tion, whose acquaintance he had made in Spain. In 1828 he was selected by Marshal Maison to accompany him in his expedition to the Morea, and was allowed to go, in spite of the opposition of Lord Stuart de Rothesay, the English ambassador at Paris. His services in Greece were very great. After serving as governor of Navarino, Messina, and Nauplia, he relieved Argos from the attack of Colocotroni, who was then acting in the interest of Russia and Count Capo d'Istria, and utterly defeated him. This victory was of the greatest importance; it finally overthrew the Russian party, upset the schemes of Capo d'Istria, and practically placed King Otho upon the throne. He was rewarded by being made a knight of the order of Saint Louis and of the Redeemer of Greece, and was promoted general of brigade. He succeeded General Schneider as commander-in-chief of the French forces in Greece in 1831, and returned to France in 1832 with them. He was soon after promoted general of division, and after commanding at Caen and Tulle, died at Saint-Denis 12 Aug. 1842.
[His autobiography, printed first at Paris in 1807, is reprinted with an interesting biography founded on facts, related by Mrs. Lyons of Cork, Corbet's only sister, in R. R. Madden's third series of The United Irishmen, their Lives and Times, Dublin, 1846. The details of his escape from Kilmainham are given in Miss Edgeworth's novel of Ormond.]
CORBETT, THOMAS (d. 1751), secretary of the admiralty, of the family of Corbet of Moreton Corbet, and apparently a near relation of Andrew Corbett, an ‘instrument’ of the treasurer of the navy, temp. William III Cal. S. P., Treasury), was secretary to Sir George Byng, viscount Torrington [q. v.], during the expedition to Sicily (1718–20), of which he afterwards published an account. On his return to England he was appointed chief clerk of the admiralty in 1723, and in 1728 second secretary of the admiralty under Josiah Burchett [q. v.]; on Burchett's retirement in 1742 he became senior secretary, with John Cleveland under him. He held this office till his death in 1751, and during the whole time lived on terms of friendly equality with the many distinguished officers with whom he was thrown in contact. His letter to Anson (Add. MS. 15955, f. 250), pointing out the impropriety of his promotion of Peircy Brett [see Anson, George, Lord], is not that of a mere official, but rather that of an old shipmate and social equal.
[Corbett's official letters in the Public Record Office are very numerous, but contain little of biographical interest. The notice of the family in Burke's ‘Landed Gentry’ is very inaccurate, and makes it quite impossible to identify this member of it. It is there said that William Corbett, who adopted the mode of writing his name with two t's, was secretary of the admiralty and had three sons, Thomas, Vincent, and William, cashier of the navy. Thomas, the secretary of the admiralty, had a younger brother, William, who began life as secretary to Viscount Torrington in the Baltic expedition of 1717, and was afterwards cashier of the navy; but there never was a William Corbett secretary of the admiralty; and Andrew Corbett, the ‘instrument’ of the treasurer of the navy, signed his name with two t's. It seems not improbable that Thomas's father was William, that Andrew was his uncle, and that Burke has confused the three.]
CORBETT, WILLIAM (d. 1748), violinist and composer, seems to have held the latter position at the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields at the beginning of the eighteenth century, since he wrote the music for ‘Henry IV’ (produced there by Betterton in 1700), for ‘Love Betrayed,’ an adaptation by Burnaby of ‘Twelfth Night,’ and for ‘As you find it,’ by the Hon. C. Boyle (both produced in 1703). In 1705 he became leader of the opera band, a position which he retained until 1711, when the production of Handel's ‘Rinaldo’ occasioned the removal of the whole body of orchestral players in favour of a new set of instrumentalists. It seems to have been at this juncture that Corbett went for the first time to Italy, since Burney implies that he was there during Corelli's lifetime, and it is probable that he was there at the time of Corelli's death in 1713, as he became possessed of the master's own violin. Whether or no he was a pupil of Corelli, it is certain that he was greatly influenced by that composer's style, as his own works conclusively prove. As a concert was given in Hickford's Room on 28 April 1714 ‘for Signora Lodi and Mr. Corbet,’ he must have returned by that time, and it would seem to have been about this year that he was appointed to the royal band of music. In 1710 his name is not on the list of musicians, and from 1716 it appears without intermission until 1747. By this time he had written, besides the theatrical music we have mentioned, several sets of sonatas for violins, flutes, &c., and one of the ‘act-tunes’ in ‘As you find it’ had been set as a song, ‘When bonny Jemmy first left me.’ A few years later he went again to Italy for the express purpose of collecting music and instruments of all kinds. He remained abroad for a good many years, making Rome his headquarters, and visiting all the principal cities of Italy. He was suspected in many quarters of being employed by the government as a spy upon the Pretender, but the truth seems to have been that his researches were not only sanctioned by the government (he was allowed to retain his posi-
