, the eccentric son of the preceding, was born at Odcombe, in 1577. He was first educated at Westminster-school, and became a commoner of
Gloucester-hall, Oxford, in 1596; where continuing about
three years, he attained, by mere dint of memory, some
skill in logic, and more in the Greek and Latin languages.
After he had been taken home for a time, he went to London, and was received into the family of Henry prince of
Wales, either as a domestic, or, according to some, as a
fool, an office which in former days was filled by a person
hired for the purpose. In this situation he was exposed to
the wits of the court, who, finding in him a strange mixture of sense and folly, made him their whetstone; and so,
says Wood, he became too much known to all the world.
In 1608, he took a journey to France, Italy, Germany, &c.
which lasted five months, during which he had travelled
1975 miles, more than half upon one pair of shoes, which
were once only mended, and on his return were hung up
in the church of Odcombe. He published his travels under
this title; “Crudities hastily gobbled up in five months
travels in France, Savoy, Italy, Rhetia, Helvetia, some
parts of High Germany, and the Netherlands, 1611,
” 4to,
reprinted in 1776, 3 vols. 8vo. This work was ushered
into the world by an Odcombian banquet, consisting of
near 60 copies of verses, made by the best poets of that
time, which, if they did not make Cory ate pass with the
world for a man of great parts and learning, contributed
not a little to the sale of his book. Among these poets
were Ben Jonson, sir John Harrington, Inigo Jones the
architect, Chapman, Donne, Drayton, &c. In the same
year he published “Coryate’s Crambe, or his Colwort
twice sodden, and now served in with other Macaronic
dishes, as the second course of his Crudities,
” 4to. In
1612, after he had taken leave of his countrymen, by an
oration spoken at the cross in Odcombe, he took a long
and large journey, with intention not to return till he had
spent ten years in travelling. The first place he went to
was Constantinople, where he made his usual desultory
observations; and took from thence opportunities of viewing divers parts of Greece. In the Hellespont he took
notice of the two castles Sestos and Abydos, which Musaeus has made famous in his poem of Hero and Leander,
He saw Smyrna, from whence he found a passage to Alexandria in Egypt; and there he observed the pyramids near
Grand Cairo. From thence he went to Jerusalem; and so
on to the Dead Sea, to Aleppo in Syria, to Babylon in
Chaldea, to the kingdom of Persia, and to Ispahan, where
the king usually resided; to Seras, anciently called Shushan; to Candahor, the first province north-east under
the subjection of the great mogul, and so to Lahore, the
chief city but one belonging to that empire. From Lahore he went to Agra; where, being well received by the
English factory, he made a halt. He staid here till he
had learned the Turkish and Morisco, or Arabian languages, in which study he was always very apt, and some
knowledge in the Persian and*Indostan tongues, all which
were of great use to him in travelling up and down the
great mogul’s dominions. In the Persian tongue he afterwards made an oration to the great mogul; and in the Indostan he had so great a command, that we are gravely
told he actually silenced a laundry-woman, belonging to
the English ambassador in that country, who used to scold
all the day long. After he had visited several places in
that part of the world, he went to Surat in East-India,
where he was seized with a diarrhoea, of which he died in
1617.