Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 46.djvu/19

 as far as Derr, and the two explorers passed one another in the night, Norden going up the Nile and Pococke returning. Pococke reached Cairo in February 1738. He next visited Jerusalem, and bathed in the Dead Sea, to test a statement of Pliny's. He travelled in northern Palestine, and explored Balbec. He also visited Cyprus, Candia (where he ascended Mount Ida), parts of Asia Minor, and Greece. Leaving Cephalonia, he landed at Messina in November 1740. He visited Naples, and twice ascended Vesuvius. He passed through Germany, and on 19 June 1741, with an armed party, explored the Mer de Glace in the valley of Chamounix, where a boulder has been in remembrance inscribed by the Swiss ‘Richard Pococke, 1741.’ As the travellers stood on the ice, they drank the health of Admiral Vernon. An account of the expedition appeared in the ‘Mercure de Suisse’ for 1743, and Pococke came to be regarded as the pioneer of Alpine travel. Pococke returned to England in 1742, and in 1743 published vol. i. of ‘A Description of the East,’ containing ‘Observations on Egypt.’ Vol. ii. of the ‘Description,’ consisting of observations on Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia, Cyprus, Candia, Asia Minor, Greece, and parts of Europe, was published in 1745, and dedicated to the Earl of Chesterfield, lord lieutenant of Ireland, to whom Pococke was domestic chaplain. The work attained great celebrity, and Gibbon (Decline and Fall, chap. li. note 69) described it as of ‘superior learning and dignity,’ though he objected that its author too often confounded what he had seen with what he had heard.

In 1744 Pococke was made precentor of Waterford, and in 1745 Philip Dormer Stanhope, earl of Chesterfield [q. v.], gave him the archdeaconry of Dublin. In 1756 he was appointed to the bishopric of Ossory, and, on settling in the palace of Kilkenny, began the restoration of the cathedral church of St. Canice, then in a ruinous state. He personally superintended the workmen, sometimes from four o'clock in the morning (Ledwich in Collectanea, ii. 460–2). He encouraged Irish manufactures, and about 1763 established the Lintown factory in the suburbs of Kilkenny for the instruction of boys, chiefly foundlings, in the art of weaving. Under the name of ‘Pococke College,’ the institution is still carried on, on a new system, by the Incorporated Society for Promoting English Protestant Schools in Ireland. In June 1765 Pococke was translated from Ossory to Elphin, Bishop Gore being then promoted to Meath. Gore, however, declined to take out his patent, on account of the expense, and Pococke was in July translated to the bishopric of Meath. In the demesne at Ardbraccan he planted the seeds of cedars of Lebanon, still standing.

Pococke, at various periods of his life, made several tours in England, Scotland, and Ireland. Of these he wrote, and arranged for publication, full descriptive accounts, sometimes illustrated by his own drawings. These manuscripts have only been printed in recent years, or Pococke, rather than Thomas Pennant [q. v.], would have been reputed the first systematic explorer of comparatively unknown regions of Great Britain. His tours in England were made chiefly from 1750 to 1757 and in later years, and the descriptions are simply written and exact in detail. He made an Irish tour in 1752, the account of which is valuable as illustrating the social condition of Ireland, especially in Connaught. Starting from Dublin, he went north to the Giant's Causeway, concerning which he published papers in the ‘Philosophical Transactions’ for 1748 and 1753. He visited Donegal, Erris, Achill, and Belmullet, travelling—as usual on his tours—on horseback, with outriders. He had previously made an Irish tour in 1749 through Connaught, Clare, Kerry, and Cork, but the manuscript account has never been published. Pococke made various observations on the natural history of Ireland, and a paper by him on ‘Irish Antiquities’ was printed in the ‘Archæologia,’ vol. ii. He gave assistance to Mervyn Archdall [q. v.], his chaplain, when bishop of Ossory, in the preparation of his ‘Monasticon Hibernicum.’

Pococke visited Scotland in 1747 and 1750, and in April 1760 started for a six months' journey, during which he visited Iona and the Orkneys, Sutherland and Caithness. He was made burgess of Aberdeen, Glasgow, and other Scottish cities, and returned to London on 29 Oct. 1760.

Pococke died of apoplexy in September 1765 at Charleville near Tullamore, Ireland, while on a visitation. He was buried in Bishop Montgomery's tomb at Ardbraccan, and on the south side of the monument is a small slab with a memorial inscription. There is also a monument to him in the cathedral of St. Canice, Kilkenny. A portrait of Pococke in oils hangs in the board-room in Harcourt Street, Dublin, of the Incorporated Society for Promoting English Protestant Schools, and is reproduced in Kemp's edition of Pococke's ‘Tours in Scotland’ (frontispiece). A full-length portrait of him in Turkish dress, by Liotard, was once