professor of Arabic at Oxford, and one of the most learned writers of the seventeenth century, was born at Billingsley, near Bridgnorth, Shropshire, in 1635. He studied first at Cambridge, and afterwards at Oxford. Before he was eighteen years of age, he was sent from Cambridge to London to assist Mr Brian Walton in the great work of the Polyglott Bible; and about the same period he undertook to transcribe the Pentateuch out of the Hebrew characters, in which it was first printed at Constantinople, into the proper Persian characters. After he had happily succeeded in this, he assisted in correcting several parts of Mr Walton's work, for which he was perfectly qualified. "Nec prætereundus est D. Thomas Hyde," says the editor, "summe spei juvenis, qui in linguis orientalibus supratætatem magnos progressus fecit, quorum specimen dedit tum in Arabibus, Syriacis, Persicis corrigendo, tum in Pentateucho Persico characteribus Persicis describendo, quia antea solis Hebræis exituit, ejusque versionem Latinam concinnando." He was made archdeacon of Gloucester, canon of Christ-church, head keeper of the Bodleian Library, and professor of Hebrew and Arabic in the university of Oxford. He was interpreter and secretary of the oriental languages during the reigns of Charles II., James II., and William III.; and he was perfectly qualified to fill this post, as he could converse in all the languages which he understood. There never was an Englishman in his situation of life who made so great progress; but his mind was so engrossed by his beloved studies, that he is said to have been but ill qualified to appear to any advantage in common conversation. This distinguished orientalist died on the 18th of February 1702. Of all his writings, the very catalogue of which is a curiosity, the most celebrated is his Religio Veterum Persarum, a work of profound and various erudition, and abounding with many new lights and ingenious conjectures concerning the theology, history, and learning of the eastern nations. Amongst his other works may be mentioned, 1. A Latin translation of Ulug Beig's observations on the longitude and latitude of the fixed stars; and, 2. A Catalogue of the printed books in the Bodleian Library. Dr Gregory Sharpe, master of the Temple, collected and republished some of Dr Hyde's pieces formerly printed, under the title of Syntagma Dissertationum et Opuscula, in 2 vols. 4to, 1767; to which is prefixed, a life of the author, containing a very judicious estimate of his labours and acquisitions. At the time of his death, Dr Hyde had planned, and partly prepared for the press, no less than thirty-one different works, some of greater and other of less importance, a list of which will be found in Chalmers's Biographical Dictionary, article HYDE.