Dr Edward, a learned English divine, and the first oriental scholar of his time, was the eldest son of Edward Pococke; and born in November 1604, at Oxford, where he was also educated. In 1628 he was admitted probationer-fellow of his college, and about the same time he had prepared an edition of the second Epistle of St Peter, Pococke the second and third of St John, and the Epistle 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 arrived in October 1630, and continued for five or six years, during which he distinguished himself by his zeal and fortitude, particularly whilst the plague raged there in 1634. At length returning to England, he was in 1636 appointed reader of the Arabic Lectures, founded by Archbishop Laud. Three years afterwards he went to Constantinople, where he prosecuted his studies of the eastern tongues, and procured many valuable manuscripts. After a residence of nearly four years in that city, he embarked in 1640; and taking Paris in his way, visited Gabriel Sionita the famous Maronite, and also Hugo Grotius. In 1643 he was presented to the rectory of Childrey, in Berkshire; and about three years afterwards married the daughter of Mr Thomas Burdett. 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, Charles I., being then prisoner in the Isle 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 afterwards a vote passed for depriving him of his Hebrew and Arabic professorships. But several governors of houses, and others, having presented a petition in his favour, he was suffered to enjoy both these places. He had some years before published his Specimen Historiae Arabum, a very learned work, and now appeared his Porta Mosis; and soon afterwards the English Polyglot edition of the Bible, to which he had largely contributed, and also Eutychius's Annals, with a Latin version, gave evidence of his industry and learning. At the Restoration he was reinstated in 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 entitled Lamiaia Fajim or Carmen Abu-Ismailis Togrii, with a Latin translation and notes. Soon afterwards he published Gregory Abulfaragius's Historia Dynastiarum; but this work did not meet with much encouragement from the public, a circumstance which his biographer accounts for in a manner not very creditable to the reign of Charles II. as compared with the protectorate, when solid learning was appreciated and rewarded. The fact seems to be, that the love of Arabic learning was now growing cold; and Pococke himself, in his correspondence with Mr Thomas Greaves, appears to be not only sensible that such was the case, but very much hurt by the decline of sound literary taste. The same circumstance also may in some measure account for this distinguished scholar not having obtained higher preferment at the period of the Restoration, when such numbers of vacant dignities were conferred on far inferior men. Perhaps he was almost the only instance of a clergyman, then at the highest pitch of eminence for learning, and every other merit proper to his profession, who lived throughout the reign of Charles II. without the least regard from the court, except the favour sometimes done him of being called upon to translate Arabic letters from the princes of the Levant, or the credentials of ambassadors coming from thence; a service for which we do not find that he obtained any recompense, besides fair words and hollow compliments. But his modesty equalled his merit; and after presenting Abulfaragius to the king, he ceased to obtrude his claims on the attention of royalty. In 1674 he published an Arabic version of the principal parts of the Liturgy of the Church of England; and a few years afterwards appeared his Commentary on the Prophecies of Micah, Malachi, Hosea, and Joel. This truly great man died in 1691, after having been for many years confessedly the first orientalist in Europe; and he was no less worthy of admiration for his uncommon modesty and humility, and all the virtues which can adorn a Christian. His theological works were republished at London in 1740, in two volumes folio.

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 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, 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 Osory, 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 Egyptianorum. 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 sheik." Cumberland's delineation, however, must be received with some caution, particularly in the latter part, which bears evident marks of exaggeration.