KOSTER, LIMOLPH, one of the ablest Greek scholars of his day, born at Blomberg in West phalia, Feb. 167o, and educated by his elder brother at the Joachim College at Berlin. His ability as a student attracted the notice of Span heim, who became his patron, and by whose influence he obtained the reversion of a professor ship in the college. While waiting for a vacancy he visited many of the chief seats of learning in Europe, consulting libraries, examining and col lating MSS., and cultivating the society of scholars. His long-expected chair proved any thing but a position of comfort, so after holding it about a year he gave up the post in disg-ust, and retired to Amsterdam. Having removed to Paris, where he joined the Romish Church, he was brought to the notice of Louis XIV. by the Abbe Bignon, and was rewarded with a handsome pension and admission into the Academy of In scriptions. He was planning new and important works when he was carried off by an abscess in the liver, October 12, 1716, before he had com pleted his forty-seventh year. Besides his edition of Suidas, which though able was too hasty, and left much for future editors, and his contributions to the Thesauruses of Grxvius and Gronovius under the homonym of Neocorus (the Greek tmnslation of Kiister =Sacristan), he was the author of many classical treatises, especially that on the Middle Verb.
His claim to a place in a Biblical cyclopmdia rests on his edition of Mill's Greek Testament, published at Rotterdam 171o. The title - page describes his part in the work, Collectionem Millianam recensuit, meliori ordine disposuit, novis que accessionibus locupletavit.' His additions consist of the various readings of twelve MSS., of which the most important is the Codex Boerne litmus, afterwards admirably edited by Matthmi. The edition also contains a preface by Kiister, and a letter of Le Clerc's, discussing a number of various readings, of some historical interest. Ac cording to Tregelles, it is usually considered inferior in accuracy to Mill's original edition.— E. V.