Carel Gabriel Cobet (28 November 1813 – 26 October 1889) was a Dutch classical scholar.

Biography

He was born in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

, but educated in the Netherlands, at the

Gymnasium Haganum The Gymnasium Haganum is one of the oldest public schools in the Netherlands, located in the city of The Hague. First mentioned in 1327, the school is currently housed in a monumental Renaissance Revival architecture building, built in 1907. It ...

and the

University of Leiden Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; nl, Universiteit Leiden) is a public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. The university was founded as a Protestant university in 1575 by William, Prince of Orange, as a reward to the city of Le ...

. The university conferred on him an honorary degree, and recommended him to the government for a travelling pension. The ostensible purpose of his journey was to collate the texts of

Simplicius of Cilicia Simplicius of Cilicia (; el, Σιμπλίκιος ὁ Κίλιξ; c. 490 – c. 560 AD) was a disciple of Ammonius Hermiae and Damascius, and was one of the last of the Neoplatonists. He was among the pagan philosophers persecuted by Justinian i ...

, which, however, engaged but little of his time. He contrived to study almost every

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

manuscript in the Italian libraries, and returned after five years with an intimate knowledge of

palaeography Palaeography ( UK) or paleography ( US; ultimately from grc-gre, , ''palaiós'', "old", and , ''gráphein'', "to write") is the study of historic writing systems and the deciphering and dating of historical manuscripts, including the analysi ...

. In 1846 Cobet was married, and in the same year was appointed to an extraordinary professorship at Leiden. He spent the rest of his life there. An appreciative obituary notice by WG Rutherford appeared in the '' Classical Review'' of December 1889.

Works

In 1836 Cobet won a gold medal for an essay entitled ''Prosopographia Xenophontea'', a description of the characters in the ''

Memorabilia A souvenir (), memento, keepsake, or token of remembrance is an object a person acquires for the memories the owner associates with it. A souvenir can be any object that can be collected or purchased and transported home by the traveler as a m ...

'', '' Symposium'' and ''

Oeconomicus The ''Oeconomicus'' ( grc-gre, Οἰκονομικός) by Xenophon is a Socratic dialogue principally about household management and agriculture. ''Oeconomicus'' comes from the Ancient Greek words ''oikos'' for home or house and ''nemein'' w ...

'' of

Xenophon Xenophon of Athens (; grc, Ξενοφῶν ; – probably 355 or 354 BC) was a Greek military leader, philosopher, and historian, born in Athens. At the age of 30, Xenophon was elected commander of one of the biggest Greek mercenary armies o ...

. His ''Observationes criticae in Platonis comici reliquias'' (1840) revealed his critical faculty. Cobet's 1846 inaugural address, ''De Arte interpretandi Grammatices et Critices Fundamentis innixa'', has been called the most perfect piece of

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

prose written in the 19th century. In 1850 Cobet published a major critical edition of the ''Lives of Eminent Philosophers'' (''Diogenis Laertii De Clarorum philosophorum vitis, dogmatibus et apophthegmatibus libri decem'', Pariisis, Didot). In 1856 he became joint editor of ''

Mnemosyne In Greek mythology and ancient Greek religion, Mnemosyne (; grc, Μνημοσύνη, ) is the goddess of memory and the mother of the nine Muses by her nephew Zeus. In the Greek tradition, Mnemosyne is one of the Titans, the twelve divine chil ...

'', a

philological Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as t ...

review, which he soon raised to a leading position among classical journals. He contributed to it many critical notes and emendations, which were afterwards collected in book form under the titles ''Novae Lectiones, Variae Lectiones'' and ''Miscellanea Critica''. In 1875, he took a prominent part in the Leiden Tercentenary, and impressed all his hearers by his facility in Latin improvisation. In 1884, when his health was failing, he retired as emeritus professor. Cobet's special weapon as a critic was his consummate knowledge of

, but he also had a rare acumen and wide knowledge of classical literature. He may have been over-enthusiastic in his emendation of difficult passages, ignoring the comments of other scholars. He had little sympathy for the German critics, and maintained that the best combination was English good sense with French taste. He always expressed his obligation to the English, saying that his masters were three Richards: Richard Bentley, Richard Porson and Richard Dawes.

References

Attribution: * {{DEFAULTSORT:Cobet, Carel Gabriel 1813 births 1889 deaths Linguists from the Netherlands Corresponding members of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences Academic staff of Leiden University Leiden University alumni