POCOCK, Edward (1604-1691), one of the most eminent of English Oriental and Biblical scholars, was born in 1604, the son of a Berkshire clergyman, and received his education up to his fourteenth year at the free school of Tame in Oxfordshire and then at Oxford, where he became scholar of Corpus Christi College in 1620 and fellow in 1628. The foundation of his Eastern learning was laid at Oxford under Matthias Pasor, son of the better known George Pasor, who had been driven to England by the troubles in the Palatinate, and he subsequently received instruction from the learned W. Bedwell. The first fruit of his studies was an edition from a Bodleian MS. of the four New Testament epistles which were not in the old Syriac canon, and were not contained in European editions of the Peshito. This was published at Leyden at the instigation of G. Vossius in 1630, and in the same year Pocock sailed for Aleppo as chaplain to the English factory. At Aleppo he made himself a profound Arabic scholar and collected many valuable MSS. At this time Laud was busy with the learned collections with which he afterwards enriched his university, and Pocock became known to him as one who could help his schemes. A correspondence ensued, and ultimately Laud resolved to set up an Arabic chair at Oxford and to invite Pocock home to fill it. The invitation was accepted, and the lecturer entered on his duties on August 10, 1636, but next summer sailed again for Constantinople with the archbishop’s consent to prosecute further studies and collect more books, and remained there for about three years. When he returned to England Laud was in the Tower; and, though he had taken the precaution to place the Arabic chair on a permanent footing, a time soon followed in which to have been a protege of the ...

POCOCKE, Richard (1704-1765), distantly related to the preceding, was the son of Richard Pococke, head master of the free school at Southampton, where he was born in the year 1704. He received his school learning under his father, and his academical education at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he took his various degrees. He commenced his travels in the East in 1737, and returned in 1742. In 1743 he published his Observations on Egypt, under the general title of A Description of the East and some other Countries. In 1744 he was made precentor of Waterford; and in 1745 he printed the second volume of his travels, under the title of Observations on Palestine, or the Holy Land, Syria, Mesopotamia, Cyprus, and Candia. In 1756 Pococke was promoted to the bishopric of Ossory; in July 1765 he was translated to the see of Meath, and in September following he died suddenly of apoplexy, whilst engaged in visiting his diocese.