Background
He was born in Carlisle in 1758, Cumberland, where his father George Carlyle practised as a physician.
He was born in Carlisle in 1758, Cumberland, where his father George Carlyle practised as a physician.
He went in 1775 to Cambridge, was elected a fellow of Queens' College in 1779, taking the degree of B. D. in 1793.
With the assistance of a native of Bagdad known in England as David Zamio, then resident at Cambridge, he attained great proficiency in Arabic literature; and after succeeding Dr Paley in the chancellorship of Carlisle, he was appointed, in 1795, professor of Arabic in Cambridge University.
His translation from the Arabic of Yusuf ibn Taghri Birdi, the Rerum Egypticarum Annales, appeared in 1792, and in 1796 a volume of Specimens of Arabic Poetry, from the earliest times to the fall of the Caliphate, with some account of the authors.
for a projected critical edition of the New Testament, collated with the Syriac and other versions-a work, however, which he did not live to complete.
Among other works which he left unfinished was an edition of the Bible in Arabic, completed by H. Ford and published in 1811.
Carlyle's Poems suggested chiefly by Scenes in Asia Minor, Syria and Greece, together with some translations from the Arabic, were published after his death, 1805, with extracts from his journal and a preface by his after. He had also almost completed an account of his tour through the Troad, which was never published. His Arabic Bible, revised from Walton's text, was issued at Newcastle, edited by Henry Ford, professor of Arabic at Oxford, in 1811.
