Prideaux

Prideaux, HUMPHREY, scholar and divine, was born of an ancient and honourable family at Padstow, Cornwall, 2d May 1648. He was educated at Westminster School under Dr Busby, and then at Christ Church, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. in 1672. His Marmora Oroniensia (1676), an account of the Arundel Marbles, procured for him the friendship of Lord Chancellor Finch (afterwards Earl of Nottingham), who in 1679 appointed him rector of St Clement's, Oxford, and in 1681 a prebendary of Norwich. After several minor preferments he was collated in 1688 to the archdeaconry of Suffolk, and in 1702 was made Dean of Norwich. He died 1st November 1724. His nine works include a Life of Mahomet (1697), long very popular; Directions to Churchwardens (1701; 15th ed. 1886); and The Connection of the History of the Old and New Testament (1715-17; 27th ed. 1876). The last treats with much learning, but less discernment, the affairs of ancient Egypt, Assyria, Persia, Judæa, Greece, and Rome, so far as they bear on the subject of sacred prophecy. See Prideaux's Letters to John Ellis, edited by E. M. Thompson (Camden Soc. 1875).