(Dr Edward), one of the most learned men in the oriental tongues in Europe, was the eldest son of the Rev. Edward Pococke; and was born at Oxford in 1604, where he was also bred. In 1628 he was admitted probationer-fellow of his college, and about the same time had prepared an edition of the Second Epistle of St Peter, the Second and Third of St John, and that of St Jude, in Syriac and Greek, with a Latin Translation and Notes. In 1629 he was ordained priest, and appointed chaplain to the English merchants at Aleppo, where he continued five or six years; in which time he distinguished himself by his prudence, fortitude and zeal while the plague raged there. At length returning to England, he was in 1636 appointed reader of the Arabic lectures founded by archbishop Laud. Three years after he went to Constantinople, where he prosecuted his studies of the eastern tongues, and procured many valuable manuscripts. After near four years stay in that city, he embarked in 1640; and taking Paris in his way, visited Gabriel Sionita the famous Maronite, and Hugo Grotius. In 1643 he was presented to the rectory of Childrey in Berks; and about three years after married the daughter of Thomas Burdett, Esq. About the middle of 1647 he obtained the restitution of the salary of his Arabic lecture, which had been detained from him about three years. In 1648 king Charles I. who was then prisoner in the island of Wight, nominated Mr Pococke to the professorship of Hebrew, and the canonry of Christ-church annexed to it; but in 1650 he was ejected from his canonry for refusing to take the engagement, and soon after a vote passed for depriving him of his Hebrew and Arabic lectures; but several governors of houses, &c., presenting a petition in his favour, was suffered to enjoy both these places. He had some years before published his Specimen Historiae Arabum; and now appeared his Porta Mosis; and soon after the English Polyglot edition of the Bible, to which he had largely contributed, and also Eutychius's Annals, with a Latin version. At the Reformation, he was restored to the canonry of Christ-church, and also received the degree of doctor of divinity. He then published his Arabic version of Grotius's Treatise of the Truth of the Christian Religion; and an Arabic poem intitled Lamia'tl Ajam, with a Latin translation and notes. Soon after he published Gregory Abul Pharajius's Historia Dynastiarum. In 1674 he published an Arabic version of the chief parts of the Liturgy of the Church of England; and a few years after his Commentary on the Prophecies of Micah, Malachi, Hosea, and Joel. This great man died in 1691, after having been for many years confessedly the first person in Europe for eastern learning; and was no less worthy of admiration for his uncommon modesty and humility, and all the virtues that can adorn a Christian. His theological works were republished at London in 1740, in two volumes in folio.