George Coryat

George Coryat, B. D.—He was born at Salisbury, educated in grammar learning at Wickham school, and admitted perpetual fellow of New College, Oxford. In the year 1566, when Queen Elizabeth visited the university, he, together with Mr. William Raiuolds, received her majesty and her train at New College; on that occasion he delivered an oration, for which he received great applause and a handsome purse of gold.* He afterwards took his degrees, and, in 1570, became rector of Odcomb, in Somersetshire, where he continued to the end of his days. In 1594, he was preferred to the prebend of Warthcl, in the cathedral of York. He was a person much admired for his refined taste in Latin poetry, and his excellent productions are often quoted by the learned men of those times. He died at Odeomb, March 6, 1606, and his remains were interred in the chancel of his own church. Wood denominates him a most accomplished scholar, and an excellent and admired poet ;S but says, he was a puritan, and no true son of the church of England.|| Mr. Coryat had a son called Thomas, author of " Crudities hastily gobled up in five Months Travels," and some other pieces; but was a man of great eccentricity, having much learning, especially in the original and eastern languages, but wanted judgment. He travelled through a great part of Europe, and the various countries of the cast, on foot; and distinguished himself by walking nine hundred miles in one

* While thii tyrannical prelate abused and persecuted the pious and useful puritans with the utmost cruelty, he made his own porter minister of FaddingtoD, who. in a few years, through blindness and old age, became unable to serve the cure.—Strypc's Aytmtr, p. E12, 213.

+ Strypr's Aylmer, p. 122.—Neal's Hist, of Puritans, vol. i. p. 378.

t Biog. Britao. vol. iv. p. 273. Edit. 1778.

\ Wood's Hist, et Antiq. lib. ii. p. 141.

jj Wood's Athena; Oxon. vol. i. p. 286,346.

were countenanced, he must

pair of shoes, which, as he informs us, he cot mended at Zurich. He did not live, however, to complete his travels, but died at Surat in India.* He was author of " Poemata varia Latina," 1611; and " Descriptio Angliae, Scotia?, & Hibernias."