CARLYLE, JOSEPH DACRE (1759-1804), British ori entalist, was born at Carlisle. He was appointed, in 1795, pro fessor of Arabic in Cambridge university. His translation from the Arabic of Yusuf ibn Taghri Birdi, the Rerum Egypticarum Annales, appeared in 1792, and in 1796 a volume of Specimens of Arabic Poetry, from the earliest times to the fall of the caliphate, with some account of the authors. Carlyle was appointed chaplain by Lord Elgin to the embassy at Constantinople in 1799, and in a tour through Asia Minor, Palestine, Greece and Italy, collected several valuable Greek and Syriac mss. for a projected critical edition of the New Testament, collated with the Syriac and other versions—a work, however, which he did not live to complete. On his return to England in 18o1 he was presented to the living of Newcastle-on-Tyne, where he died April 12 1804.