next generation will not only inherit but improve the polite ignorance of the present.’ He nevertheless worked at his manuscripts ‘from the time I rise in the morning till I can see no longer at night,’ and endured the drudgery in the hope of ‘obliging his country’ and ‘making new discoveries.’ The preface to the second volume of his ‘History’ was stoically dated (December 1717) from Cambridge Castle, where he was then imprisoned for debts amounting altogether to no more than 200l.; but the quiet of a prison he found more conducive to steady toil than the interruptions of an overpopulated parsonage (Preface to vol. ii.) Except some annotations to Wotton's ‘Miscellaneous Discourses’ (London, 1718), this was Ockley's last work, and on 9 Aug. 1720, at the age of forty-two, he died at Swavesey; he was buried there on the following day.
Two of Ockley's sermons were published: the one on the dignity and authority of the Christian priesthood, preached at Ormond Chapel, London, 1710; the other on the duty of instructing children in the Holy Scriptures, at St. Ives, in 1713. But it is not as a parson but as a pioneer in oriental scholarship that his memory lives; while his troubles and bitter penury have gained him a record in D'Israeli's melancholy catalogue of the ‘Calamities of Authors.’ On his death his debts exceeded his assets, and his widow was left in great distress with a son, Anthony, aged eighteen, and three daughters. Martha, the third daughter, was mother of Dr. Ralph Heathcote [q. v.]
[The original source of all the various notices of Ockley is the article contributed by his grandson, Dr. Ralph Heathcote, to the first edition (1761) of Chalmers's Gen. Biogr. Dict., and reprinted in the edition of 1815. Isaac D'Israeli had some original letters of Ockley in his hands when he wrote the notice for the Calamities of Authors (Works, v. 189–92). The Prefaces and Dedications to Ockley's works contain many autobiographical allusions. Hearne's Collections are useful. Extracts from Swavesey Parish Registers, contributed by the Rev. J. G. L. Lushington, vicar.]
OCKS, JOHN RALPH (1704–1788), medallist. [See Ochs.]
OCLAND, CHRISTOPHER (d. 1590?), Latin poet and controversialist, was a native of Buckinghamshire, and is conjectured by Joseph Hunter to be identical with the Okeland who contributed to the anthems in a music-book printed by John Day in 1565. It is certain that in January 1571–2 he was elected master of the grammar school founded by Queen Elizabeth in the parish of St. Olave, Southwark, but it is not clear that he entered on the office. Subsequently he became master of the grammar school at Cheltenham, which was also of royal foundation. The publication in 1580 of his ‘Anglorum Prælia,’ a Latin historical poem, brought him into public notice, as it was appointed by Queen Elizabeth and her privy council to be received and taught in every grammar and free school within the kingdom, ‘for the remouing of such lasciuious poets as are commonly reade and taught in the saide grammer schooles’ (Ames, Typogr. Antiq. ed. Herbert, ii. 910 n.) The author, however, went unrewarded, and in December 1582 he petitioned Secretary Walsingham for an alms-knight's room then void in the college of Windsor (Cal. State Papers, Dom. Eliz. 1581–90, p. 80). In September 1589 he was residing at the sign of the George in the parish of Whitechapel, and was suffering great poverty. On 13 Oct. 1590 he wrote to Lord Burghley, asking to be relieved in his distress. He humbly desired that her majesty might give him a prebend or benefice—so that he was probably in holy orders—and he added: ‘I never had any thing at her graces hands for all my bookes heretofore made of her Hieghnes.’ In the same letter he mentioned that he had just received tidings that one Hurdes, a serjeant of London, who cast him in the counter at Christmas, 1589, had a capias utlagatum out for him; and he complained that he had been condemned to pay 40l. although he owed Hurdes only 5l. He stated that his wife had been paralysed for upwards of three years, and that her malady became worse daily on account of the malady of her sons. Incidentally he remarked that he had an only daughter, and in conclusion he wrote: ‘I teach schole at Grenewych, where my labor wyll not fynde me bread and drynck.’ Probably he died soon afterwards. Among the petitions presented to Charles, prince of Wales, is one from his daughter, Jane Ocland, dated 14 Jan. 1617, setting forth that she was in distress. She received a gift of 22s.
Bishop Hall alludes to Ocland in his ‘Satires’ (bk. iv. Sat. 3):
Or cite old Ocland's verse, how they did wield
The wars in Turwin, or in Turney field
.
His works are: 1. ‘Anglorum Prælia, Ab Anno Domini 1327, Anno nimirum primo inclytiss. Principis Eduardi eius nominis tertii, vsque ad annum Do. 1558, Carmine summatim perstricta,’ London (R. Neuberie), 1580, 4to, without pagination; dedicated to Queen Elizabeth. A copy of the rare first edition is preserved in the Grenville Library. The work is an hexameter poem, versified
