Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 12.djvu/443

427 H Y D H Y D 427 his sixteenth year Hyde entered King s College, Cambridge, where, under Wheelock, professor of Arabic, he made such rapid progress in the Oriental languages that, after only one year of residence, he was invited to London to assist Brian Walton in his edition of the Polyrjlot Bible. Besides correcting the Arabic, Persic, and Syriac texts for that work, Hyde transcribed into Persic characters the Persian translation of the Pentateuch, which had been printed in Hebrew letters at Constantinople in 1546. To this work, which Archbishop Ussher had thought well-nigh impossible even for a native of Persia, Hyde appended the Latin version which accompanies it in the Polyglot. Having successfully accomplished these difficult tasks amidst the flattering acknowledgments of the most learned men of the day, Hyde entered Queen s College, Oxford, in 1658, where he was chosen Hebrew reader; and in 1659, in considera tion of his singular erudition in Oriental tongues, he was admitted to the degree of M.A. In the same year he was appointed under-koeper of the Bodleian library, and in 1665 he became librarian-in-chief. Next year he was collated to a prebend at Salisbury, and in 1673 to the archdeaconry of Gloucester, receiving the degree of D.D. shortly afterwards. In 1691 the death of Pocock opened up to Hyde the Laudian professorship of Arabic; and in 1697, on the deprivation of Altham, he succeeded to the regius chair of Hebrew and a canonry of Christ Church. Under Charles TL, James II., and William III., Hyde discharged the duties of Eastern interpreter to the court. Worn out by his unremitting labours, he resigned his librarianship in 1701, and died at Oxford, February 18, 1703. Hyde was an excellent classical scholar, and there was hardly an Eastern tongue accessible to foreigners with which his wide erudition had not made him familiar. He had even acquired Chinese, while his writings are the best testimony to his mastery of Turkish, Arabic, Syriac, Persic, Hebrew, and Malay. His books are still valuable ; and, although later investigations and additional authorities have par tially superseded and corrected his conclusions, he still deserves respect as one of the first scholars to direct atten tion to the vast treasures of Oriental antiquity. In his chief work, Historia Religionis veterum Pcrsarum, 1700, Hyde made the first attempt to correct from Oriental sources the errors of the Greek and Roman historians who had described the religion of the ancient Persians, but through ignorance of the an cient language of Persia he has been often misled by Mahometan authorities. His other writings and translations comprise Talulce Longitwlinum et Latitudinum Stdlarum fixarum ex obscrvatione principis Ulugh Beicjhi, 1665, to which his notes have given ad ditional value ; Quatuor Evangelia et Ada AposMorum lingua Afalaica, caracteribus Europceis, 1677 ; Epistola de Mensuris ct Ponderibus Serum sive Sinensium, 1688, appended to Bernard s De Mensuris et Ponderibus antiquis ; Abraham Peritsol Itinera Muwli, 1691 ; and De Ludis Oricntalibus Libri 7/.,1694. With the excep tion of the Historia Religionis, which was republished by Hunt arid Costard in 1760, the writings of Hyde, including some unpub lished MSS. , were collected and printed by Dr Gregory Sharpe in 1767 under the title Syntagma Dissertationum quas olim. . . Thomas Hyde scparatim edidit. There is a life of the author prefixed. Hyde also published a catalogue of the Bodleian Library in 1674. HYDER ALI, or HAIDAR ALT, (c. 1702-1782), the Mahometan soldier-adventurer who, followed by his son Tippoo, became the most formidable Asiatic rival the English have ever had in India, was the great grandson of a fakir or wandering ascetic of Islam, who had found his way from the Punjab to Kulburga in the south, and the second son of the Arab wife of a naik or chief constable at Budikote, near Colar, in Mysore, and wns born about the beginning of the 18th century. The elder brother who, like himself, was early turned out in f o the world to seek his own fortune, became a naik, and ultimately rose to com mand a brigade in the Mysore army, while Hyder, who never learned to read or write, passed the first forty-seven years of his life aimlessly in sport and sensuality, sometimes, however, acting as the agent of his brother, and meanwhile acquiring a useful familiarity with the tactics of the French when at the height of their reputation under Dupleix. He is said to have induced his brother to employ a Parsee to purchase artillery and small arms from the Bombay Govern ment, and to enrol some thirty sailors of different European nations as gunners, arid is thus credited with having been &quot; the first Indian who formed a corps of sepoys armed with firelocks and bayonets, and who had a train of artillery served by Europeans.&quot; At the siege of Deonhully (1749) Hyder s services attracted the attention of Nunjeraj, the minister of the maharajah of Mysore, and he at once re ceived an independent command ; within the next twelve years his energy and ability had made him completely master of minister and maharajah alike, and in everything but in name he was ruler of the kingdom. In 1763 the conquest of Canara gave him possession of the treasures of Bednore, which he resolved to make the most splendid capital in India, under his own name, thenceforth changed from Hyder Naik into Hyder AH Khan Bahadoor ; and in 1765 he retrieved previous defeat at the hands of the Marhattas by the destruction of the Nairs or military caste of the Malabar coast, and the conquest of Calicut. Hyder AH now began to occupy the serious attention of the Madras Government, which in 1766 entered into an agree ment with the nizam to hold the district known as the Northern Circars from him, and to furnish him with troops to be used against the common foe. But hardly had this alliance been formed when a new and secret arrangement was come to between the two Indian powers, the result of which was that Colonel Smith s small force was met with a united army of 80,000 men and 100 guns. British dash and sepoy fidelity, however, prevailed, first in the battle of Changama (September 3, 1767), and again still more remarkably in that of Trinomalce, which lasted two days ; and the nizam s own capital of Hyderabad was threatened by Colonel Peach s expedition sent from Bengal. On the loss of his recently made fleet and forts on the western coast, Hyder Ali now began to make overtures for peace ; on the rejection of these, bringing all his resources and strategy into play, he forced Colonel Smith to raise the siege of Bangalore, and brought his army within five miles of Madras. The result was the treaty of April 1769, provid ing for the mutual restitution of all conquests, and for mutual aid and alliance in defensive war ; it was followed by a commercial treaty in 1770 with the authoiities of Bombay. Under these arrangements Hyder Ali, when defeated by the Marhattas in 1772, claimed English assist ance, but in vain ; this breach of faith s ung him to fury, and thenceforward he and his son did not cease to thir.st for vengeance. His time came when in 1778 the English, on the declaration of war, resolved to drive the French out of India. The capture of Mahe on the coast of Malabar in 1779, followed by the annexation of lands belonging to a dependant of his own, gave him the needed pretext. Again master of all that the Marhattas had taken from him, and with empire extended to the Kistna, he now summoned the French to his assistance, and, descending through the Chan gama pass amid burning villages, reached Conjevernm, only forty-five miles from Madras, unopposed. Not till the smoke was seen from St Thomas s Mount, where Sir Hector Munro commanded some 5200 troops, was any movement made ; then, however, the British general sought to effect a junction with a smaller body under Colonel Baillie recalled from Guntoor. The incapacity of these officers^ notwithstanding the splendid courage of their men, resulted in the total loss of Baillie s force of 2800 (September 10, 1780). Hastings, again appealed to, sent from Bengal Sir Eyre Coote, who, though repulsed at Chill umbrum, defeated Hyder thrice