy of the ‘Specimen’ is among these. Three letters from Pococke are printed in the correspondence of Gerard J. Vossius (Ep. cel. virorum nempe G. J. Voss. Nos. cvii, ccxxxix, and cccxxxvi, dated 1630, 1636, 1642, all from Oxford), in the second of which he refers to his collection of Arabic proverbs and to his project of editing Abu-l-Faraj (whom he does not name, but clearly indicates), while in the third he refers to Grotius's ‘De Veritate’ and to his own intention of translating the church catechism into Arabic for the instruction of his Syrian friends—a project not realised till nearly thirty years later. The same collection contains two letters from Vossius to Pococke in 1630 and 1641 (pp. 159, 383). There are also letters of Pococke in the British Museum (Harl. 376, fol. 143, Addit. 4276, 22905, the last two to Samuel Clarke, dated 1657).

Of his six sons, the eldest, (1648–1727), baptised on 13 Oct. 1648, matriculated at Christ Church in 1661, was elected student, became chaplain to the Earl of Pembroke (, Life and Times of Wood, iii. 373), canon of Salisbury, 1675, and rector of Minall (Mildenhall), Wiltshire, 1692 (, Alumni Oxon.). He followed his father in oriental studies, and published in 1671 (with a preface by his father) a Latin translation of Ibn al Tufail, which Ockley afterwards turned into English (1708). He also began an edition of the Arabic text, with Latin translation, of ‘Abdollatiphi Historiæ Ægypti Compendium,’ in collaboration with his father, who had discovered the manuscript in Syria. According to Hearne (ed. Doble, i. 224), Pococke the father began this edition and translation of the celebrated twelfth-century traveller and physician; but when the work had been partly printed the Latin type was