Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 12.djvu/164

 dwell within the circuit of the college, and when he became a resident member he rather patiently awaited employment than eagerly sought it’ (Catalogue of English Civilians, p. 133). Of a retired disposition, with much of that eccentricity and indolence which often accompany literary merit, he passed through his profession with credit and respect, but reaped little pecuniary reward (Gent. Mag. new ser. v. 93). Not being an able speaker he was rarely employed as an advocate, but he frequently acted as a judge in the court of delegates. He died at Islington on 19 Nov. 1835. Henry Charles Coote [q. v.], his son, is separately noticed.

His works are: 1. ‘Elements of the Grammar of the English Language,’ 1788, a work interesting to the grammarian and philologist; a second edition appeared in 1806. 2. ‘The History of England from the earliest Dawn of Record to the Peace of 1783,’ London, 9 vols. 8vo. 1791–8; to which he added in 1803 another volume, bringing down the history to the peace of Amiens in 1802. This history, though well written, is deficient in antiquarian research. 3. ‘Tῆς Ἐλεγείας ἣν Θωμᾶς Γραῖος ἐν κοιμητηρίῳ άγροικῷ ἐξέχυσε μετάφρασις Ἑλληνική,’ 1794. 4. ‘Life of Caius Julius Cæsar,’ 1796. 5. ‘History of the Union of the Kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland: with an introductory Survey of Hibernian Affairs traced from the times of Celtic Colonisation,’ 1802. This contains a narrative of every important circumstance connected with what George III called the happiest event of his reign. The demand for the work was, however, very inconsiderable, even after the experiment of a formal appeal to the members of the Union Club. 6. ‘Sketches of the Lives and Characters of Eminent English Civilians, with an historical introduction relative to the College of Advocates, and an enumeration of the whole series of academic graduates admitted into that society, from the beginning of the reign of Henry VIII to the close of the year 1803. By one of the Members of the College,’ London, 1804, 8vo. An incomplete and unsatisfactory work, but valuable nevertheless to the biographer as being the only one that treats of the subject. 7. A continuation to the eighteenth century of Mosheim's ‘Ecclesiastical History’ by Maclaine, 6 vols. 1811 (Biog. Dict. of Living Authors, 1816, p. 75). 8. ‘The History of Ancient Europe, from the earliest times to the subversion of the Western Empire, with a survey of the most important Revolutions in Asia and Africa,’ 3 vols. London, 1815, 8vo; this work was intended to accompany Dr. William Russell's ‘History of Modern Europe’ (, Bibl. Man., ed. Bohn, p. 520). 9. An edition of the works of Horace. 10. A continuation of Russell's ‘History of Modern Europe from 1763 to the Pacification of Paris in 1815,’ London, 2 vols. 1818; the same continued to 1825, London, 1827. 11. A continuation of Goldsmith's ‘History of England,’ 1819, translated into French and Italian. 

COOTE, EDMUND (fl. 1597), grammarian, matriculated as a pensioner of Peterhouse, Cambridge, in May 1566, and graduated B.A. in 1579–80, M.A. in 1583. He was elected head-master of the grammar school of Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, on 5 June 1596, in succession to John Wright, M.A., and he resigned that office and was succeeded by Nicholas Martyn, M.A., on 18 May 1597. Of his subsequent history nothing appears to be known. During his brief tenure of the mastership of Bury school he published an educational work which became popular to an extraordinary degree. In its thirty-fourth edition it is entitled: ‘The English School-master. Teaching all his Scholars, of what age soever, the most easie, short, and perfect order of distinct Reading, and true Writing, our English-tongue, that hath ever yet been known or published by any,’ Lond. 1668, 4to. Other editions were published at London in 1627, 1638, 1667, 1673, 1675, 1692, and 1704. The Dublin edition of 1684 purports to be the forty-second. Heber gave six guineas for a copy of the thirty-seventh edition (1673). The repetition system revived as a novelty by Ollendorff was well known to Coote, who says: ‘I have so disposed the placing of my first book, that if a child should tear out every leaf so fast as he learneth, yet it shall not be greatly hurtful: for every new chapter repeateth and teacheth again all that went before.’ In all the known copies of the ‘English Schoolmaster’ the author is misnamed Edward Coote. 

COOTE, EYRE (1726–1783), general, fourth son of the Rev. Chidley Coote, D.D., of Ash Hill, co. Limerick, a descendant, like the Cootes, Earls of Bellamont, and the Cootes, Earls of Mountrath, of Sir Charles Coote, bart., provost-marshal of Connaught, by Jane Evans, sister of the first Lord Carbery, was born at Ash Hill in 1726. He entered the army at an