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Hinckley, John, D.D.

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Hincks, John

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an English clergyman, was born in Warwickshire in 1617, and was educated at St. Alban's Hall, Oxford. He filled successively the vicarate of Coleshill, Berkshire, and the rectorships of Dray ton, Leicestershire, and Northfield, Worcestershire. He died in 1695. He published Four Sermons (Oxf. 1657, 8vo): — Epistola Veridica (1659, 4to): — Persuasive to Conformity (1670, 8vo), addressed in the form of a letter to the Dissenters: — Fasciculus literarum, or Letters on several Occasions (1680, 8vo). The first half contains letters exchanged between him and Richard Baxter on the divisions in the Church. — Hook, Eccles. Biog. 6, 74; Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Gé neralé 24, 706; Allibone, Dict. of Authors, 1, 850. Hincks, Edward, D.D., a clergyman of the Church of England, and a distinguished Assyrian scholar, was born in August, 1792, and was prepared for college under his father's care. He entered Trinity College, Dublin, at a very early age, and obtained a fellowship before he was twenty-one, being facile prinaeps of all the candidates. After graduation he became rector of Ardtrea, one of the college livings, whence he was promoted to Killyleagh, in the diocese of Down (north of Ireland), and there he spent the last forty-one years of his life. Dr. Hincks was considered one of the best philologists in Europe. He contributed numerous valuable papers, especially on Egyptian hieroglyphics and Assyrian cuneiform inscriptions, to the Royal Irish Academy, the Royal Society of Literature, the Asiatic Society, and the British Association. "His talent for deciphering texts in unknown characters and languages was wonderful. It was applied to the study of Egyptian hieroglyphics, and to the inscriptions in the cuneiform character found in Persepolis, Nineveh, and other parts of ancient Assyria. In this field especially he labored for years with great perseverance and success, having been the first to ascertain the numeral system, and the power and form of its signs by means of the inscriptions at Van. He was one of the chief restorers of Assyrian learning, throwing great light on the linguistic character and grammatical structure of the languages represented on the Assyrian monuments. Living in a remote country village, with very limited means at his command, he had to contend with great difficulties. In London, beside the British Museum, he would have accomplished more than he did" (London A thenaeum, December, 1866). He died December 3,1866. (See CUNEIFORM INSCRIPTIONS); (See HIEROGLYPHICS). (J. H. W.)