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

 Edifices of the Olden Time,' 2 vols, largo fol., London, 1842 (the plates in this book previously used in Dugdale's 'Monasticon'), and 'Original Drawings of London Churches,' London, 8vo, 1820. There is in the department of prints and drawings in the British Museum a fine set of Coney's etched and engraved works, besides several original drawings. He exhibited at the Royal Academy ten works between 1805 and 1821.



CONGALLUS I, CONALL, son of Domangart, son of Fergus Mor Mac Earc, king of the Scots of Dalriada (511–535?), according to the chronology of Father Innes and Mr. Skene, was the third king of this race who ruled in Argyll and the Isles, but is reckoned as the forty-fourth according to the fictitious chronology of the older historians, Fordun, Boece, and Buchanan, who date the origin of this kingdom from Fergus I, son of Ferchand, in the fourth century B.C.



CONGALLUS II, CONALL, son of Congallus I, king of the Scots of Dalriada (557–574), according to the chronology of Innes and Skene, is redeemed from the obscurity of the early kings and brought within the pale of history by the brief notice of Tighernach, the Irish annalist, who states the year of his death, and adds that he gave the island of Iona to Columkille (St. Columba). Bede attributes the grant to Brude, the Pictish king, whom Columba visited and converted at his fort on Loch Ness, but the discrepancy is ingeniously, if not certainly, reconciled by the hypothesis of Dr. Reeves, that Conall gave and Brude confirmed the grant as a superior king, or perhaps because Iona lay on the confines of the Pictish territory. On the death of Conall, Columba ordained Aidan, the son of Gabran (the king who preceded Conall), as his successor, apparently in conformity with the law of tanistry. In the year of Conall's death a battle, recorded by Tighemach, had been fought at Delgin in Kintyre, in which Duncan, son of Conall, and many of the kin of Gabran were killed, probably by the Picts, who were endeavouring to crush the rise of the Dalriad kingdom.



CONGALLUS III, CONALL CRANDONNA, son of Eocha Buidhe, king of Scottish Dalriada (642–660), succeeded as king of Dalriada on the death of his brother, Donald Brec, who was killed in a battle on the Carron by Owen, a British king (d. 642?), and reigned till 660, during part of the time in conjunction with another king, Donald, who is supposed to have belonged to another race and not to have been descended from Aidan. This is a period of great darkness in the annals of Dalriada, and Mr. Skene's explanation may be given as the best conjecture of the cause: 'During the remainder of this century we find no descendant of Aidan recorded bearing the title of king of Dalriada; and it is probable from Adamnan's remark, that "from that day, i.e. the death of Donald Brec, to this they have been trodden down by strangers," that the Britons now exercised a rule over them' (Celtic Scotland, i. 250).



CONGLETON, Lord. [See, 1776–1842.]

CONGREVE, WILLIAM (1670–1729), dramatist, was born at Bardsey, near Leeds, where he was baptised on 10 Feb. 1669–70—a fact first ascertained by Malone (Life of Dryden, i. 225). He was the son Congreve; his mother's maiden name Browning. His grandfather, Richard Congreve, was a cavalier named for the order of the Royal Oak, whose wife was Anne FitzHerbert. The family had been long settled at Stretton in Staffordshire. Congreve's father was an officer, who soon after the son's birth was appointed to command the garrison at Youghal, where he also became agent for the estates of the Earl of Cork, and ultimately moved to Lismore. Congreve was educated at Kilkenny school, where he was a school-fellow of Swift, his senior by two years. He was entered at Trinity College, Dublin, on 5 April 1685, where, like Swift, he was a pupil of [q. v.] Swift, who took his B.A. on 13 Feb. 1686, resided at Dublin till the revolution. They were therefore contemporaries at college, and formed an enduring friendship.

Congreve, on leaving Dublin, entered the Middle Temple, but soon deserted Law for literature. His first publication was a poor novel called 'Incognita, or Love and Duty reconciled,' by Cleophil, written 'in the idler hours of a fortnight's time.' His first play, the 'Old Bachelor,' was brought out in January 1692–3. It was written, as he says in the dedication, nearly four years previously, in order (reply to Collier) to 'amuse himself in a slow recovery from a fit of sickness.' Dryden pronounced it to be the best first play he had