HYDE, THOMAS, D.D., was born on the 29th of June 1636, at Billingsley, near Bridgenorth, in Yorkshire. He received his first instruction in the oriental languages from his father, and afterwards studied them under Wheelock, professor of Arabic in the University of Cambridge. He only remained at Cambridge about a year; and afterwards went, at the age of seventeen, to Loudon to assist Walton in editing the Polyglott Bible; he transcribed for this work, in Persian lettere, the Persian translation of the Pentateuch, which had pre viously been published at Constantinople in Hebrew characters, and also translated it into Latin; he also assisted in the correction of the Arable and Syriac versions. In 1658 he entered Queen's College, Oxford; in 1659 was appointed under-librarian of the Bodleian Library, and in 1665 principal librarian. In 1660 ho became a prebendary of Salisbury ; in 1678 archdeacon of Gloucester : and In 1682 took the degree of D.D. On the death of Pococke, in 1691, Hyde was appointed Laudian professor of Arabi; and not loug afterwards Regius professor of Hebrew and canon of Christchurch. He resigned the librarianehip of the Bodleian in 1701, and died on the 18th of January 1703, in his sixty-eighth ye ar. He was interpreter of oriental languages during the reigns of Charb a II., James II., and William III.
Hyde possessed an accurate knowledge of almost all the Asiatic languages which were at that time accessible to European scholars. In addition to Hebrew, t yriac, Persian, Arabic, &c., he was also acquainted with the Malay and Armenian languages, and was one of the first Europeans who acquired a knowledge of Chinese, which he learned from a young Chinaman called Chinfeecotmg, who bad been brought to Europe by the Jesuits. His most celebrated work, entitled
Veterum Perearum et Magorum Religionie Ilistoria,' Oxford, 1700, reprinted in 1760, displays an extraordinary acquaintance, considering the time in which be lived, with oriental languages and literature. Of his other works, the most important are—'Tabulas Stellarum Fixarum ex Observatione Ulugh Beighi,' Oxf., 1665, with a learned commentary on the different names of the stars among the Greeks and orientate ; Quatuor Evangelist et Acta Apostolorum, Lingua MalaIca caracteribus Europtels,' Oxf., 1677; 'Epistola de Men:surfs et Pouderibus Serum slue Sinensium; published at the end of Dr. Bernaid's book 'De Monsuris et l'underibua,' Oxf., 1688; `De Ludis Orientalibue; 1694. All the works of Hyde, with the exception of the Veterutn Persarum et Magorum Religionist Ilistoria,' were republished by Gran villa Sharp under the title of 'Syntsgma Di.scrtationum quas olim Hyde separatim edidit,' Oxf., 1767, 2 vols. 4to. In this edition Sharp has printed several of Hyde. works which had previously been unpublished, and has also given a list of many other works which have never beeu published, amongst which ho mentions translations in Latin of Abutted., Abdallatif, and the history of Tamerlane, and dictionaries of the Turkish and Persian languages.