CORYATE, THOMAS, an extraordinary personage, who seems to have made himself notorious by his whimsical extravagancies, was the son of a clergyman, and born at Oldcombe, in Somersetshire, in 1577. He acquired Greek and Latin at Oxford, and proceeding afterwards to London, was received into the household of Henry prince of Wales. If Coryate was not over witty himself, he got acquainted with the wits of that time, and served to exercise their abilities, having more learning than judgment. He was a great peripatetic, for, in 1608, he took a long journey on foot, and, after he returned, published his travels under the strange title of Crudities hastily gobbled up in Five Months' Travels in France, Sacy, Italy, Rhætia, Hælectia, some parts of High Germany, and the Netherlands, London, 1611, 4to. In 1612 he set out again with a resolution to spend ten years in travelling, and proceeded first to Constantinople; but after travelling over great part of the East, he died of a flux at Surat, in the East Indies.