POCOCKE, Richard, distantly related to the preceding, was the son of Mr 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 academic 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 preceptor 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, which he dedicated to the Earl of Chesterfield, then lord-lieutenant of Ireland, whom he attended in the capacity of domestic chaplain. In 1756, Dr Pococke was promoted to the bishopric of Ossory, vacant by the death of Dr Edward Maurice; in July 1765, he was translated to the see of Meath, which had been originally intended for the Bishop of Elphin, who, however, declined taking out his patent; and he died suddenly in September following, having been carried off by apoplexy, whilst engaged in visiting his diocese. As a traveller Dr Pococke was equally distinguished for research, learning, and accuracy, to which ample justice has indeed been done by Jablonski, in the preface to part third of his Pantheon Egyptiorum. He penetrated no farther up the Nile than the island of Philae, called by the Arabs the Temple Island; whereas Norden, in 1737, proceeded as far as Derré, between the first and second cataract. The two travellers are supposed to have met on the Nile, in the neighbourhood of Esneh, in January 1738; but, according to another account, they passed in the night without recognition.
Bishop Pococke visited other parts besides the East, and described some remarkable objects both in Scotland and Ireland. According to Cumberland, he was a man of mild but peculiar manners, and of primitive simplicity. "Having given the world," says this writer, "a full detail of his researches in Egypt, he seemed to hold himself excused from saying anything more about them, and observed, in general, an obdurate taciturnity. In his carriage and deportment he appeared to have contracted something of the Arab character; yet there was no austerity in his silence, and though his air was solemn, his temper was serene." Cumberland adds: "When we were on our road to Ireland, I saw from the windows of the inn at Daventry a cavalcade of horsemen approaching on a gentle trot, headed by an elderly chief in clerical attire, who was followed by five servants at distances geometrically measured and most precisely maintained, and who, upon entering the inn, proved to be this distinguished prelate conducting his horde with the phlegmatic patience of a scheik." Cumberland's delineation, however, must be received with some caution, particularly in the latter part, which bears evident marks of exaggeration.