ZACHARY, D.D., Bishop of Rochester, was the son of a distiller in High Holborn, and was born in 1690. He received his education at Westminster school, where he was elected a king's scholar. At the age of twenty he entered Trinity College, Cambridge; and during the first years of his residence there, he occasionally amused himself with lighter compositions, some of which are inserted in the Guardian and Spectator. In 1716 he published his edition of Cicero De Oratore, and dedicated it to Lord Chief-Justice Parker, afterwards Earl of Macclesfield, a prudent step, which laid the foundation of his future fortune. In 1717 Pearce was ordained, and during the following year became chaplain to Lord Parker. In 1719 he was installed in the rectory of Stapleford Abbots in Essex; in 1720, in that of St Bartholomew; and in 1723, in that of St Martin's-in-the-Fields, London. Besides Lord Parker, Pearce could now reckon amongst his patrons or friends Mr Pulteney (afterwards Earl of Bath), Archbishop Potter, Lord Hardwicke, Sir Isaac Newton, and many other eminent personages. In 1724 the degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred on him by Archbishop Wake. The same year he dedicated to his patron the Earl of Macclesfield his edition of Longinus On the Sublime, with a new Latin version and notes. The deanery of Winchester having become vacant, Dr Pearce was appointed to it in 1739; in the year 1744 he was elected prolocutor of the Lower House of Convocation for the province of Canterbury; and on the 12th of February 1748 he was made bishop of Bangor. Upon the death of Bishop Wilcocks, he was promoted to the see of Rochester and deanery of Westminster in 1756. In the year 1763 his lordship, being then in the seventy-third year of his age, and finding himself less fit for the business of his station as bishop and dean, expressed a desire to resign. His Majesty was inclined to favour his wishes, but the bishops disliked the proposal. He obtained leave, however, to resign the deanery in 1768, and in 1774 he died.

In addition to the works already alluded to, this learned prelate wrote numerous sermons and tracts, published on various occasions. Four volumes of his posthumous sermons were given to the world by his chaplain, John Derby, in 1778. He likewise wrote Miracles of Jesus Vindicated, 1727 and 1728; A Review of the Text of Milton, 1733, containing an able refutation of Bentley's chimerical emendations; Tico Letters against Dr Middleton, occasioned by the doctor's letter to Waterland, on the publication of his treatise, entitled Scripture Vindicated, 1732. But the work which above all others displays the solid learning and ripe judgment of the author is A Commentary, with Notes, on the Four Evangelists and the Acts of the Apostles, &c., 2 vols. 4to, Lond. 1777. This work contains also an autobiography of the author, together with additions from the pen of Dr Samuel Johnson.