Coryate

Coryate, THOMAS, was born at Odecombe, Somersetshire, about 1577, entered Gloucester Hall, Oxford, in 1596, but left like many better men without a degree, and after James I.'s accession lived by his wits, or rather his wit, about court. In 1608 he set out on a rambling journey on the Continent, passing through Paris, Lyons, Turin, Venice, Zurich, and Strasburg, and returning five months later with a record of 1975 miles, mostly on foot. His entertaining journal was at last published in 1611, with a huge collection of commendatory verses, as Coryat's Crudities: Hastily gobbled up in Five Moneths' Travells in France, &c. Next year, after dedicating his travel-worn shoes in his native church, he started again on his travels, visited Constantinople, Greece, Smyrna, Alexandria, and the Holy Land, and found his way by caravan to Mesopotamia, thence through Persia and Afghanistan to Agra, where he arrived in October 1616. In the December of the following year he died at Surat. Letters of his were printed in 1616 and in 1618.