A Bio-Bibliographical Note on Coray

Extract

The publication of Coray's correspondence with Chardon de la Rochette (Lettres inédites de Coray, Paris, 1877) and of the little autobiography prefixed to the volume makes us pretty familiar with the circumstances of Coray's life from 1790 to 1796. But, as there are still some obscure points in his history during this period, the following notes may perhaps some day be of interest, whenever a complete biography of the illustrious Hellene comes to be written.

(1) In 1800 Coray published an edition of Hippocrates περὶ ἀέρων, ὑδάτων, τόπων, his letters showing that he had been for years hard at work on this author. There are probably very few in this country who know that at the time of the Revolution Coray was in constant communication with two English scholars, Thomas Burgess, afterwards Bishop of Salisbury, and Holmes, the editor of the Septuagint; and that he in 1792 contributed to an almost forgotten Oxford publication, the Musei Oxoniensis litterarii conspectus et specimina, edited by Burgess, a paper of Emendations on Hippocrates. The learned Greek is thus introduced by the editor to the English readers of the Museum:—‘Emendationes in Hippocratem nunc editas accepi cum duobus aliis fasciculis ab auctore eruditissimo sagacissimoque, hodie medico Parisiensi, V. Cl. Corayio, qui ad prelum Oxoniense parat Observationes in omnia Hippocratis opera.’