2 ROBERT POCOCK. 



outstripping the confinement and trammels of commer- 

 cial pursuits and narrow means, and vindicating for 

 itself a real and honoured, and (in the best sense) a 

 successful place in the drama of life. 



His efforts are all the more worthy of record in that 

 they were " cribbed, cabined, and confined " by the " res 

 angusta domi /' till at length, driven by dire necessity 

 from his native town, he lived to see his museum and 

 books dispersed, and finally died broken-hearted, "all 

 unwept, unhonoured, and unsung/' with no memorial 

 however humble to mark his resting-place, some fifty- 

 two years ago. 



Robert Pocock's father was a freeman of Gravesend, 

 where we find that he was duly sworn on the 26th March, 

 1745, " to be a true liege man, and true faith and truth to 

 bear, to our Sovereign Lord King George the Second," 

 before Henry Thames, Esq., the then mayor of the town 

 and parishes of Gravesend and Milton ; at which time 

 he further deposed that "to the best of his skill, wit, 

 cunning, and power, he should maintain and uphold all 

 the liberties, franchises, good customs, orders, and 

 usages of these towns and corporation thereof," and 

 thereupon was admitted a freeman of such corporation. 



It is doubtful whether John Pocock was a native, or 

 had come from Sussex to this town of his adoption ; but 

 it appears from his will of 1766, that he was then a settled 

 shop-keeper, occupying his own house in the High 

 Street, part of which had formerly been known as a sepa- 

 rate tenement, under the sign of the "Hat and Feather." 

 There he presumably flourished as a grocer, and though 

 the date of his marriage is unknown, it is clear that on 

 the 21st February, 1760 (just 122 years ago), Robert 

 Pocock himself (his father's second son) first saw the 



