Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XIII.djvu/652

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632 POCOOK PODIEBRAD She left one son, Thomas Eolfe, who was edu- cated by his uncle, a London merchant, and in after life went to Virginia, where he became a person of note and influence. The Boiling, Randolph, Fleming, and other families in that state are his descendants. POCOCR, Edward, an English orientalist, born in Oxford, Nov. 8, 1604, died there, Sept. 10, 1691. He graduated at Oxford in 1622, studied the oriental languages, and prepared an edition in Syriac of the second epistle of St. Peter, the second and third of St. John, and that of St. Jude, parts of the Syriac New Testament which had not previously been edited. He was or- dained priest in 1628, and went as chaplain of the English merchants in Aleppo, where he remained five or six years, studying Hebrew, Syriac, Ethiopic, and Arabic. Returning in 1636, he was appointed to the Arabic profes- sorship in Oxford, founded by Laud, by whom he had been commissioned while in the East to procure ancient coins and manuscripts for the university. He went again to the East, remained at Constantinople nearly four years, and came home in 1640. Resuming his lec- tures and studies at the university, he was pre- sented in 1643 to the rectory of Childrey in Berkshire. Charles I., while a prisoner in the isle of Wight in 1648, nominated him professor of Hebrew with a canonry of Christ Church added. In 1648-'50 he published Specimen Historic^ Arabum, consisting of extracts from Abulfaragius in the Arabic with a Latin trans- lation and notes appended; and in 1655 ap- peared at Oxford his Porto, Mosis, consisting of six prefatory discourses to the commenta- ries of Moses Maimonides upon the Mishnah. He assisted in the preparation of Walton's polyglot Bible, which appeared in 1657; and in 1658 he published at Oxford, in 2 vols. 4to, his Latin translation of the " Annals " of Eutychius. Soon after the restoration he pub- lished an Arabic version of Grotius's tract De Veritate, and an Arabic poem of Abu Is- mael Thograi with a Latin translation and notes. His chief work was the translation of the Historia Dynastiarum of Abulfaragius, with the text and notes (2 vols. 4to, Oxford, 1663). He also published an Arabic version of the church catechism and liturgy (1674), "Commentary upon the Prophecies of Mi- cah and Malachi" (1677), on Hosea (1685), and on Joel (1691). An edition of his theo- logical writings, with an account of his life and works by Leonard Twells, M. A., was pub- lished in 1740, in 2 vols. fol. His son ED- WAED published in 1671, under his father's direction, the philosophical treatise of Ibn To- phail, with a Latin version and notes, after- ward translated into ^English by Ockley. He also translated into Latin the work of Abdal- latif on Egypt, but it was not published till 1800, Another son, THOMAS, made an English translation of the work of Menasseh ben Is- rael, De Termino Vita (" Of the Term of Life," 12mo, London, 1699). POCOCRE, Richard, an English traveller, born in Southampton in 1704, died in Meath in September, 1765. He graduated at Oxford in 1731, began his travels in the East in 1737, and after his return in 1742 published U A Description of the East and some other Coun- tries " (1743-'5), in 2 vols. fol., with 178 plates: vol. i., " Observations on Egypt;" vol. ii., part i., " Observations on Palestine, or the Holy Land, Syria, Mesopotamia, Cyprus, and Can- dia;" part ii., " Observations on the Islands of the Archipelago, Asia Minor, Thrace, Greece, and some other Parts of Europe." The whole work was inserted, without the plates, in Pin- kerton's "Voyages and Travels," vols. x. and xv. In 1745 he was made archdeacon of Dub- lin, in 1756 bishop of Ossory, and in 1765 bishop of Meath. PODIEBRAD, George, king of Bohemia, born April 23, 1420, died March 22, 1471. He was the son of Herant of Podiebrad and Kunstat, a Hussite nobleman. In his youth he engaged in the Hussite war ; but while the Bohemian king and German emperor Sigismund lived he acted with the moderate party. After that monarch's death the Hussites repudiated the election of his son-in-law Albert of Austria, and chose as their ruler Casimir, brother of Ladis- las III. of Poland. Albert drove the Hussites and Poles to Tabor, and began the siege of that fortress ; but Podiebrad forced him to raise it and retreat to Prague. Among the Hussites he now became second only to Henry Ptaczek of Lipa, and after the death of that leader in 1444 he succeeded him as regent during the minority of Ladislas the Posthumous, Albert's son. For a long time he was engaged in con- flicts with Meinhard of Neuhaus, the leader of the Catholics, but in 1450 the Calixtines tri- umphed, and in 1451 Podiebrad was recognized as ruler by the whole country. His authority was confirmed when the deputies of Hungary, Austria, and Bohemia met in Vienna to agree upon a plan for the government of their re- spective countries, and the guardianship of their common sovereign Ladislas. After the death of that monarch (1457) Podiebrad was elected king of Bohemia, March 2, 1458, had himself crowned by Catholic bishops, and maintained himself both against foreign and domestic ene- mies. When he ascended the throne he ban- ished, according to agreement, the Taborites, Picards, Adamites, and other religious sects. Pope Pius II. annulled the compacts entered into between the Calixtines and the Catholics, and, Podiebrad evincing a determination to stand by the former, excommunicated him in 1463; but through the mediation of the em- peror Frederick III. the contest was settled for a time. In 1466 the new pope, Paul II., ex- communicated Podiebrad, and caused a crusade to be preached against him throughout Ger- many ; and on this account the king of Bohe- mia in 1468 declared war against the emperor, and ravaged Austria as far as the Danube. The pope and the emperor, on the other hand, in-