BERNARD, Dr Edward, a learned astronomer, linguist, and critic, was born at Perry St Paul, on the 2d of May 1638, and educated at Merchant-Tailor's school, and St John's College, Oxford. During his stay at school he had laid in such a fund of classical learning, that, on entering the university, he was master of all the elegancies of the Greek and Latin tongues, and not unacquainted with the Hebrew. On his settling in the university, he applied himself to the study of history, philology, and philosophy, and made himself master of the Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic, and Coptic languages; after which he turned his attention to the study of the mathematics under Dr Wallis. Having successively taken the degrees of bachelor and master of arts, and afterwards that of bachelor of divinity, he went to Leyden to consult several oriental manuscripts left to the university there by Joseph Scaliger and Levi-nas Warnerus. At his return to Oxford he collated and examined the most valuable manuscripts in the Bodleian library; and being of a communicative disposition, he in consequence became engaged in a very extensive correspondence with the learned of most countries. In the year 1669 the celebrated Christopher Wren, Savilian professor of astronomy at Oxford, having been appointed surveyor general of his majesty's works, and obliged by this employment to spend much of his time in London, obtained leave to name a deputy at Oxford, and immediately pitched upon Mr Bernard; which engaged the latter in a more particular application to the study of astronomy. In 1676 he was sent by the earl of Arlington to France as tutor to the dukes of Grafton and Northumberland, sons of Charles II. by the duchess of Cleveland, and then living with their mother at Paris; but the simplicity of his manners not suiting the gaiety of the duchess's family, he returned about a year after to Oxford, and resumed his studies, in which he made great proficiency, as his astronomical and critical works abundantly testify. He composed tables of the longitudes, latitudes, right ascensions, and declinations of the fixed stars; Observations in Latin on the Obliquity of the Ecliptic; and several other pieces inserted in the Philosophical Transactions. He also wrote, 1. A Treatise on the Ancient Weights and Measures; 2. Chronologie Samaritana Synopsis, in two tables; 3. Testimonies of the Ancients concerning the Greek Version of the Old Testament by the Seventy; and several other learned works. He was a person of great piety, virtue, and humanity, and died on the 12th January 1696, in the fifty-ninth year of his age, leaving behind him a number of manuscripts which were considered valuable.