Digital Victorian Periodical Poetry

Translator, orientalist, and Arabic scholar. Born in Carlisle. Son of a physician. Educated first locally at Kirkby Lonsdale and Carlisle grammar school. Entered Christ’s College, Cambridge, in 1775 and later transferred to Queens’ College, where he became a fellow and earned his BA, MA, and BD by 1793. While at Cambridge, he worked with a scholar from Baghdad, known in Britain as David Zamio, which advanced his skill in oriental languages. Appointed as professor of Arabic at Cambridge in 1795 and chaplain to Lord Elgin’s diplomatic mission to Constantinople in 1799. Traveled through Asia Minor, Palestine, Greece, and Italy to gather Greek and Syriac manuscripts for a planned New Testament revision, though he did not complete this project. Some of his publications include translation of Rerum Aegyptiacarum Annales (1792) from Arabic, Specimens of Arabian Poetry (1796) with biographical sketches of its authors, and Poems Suggested Chiefly by Scenes in Asia Minor, Syria, and Greece (1805). Biographical information: ODNB. (NM)