Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/263

Rh P C P D 253 known George Pasor, who had been driven to England by the troubles in the Palatinate, and he subsequently received instruction from the learned W. Bedwell. The first fruit of his studies was an edition from a Bodleian MS. of the four New Testament epistles which were not in the old Syriac canon, and were not contained in European editions of the Peshito. This was published at Leyden at the instigation of G. Vossius in 1630, and in the same year Pocock sailed for Aleppo as chaplain to the English factory. At Aleppo he made himself a profound Arabic scholar and collected many valuable MSS. At this time Laud was busy with the learned collections with which he afterwards enriched his university, and Pocock became known to him as one who could help his schemes. A correspondence ensued, and ultimately Laud resolved to set up an Arabic chair at Oxford and to invite Pocock home to fill it. The invita tion was accepted, and the lecturer entered on his duties on August 10, 1636, but next summer sailed again for Constantinople with the archbishop s consent to prosecute further studies and collect more books, and remained there for about three years. When he returned to England Laud was in the Tower ; and, though he had taken the precaution to place the Arabic chair on a permanent foot ing, a time soon followed in which to have been a protege of the archbishop was a dangerous distinction. Pocock does not seem to have been an extreme churchman or to have meddled actively in politics, but his views were decided enough to make him objectionable to the Parlia mentary party, and to bring on him many troubles not only at Oxford but in his parish of Childrey, where he accepted a college living in 1643. On the other hand his rare scholarship and personal qualities raised him up influential friends even among men of the opposite party in church and state, foremost among these being Selden. Through the offices of these friends he was even advanced in 1648 to the chair of Hebrew, though as he could not take the engagement of 1649 he lost the emoluments of the place very soon after, and did not recover them till the Restoration. All these cares seriously hampered Pocock in his studies, as he complains in the preface to his Eutycliius ; he seems to have felt most deeply the attempts to remove him from Childrey, where he attended to his parochial work with the same modest and diligent zeal that marks him as a scholar. But he continued to work hard ; in 1649 he published the Specimen Historise Arabum, that is, a short account of the origin and manners of the Arabs, taken from Barliebrneus (Abulfaraj), with a mass of learned notes from a vast number of MS. sources which are still highly valuable to the student of Oriental history. This was followed in 1655 by the Porta Mosis, extracts from the Arabic commentary of Maimonides on the Mishna, with translation and very learned notes ; x and in 1656 by the annals of Eutycliius in Arabic and Latin, a work of great value which has not found an editor since. He also gave active assistance to Walton s polyglott, and the preface to the various readings of the Arabic Penta teuch is from his hand. After the Restoration Pocock s political and pecuniary troubles were removed, but the reception of his complete edition of the Arabic history of Barhebraius (Greg. Abulfaragii Historia Dynastiaruvi), which he dedicated to the king in 1663, showed that the new order of things was not very favourable to profound scholarship. After this his most important works were his English commentaries on Micah (1677), Malachi (1677), Hosea (1685), Joel (1691),- admirable in every way, and still thoroughly worth reading. An Arabic translation of Grotius De Veritate which appeared in 1660 may also be mentioned as a proof of Pocock s interest in 1 Pocock was justly impressed with the fact that the best parts of Rabbinic literature belong to the Jews who wrote in Arabic. the propagation of Christianity in the East. This was an old plan which he had talked over with Grotius at Paris on his way back from Constantinople. Pocock married in 1646 and died in 1691. One of his sons, Edward, published several contributions to Arabic literature a fragment of Abdullatif s description of Egypt and the Philosophies Autodidactus of Ibn Tofail. The theological works of Pocock were collected in 2 vols. folio, in 1740, with a tedious but curious account of his life and writings by L. Twells. POCOCKE, RICHARD (1704-1765), distantly related to the preceding, was the son of Richard Pococke, head master of the free school at Southampton, where he was born in the year 1704. He received his school learn ing under his father, and his academical education at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he took his various degrees. He commenced his travels in the East in 1737, and returned in 1742. In 1743 he published his Observa tions on Egypt, under the general title of A Deselection of the East and some other Countries. In 1744 he was made precentor of Waterford ; and in 1745 he printed the second volume of his travels, under the title of Observa tions on Palestine, or the Holy Land, Syria, Mesopotamia, Cyprus, and Candia. In 1756 Pococke was promoted to the bishopric of Ossory; in July 1765 he was translated to the see of Meath, and in September following he died suddenly of apoplexy, whilst engaged in visiting his diocese. PODIEBRAD, GEORGE OF (1420-1471), king of Bohemia, was the son of Herant of Podiebrad, a Bohemian nobleman, and was born 6th April 1420. After the death of the emperor Sigismund he took up arms against Albert of Austria, who was finally compelled to raise the siege of Tabor and retreat to Prague. On the death of Patzek in 1444 George of Podiebrad became the recognized head of the Calixtines or Utraquists, and was chosen to represent them as one of the two governors of Bohemia during the minority of Ladislaus the son of Albert. After some years of conflict with the Catholic party he was in 1451 recog nized as sole governor. Following a policy of conciliation, he made no opposition to the accession of Ladislaus in 1453, who repeated to the Bohemians the promises made by Sigismund. The Catholic predilections of Ladislaus rendered him in a great measure blind to the obligations into which he had entered, but the result was silently to strengthen the influence of George of Podiebrad, who on the death of Ladislaus in 1457 was chosen king of Bohemia (March 1458), and on May 7, 1459, was crowned by Catholic bishops, promising on his part due obedience to the church. This effort at a reconciliation was, however, soon seen to be futile. In 1462 Pope Pius II. refused the ratification of the compactata, agreed upon in 1433, and still no basis of a settlement had been found when Pius died in November 1464. The new pope, Paul II., at once brought matters to a crisis by issuing against George of Bohemia the ban of excommunication, and a summons for a crusade to crush his authority. To this George replied by a letter of grievances to kings and princes, and an appeal to a general council. The summons of Paul II. did not awaken any general response, and, although Matthias of Hungary was proclaimed king of Bohemia, George successfully resisted all attempts to wrest from him his dominion, and in July 1470 Matthias agreed to an armistice. George died March 22, 1471, and was suc ceeded by Ladislaus, eldest son of Casimir IV. See Markgraf, Ucbcrd as Vcrhdltniss dcs Konigs Gconj von Bohme.n zu Papst Pius II., 1867; Richter, Georg von Podiebrad s Bestrebungcn, 1863; Jordan, Das Konigthum Georgs von Podiebrad, 1867; Bachmann, Ein Jahr bohmisclier Geschichte, 1876. PODOLIA, a government of south-western Russia, having Volhynia on the N., Kieff and Kherson on the E.