969 



PRIDEAUX, HUMPHREY. 



PRIESSNITZ, VINCENZ. 



970 



' Researches into the Physical History of Mankind.' This work, which 

 was originally published in one volume, reached a second edition in 

 two volumes in 1826, and a third edition was finished in 1849, 

 extending to five volumes. From the period of the first publication of 

 this work it took the first rank amougst ethnological works, and the 

 last edition is undoubtedly the most important systematic work that 

 has hitherto appeared upon the physical history of man. Dr. Prichard, 

 whilst an anatomist and physiologist, was one of the first to avail 

 himself of the study of philology as a means of arriving at the history 

 of the various races of men. His contributions to ethnology took a 

 variety of forma. In 1832 he read an elaborate paper to the British 

 Association, then assembled in Bristol, ' On the Application of Philo- 

 logical and Physical Researches to the History of the Human Species.' 

 In 1843 he published a more popular resume" of his labours on the 

 physical history of man under the title of ' The Natural History of 

 Man.' A second edition of this work appeared in 1845, and it has been 

 translated into the French and German languages. He has likewise 

 written many papers and minor works on the same subject. In 

 tbe twelfth volume of the proceedings of the Zoological Society ia a 

 paper ' On the Crania of the Laplanders and Finlanders.' He also 

 published a work ' On the Eastern Origin of the Celtic Language,' in 

 which he pointed out the relations between the Celtic language and 

 the great group of Indo-Qermanic languages derived from the east. 

 Another work also arose out of his ethnological researches, which was 

 entitled an ' Analysis of Egyptian Mythology.' 



Although thus occupied with a great and important department of 

 science, Dr. Prichard was not inattentive to professional studies. His 

 ethnological and philological reading naturally led him to contemplate 

 man psychologically, and we find him addressing himself successfully 

 to the study of the nervous system, and the results of its deranged 

 condition on the mind of man. In 1822 he published a work on ' The 

 Diseases of the Nervous System.' This was followed by a ' Treatise on 

 Insanity.' In this work he displayed great power in analysing mental 

 phenomena, and speedily became recognised as one of the first autho- 

 rities on the subject of mental derangement. He was appointed visiting 

 physician to the Gloucestershire Lunatic Asylum. He subsequently 

 published a work ' On the Different Forms of Insanity in Relation to 

 Juri "prudence." His labours connected with insanity led to his 

 appointment as one of the Commissioners of Lunacy in 1845. On this 

 occasion he removed from Bristol to London, where he continued to 

 reside till his death. Besides the works already mentioned, Dr. 

 Prichard enlarged an essay which he read before the Philosophical 

 Society of Bristol into a work entitled 'A Review of the Doctrine of a 

 Vital Principle.' He was also an extensive contributor to the 

 ' Cyclopaedia of Practical Medicine." He was made M.D. of Oxford 

 on the occasion of the installation of the Duke of Wellington as chan- 

 cellor of that university. He was president during one session of the 

 Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, now the Bristol Medical 

 Association. He was president of the Ethnological Society, and pub- 

 lished an anniversary address delivered before that society. He was a 

 Fellow of the Royal Society of London, and of many other scientific 

 societies in this country and on the Continent. He died hi London, 

 December 22, 1848, of an attack of rheumatism complicated with 

 pericarditis. 



PRIDEAUX, HUMPHREY, was born at Padstow in Cornwall, 

 May, 3, 1648, of an ancient and honourable family well know hi that 

 county. He was sent to school first to Liskeard, then to Bodmin, and 

 was removed thence to Westminster, to be placed under Dr. Busby. 

 Here he was soon chosen king's scholar, and after three years he was 

 elected to Christ Church, Oxford, where he became a student in 1668. 

 He commenced B.A. in 1672, and shortly after, under the direction of 

 Dr. Fell, he published an edition of the historian Lucius Floras. He 

 took his degree of M.A. in 1676, and in the same year he published, 

 by appointment of the university, the inscriptions of the Aruudel 

 Marbles with a comment, in one vol, folio, under the title of ' Marmora 

 Oxoniensia ex Arundellianis, Seldeniani, aliisque conflata, cum per- 

 petuo Coinmentario.' of which a corrected edition was published in 

 1732 by Michael Maittaire. In 1679 Prideaux was presented by lord- 

 chancellor Finch to the rectory of St. Clement's, Oxford, and in the 

 same year, being appointed Dr. Busby's Hebrew lecturer at Christ 

 Church, he published two tracts of Maimonides with a Latin transla- 

 tion and notes. In 1681 he was installed prebendary of Norwich, and 

 in the following year was made B.D., and shortly afterwards was 

 instituted to the rectory of Bladen with Woodstock, in Oxfordshire. 

 He proceeded D.D. in 1686, and having exchanged his living of Bladen 

 for that of Saham in Norfolk, he went to settle upon his prebend in 

 Norwich. Here he became engaged in some severe contests with the 

 Roman Catholics, the result of which was the publication of his work 

 'The Validity of the Orders of the Church of England made out.' 

 He also took an active part in resisting the arbitrary proceedings of 

 James II. which affected the interests of the Established Church. In 

 1688 he was collated to the archdeaconry of Suffolk, and, not without 

 due consideration, he took the oaths of allegiance to William and 

 Mary, and acted up to them faithfully, but he always looked upon the 

 non-jurors as honeat men, and treated them with kindness and respect. 

 The next four or five years he spent at the parsonage of Saham, and 

 exerted himself to the utmost in discharging his parochial and archi- 

 diaconal duties. While the sees of the non-juring bishops were ailing 



up, without the knowledge or desire of Dr. Prideaux tho bishops of 

 London and St. Asaph earnestly recommended him for the diocese of 

 Norwich, but the recommendation did not succeed, and Dr. Moor was 

 appointed. Upon the death of Dr. Pocock in 1691, the professorship 

 of Hebrew at Oxford was offered to Dr. Prideaux, who declined it. 

 In 1694 he resigned bin living at Saham, and in 1696 KB was instituted 

 to the vicartige of Trowse near Norwich. He published in 1 697 his 

 ' Life of Mahomet,' of which three editions were sold off the first year. 

 In 1702 Dr. Prideaux was made dean of Norwich in the room of Dr. 

 Henry Fairfax. On the translation of Dr. Moor from Norwich to 

 Ely, in 1707, Prideaux was advised and encouraged to apply for the 

 vacant see, but he was not at all disposed to seek for such advance- 

 ment. This year he published ' Directions to Churchwardens,' a work 

 which has often been reprinted. The beat edition is that corrected 

 and improved by Mr. Tyrwhitt, London, 1833. In 1710 appeared Dr. 

 Prideaux's work upon ' Tythes," 1 vol. Svo, which he had projected in 

 4 vols., but his plan was defeated by " the calamitous distemper of the 

 stone," to use his own language ; and this year he resigned the 

 vicarage of Trowse. His disease was the occasion of much suffering 

 and it entirely disabled him from public duties. But he still pursued 

 his private studies, and at length, in 1715, he brought out the first 

 part of his principal work, the ' Connection of the History of the Old 

 and New Testament,' and the second part in 1717, folio. This has 

 been one of the most widely circulated books iu the English language, 

 and it has still a peculiar value among several more recent works of a 

 similar design. It was the last work that he published. His strength 

 had been long declining, and he died November 1, 1724, in his 

 seventy-seventh year, and was buried in Norwich cathedral. About 

 three years before his death he presented his collection of Oriental 

 books, more than 300 iu number, to the library of Clare Hall, Cam- 

 bridge. Several posthumous tracts and letters, with a 'Life of 

 Dr. Prideaux,' the author of which is not named, were published 

 in 1748, 8vo. Dr. Prideaux was a man of varied and solid learning, 

 and of great moral worth and ardent piety. 



PRIDEAUX, JOHN, an English bishop, was born at Stowford, 

 near Ivybridge in Devonshire, September 17th, 1578. His father, 

 being in humble circumstances, and having a large family, could give 

 him only a common education. While yet in his boyhood he was a 

 candidate for the office of parish-clerk at Ugborow, a neighbouring 

 village, but he did not succeed, and to his failure he used to attribute 

 his elevated position in after-life. He was then noticed by a lady of 

 the parish, who maintained him at school till he had acquired a 

 knowledge of Latin, and he then went to Oxford, and was admitted a 

 poor scholar at Exeter College, in 1596 : he was elected probationer 

 fellow of his college in 1602, being then B.A. In the following year 

 he received holy orders, and having become noted for his profound 

 knowledge of divinity, aa well as his great learning in general, he was 

 elected rector of hia college upon the death of Dr. Thomas Holland 

 iu 1612. In 1615 he succeeded Dr. Itobert Abbot, then promoted to 

 the see of Salisbury, as Kegius Professor of Divinity, canon of 

 Christ Church, and rector of Ewelme. He afterwards held the office 

 of vice-chancellor for several years. "In the rectorship of his college," 

 says Wood, " he carried himself so winning and pleasing by his gentle 

 government and fatherly instruction, that it flourished more than any 

 house in the university with scholars, as well of great as of mean 

 birth ; as also with many foreigners that came purposely to sit at 

 his feet to gain instruction." He no less distinguished himself in the 

 divinity chair, which he occupied twenty-six years. In 1641, he was 

 consecrated bishop of Worcester, but on account of his adherence to 

 the king he found his dignity neither pleasant nor profitable. He 

 became so impoverished as to be compelled to sell his books, and so 

 was, as Dr. Gauden says, 'Verus libroruui helluo.' "Having," con- 

 tinues Wood, "first by indefatigable studies digested his excellent 

 library into his mind, he was after forced again to devour all his books 

 with his teeth, turning them by a miraculous faith and patience into 

 bread for himself and his children, to whom he left 110 legacy but 

 pious poverty, God's blessing, and a father's prayer." He died of a 

 fever, at Bredon in Worcester, July 12, 1650. 



The works of Bishop Prideaux were numerous, and mostly written 

 iu Latin, upon grammar, logic, theology, and other subjects. Wood 

 describes him as " a plentiful fountain of all sort of learning, an 

 excellent linguist, a person of a prodigious memory, and so profound 

 a divine, that he was called ' Columna fidei orthodoxse, ingeus scholar 

 et academia) oraculum,'" &c. Though he died before the publication of 

 the London Polyglott, he was well known to the editor Brian Walton, 

 who appeals to his authority on the nicer points of Hebrew criticism, 

 in vindicating the Polyglott from certain cavils that had been raised 

 against it. 



Bishop Prideaux had a son named Matthias, who was born iu 1622, 

 and died of the small-pox in 1646. He was a fellow of Exeter 

 College. After his death, in 1648, was published, in small 4to, a 

 work of his entitled ' An essay and compendious Introduction for read- 

 ing all sorts of Histories,' with a ' Synopsis of Councils," added by his 

 lather. This book was several times reprinted, but it would now 

 probably be thought more curious than useful, though it might furnish 

 some valuable hints to persons engaged iu teaching. 



PRIESSNITZ, VINCENZ, the founder of Hydropathy, or Water- 

 Cure (Wasserheilkunde), was born on the 4th of October 1799, at 



