of Marlborough, but resigned it in 1788, on being collated to the rectory of Mersham, Kent, by the Archbishop of Canterbury. In 1792 he was installed prebendary of Westminster, and in 1795 received the degree of D.D. by the archbishop's diploma at the archiepiscopal visitation at Canterbury. In 1796 he was presented to the vicarage of Shoreham, Kent, by the dean and chapter of Westminster. In 1795 he married Mary, the second daughter of Sir William Blackstone, but left no issue. Besides the 'Oratio de Ridiculo' Cole was the author of a Latin explanation prefixed to the second volume of the 'Marlborough Gems' privately printed under the auspices of George, duke of Marlborough (Martin, Privately Printed Books, p. 56), and of several sermons. He died on 24 Sept. 1806, and was buried in the north aisle of Westminster Abbey.
[Gent. Mag. 1806, ii. 1072; Lipscomb's Buckinghamshire, i. 497; Hasted's Kent, 2nd ed. iii. 13, vii. 602.]
COLE, WILLIAM (1754–1812), miscellaneous writer, was the eldest son of the Rev. Denny Cole of Sudbury, and afterwards of Wickham Market, Suffolk. He was educated at Eton, and King's College, Cambridge, where he was elected to a fellowship (B.A. 1780, M.A. 1783). He was afterwards instituted to the vicarage of Broad Chalke in Wiltshire on the presentation of his college. For several years he resided at Yoxford, Suffolk, and had the curacy of Theberton in that neighbourhood, but he subsequently removed to London, where he officiated at a chapel near his residence in Baker Street, Portman Square, where he died in December 1812.
His principal works are: 1. 'A Key to the Psalms; being an easy, concise, and familiar explanation of words, allusions, and sentences in them,' Cambridge, 1788, 8vo. 2. 'To the Feeling Heart. Exalted Affection; or Sophia Pringle; a Poem,' London, 1789, 8vo. 3. 'The Contradiction,' a novel, London, 1796, 12mo.
[Addit. MSS. 19167 f. 64, 19209 f. 164 b; Cat. of Printed Books in Brit. Mus.; Harwood's Alumni Eton. 352.]
COLEBROOKE, HENRY THOMAS (1766–1837), the first great Sanskrit scholar of Europe, was the son of Sir George Colebrooke, the head of an old and wealthy firm of bankers. Sir George sat in the House of Commons for Arundel, and had made himself useful to the directors of the East India Company by his defence of their privileges in parliament; in return for this service he was invited to join the court of directors, of which
he eventually became chairman in 1769. His son Henry, who was born in London on 15 June 1765, may have inherited his scholarly bent from his father, who was something of an antiquary and a man of culture; but he undoubtedly derived more of his intellectual vigour from his mother, Mary, daughter and heiress of Patrick Gaynor of Antigua, a woman of remarkable energies of mind. Henry was brought up at home, where, with the aid of a tutor, he gained a considerable mastery of the classical languages, together with French and some German, and began to show that delight in mathematics which afterwards became a ruling passion. His father's
influence with the court of directors naturally pointed to an Indian career for the son, and Henry received a writership in the Bengal service in August 1782. As he sailed from Portsmouth he was a witness of the foundering of the Royal George. The thirty-two years of service in the East India Company's civil departments upon which he was now entering were occupied with the monotonous but not uninteresting routine of official duties, varied by little travelling, and no personal experience of war or danger. Colebrooke was appointed assistant collector at Tirhut in 1786, and was not sorry to leave Calcutta, where the gambling and drinking of the representatives of English civilisation disgusted him. Though a retired student, who at first preferred his chair to the saddle, he was not disinclined to win his experience of the world, and took his turn at the gambling-table, with a little temporary interest, which soon wore off. The drinking bouts of the Calcutta bucks only aroused his contempt; he had a strong head himself, and despised people who lost theirs. Still more indignant was he with the low moral tone which pervaded Anglo-Indian society at that time; and in a letter to his father he accuses Warren Hastings of being the author of this debauched condition, by filling the country with a set of 'harpies, who adopted one pursuit — a fortune.' He left his small appointment at the board of accounts with satisfaction, to enter upon his revenue duties at Tirhut. His brother, who also held an appointment at Calcutta, had weaned him somewhat from his too close application to study, and had induced him to spare what time he could for riding and shooting, and so keen did the sporting taste become, that in after years he would take more pride in his shooting, which was admirable, than in his highest scholarly attainments. His official duties, however, left little leisure for either sport or study.
He soon established a reputation for thorough and capable work, and what time he had to
