The appearance of a learned and exhaustive work on the life and labours of Koraes, by a native Greek of great ability, naturally invites the scholars of Western Europe to a grateful acknowledgment of the obligation of the Greek language to this most distinguished of its modern exponents. The fact, indeed, that Greek in this country is popularly talked of as a dead language, and as such taught from books through the eye and the understanding, rather than by living converse with those who speak it, may serve as an apology for the general ignorance that prevails, even in professional circles, with regard to the scholarly achievements of this remarkable man; but the appearance of works of such mark in the living literature of Greece as those of Thereianos, Paspates, Bikellas, Polylas, and others, warns us that it is high time to take note of living Greece as living Greece again, and give to the learned Grecians of the present day their proper share in that homage which we pay so liberally to the great masters of Greek wisdom in the past.

Adamantios Koraes was born at Smyrna in 1748, the son of a Chiote merchant who had removed from the island to the great centre of commerce on the Continent. As a boy young Koraes was remarkable for his love of learning and his hatred of the Turks as the enslavers and debasers of his people; and having inherited a valuable library from one of his maternal relatives, he found it necessary to acquire the Latin language, in which all the famous commentaries on the great Greek classics had been composed.