POOLE, MATTHEW, the learned author of the well-known Synopsis Criticorum Biblicorum, was born at York in 1624, where he inherited a good family estate. He was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and was afterwards transferred in 1648 to succeed Anthony Tuckney in St Michael le Querne, London. He held this rectory for some time, but was compelled to leave it, being unable to comply with the terms of ministerial conformity imposed by the Act of Uniformity just passed. Before this time he had been actively and successfully engaged in a project for the education of those intending for the ministry, of which, in 1658, he printed an account, entitled A Model for the Maintaining of Students of Choice Abilities in the University, and principally in order to the Ministry. In 1662, being ejected from his living for Nonconformity, he had leisure to complete the great work by which his name has become so extensively known. The design was to bring into one view all that had been written to illustrate the Scriptures throughout all ages. This he completed in ten years; and the Synopsis Criticorum Biblicorum appeared in 5 vols. in 1669-76. He was likewise engaged in most of the controversies of his time. He attacked Biddle on Socinianism, published a defence of the Nonconforming clergy in 1662, wrote against the intrusion of laymen into the ministerial office, and numerous pieces in opposition to Popery. His last work was Annotations on the Holy Bible, which he had carried as far as the 58th chapter of Isaiah. It was subsequently completed by several of his Nonconforming brethren, and appeared in 2 vols. folio, 1685. This very able critic retired to Holland in quest of toleration, and died at Amsterdam in 1679.