In the year after Queen Anne’s death, Dr. Humphrey Prideaux, born in 1648, published the first part of his very useful and valuable treatise on “The Connection of the History of the Old and New Testaments;” the second part appeared in 1717. It is still held in high estimation for the care and accuracy with which the events of the Old and New Testaments are synchronised. His “Life of Mahomet” (1697), though it has necessarily been superseded by Mure and other authorities, was a meritorious work, written with much seriousness and moderation. Prideaux was a native of Cornwall. He was educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford. When about thirty, he was preferred to the living of St. Clement’s, Oxford; in 1681, he obtained a prebend in Norwich Cathedral: and in 1702 he was made Dean of Norwich. Scholarly studies seem favourable to longevity; the good Dean at his death, in 1724, was seventy-six years of age.

Personal

  The late Dr. Henry Aldrich, dean of Christ Church, had but a mean opinion, and used to speak slightingly, of Dr. Humphrey Prideaux, dean of Norwich, as an unaccurate muddy headed man. Prideaux’s chief skill was in Orientals, and yet even there he was far from being perfect in either, unless in Hebrew, which he was well versed in. In 1677 he was preparing for the press an edition of Dionysius Halicarnasseus, to be printed at the Theatre, but it came to nothing, I know not for what reason, unless because it was found that ’twould be as uncorrect as his “Marmora Oxoniensia,” and that he would do little or nothing to it, besides heaping up notes; and yet from a letter in his own hand I gather, that he intended to be short in them, and to make them consist only of references to other authors, where the several stories were also told. As for MSS., I perceive from that letter that he would not trouble himself about any, but rest wholly upon what had been done to his hands by former editors.

  He endured the most dreadful maladies that can afflict the human frame, for a series of years, with a patience and resignation without a parallel. He had a strong constitution; a firm mind, and a body, able to undergo great labour, until subdued by the stone, and its dreadful consequences. At ten o’clock he retired to rest; at five he renewed his studies.

General

  Prideaux [in “The Life of Mahomet”] and the authors of the “Modern History” you will probably think unreasonably eager to expose the faults of the prophet, and you will surely be attracted to a second consideration of the work (Koran) of Sale by the candour, the reasonableness, and the great knowledge of the subject, which that excellent author appears everywhere to display.

  Prideaux’s “Connection” is a work of great research, connecting the Old with the New Testament by a luminous historical summary. Few books have had a greater circulation, and it is invaluable to all students of divinity. Its author was highly respected for his learning and piety.

  Prideaux’s literary reputation rests on his “Life of Mahomet” (1697) and his “Connection” (1716–18). Of each of these the story has been told that the bookseller to whom he offered the manuscript said he “could wish there were a little more humour in it.” No sign of humour was ever shown by Prideaux, except in his proposal (26 Nov. 1715) for a hospital in each university, to be called “Drone Hall,” for useless fellows and students. The “Life of Mahomet” was in fact pointed as a polemical tract against the deists. As a biography it is valueless from the point of view of modern knowledge.