Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 12.djvu/20

 successively head-master of Marlborough College and bishop of Calcutta. On 30 June 1843 Conington matriculated at University College, Oxford, but immediately afterwards obtained a demyship at Magdalen. He went into residence in October 1843, and in the Lent term of the following year carried off the Hertford and Ireland university scholarships. Having but little prospect of a lay fellowship at Magdalen, and having determined not to take holy orders, he returned in 1846 to University College, where he was elected to a scholarship. In December 1846 he obtained a first class in the school of ‘litteræ humaniores.’ In 1847 he won the chancellor's prize for Latin verse, and in 1848 that for an English essay. In the same year he was elected to a fellowship at University, and obtained the chancellor's prize for a Latin essay in 1849.

He was a layman, and to all appearance cut off from any hope of an academical career. He determined, therefore, to try his chances at the bar, and accordingly in 1849 applied for and obtained the Eldon law scholarship. As Eldon scholar he was required to keep his terms regularly at the Inns of Court, and devote himself bonâ fide to the study of law. Finding residence in London and the study of law insupportable, Conington resigned the Eldon after six months and returned to Oxford. After more than three years of a somewhat unsettled existence, he was, in 1854, elected to fill the newly founded chair of the Latin language and literature. This professorship he held until he died at his native town, Boston, after a few days' illness, on 23 Oct. 1869.

Some of Conington's earliest and unpublished writings seem to show that he had the ordinary ambition of a clever Englishman to make a figure in the world. Literature was, no doubt, his real love, yet he never ceased to keep his eye upon public affairs, and was even supposed to have all through his life a secret but forlorn hope of one day becoming a member of parliament. But the bias of his intellect was peculiar, and necessarily drove him away from public life to books. He combined with a fondness for books, and especially for poetry, an extraordinary verbal memory. Before he was eight years old he repeated to his father a thousand lines of Virgil. At the age of thirteen, when at Beverley school, he wrote a poem on the Witch of Endor, and spent 1l. 15s. on a copy of Sotheby's ‘Homer.’

Before leaving Rugby in 1843 (aged 18) Conington felt a strong inclination to go to Oxford. He was probably attracted by the prospect of an active and exciting intellectual life. It is curious that his judgment, which he did not follow, drew him in the direction of Cambridge. Cambridge, he thought, insisted upon a valuable preparatory training, whereas ‘Oxford men, without any such preparation, which they affect to despise, proceed to speculate on great moral questions before they have first practised themselves with lower and less dangerous studies. And this, I look upon it, is the cause of the theological novelties at Oxford.’ To Oxford, however, he went, and read with the eminent scholar Linwood, who had the same passion for Greek plays as his pupil, and something of the same powers of memory. After his brilliant success in gaining the Hertford and the Ireland in one term Conington betook himself to the ordinary course of Oxford reading, the central point of which was the, study of ancient history and philosophy. For history and metaphysics Conington had little taste; for Aristotle and Plato he hardly cared at all.

His interest in religious and moral questions was much deeper, and for the discussion of these he then, as always, had a strong taste. He took an active part in the debates of the Union Society, of which he was secretary in 1845, president in 1846, and librarian in 1847. These debates were at that time, says Professor Smith, ‘in great favour, and it was quite the fashion to attend them. … Conington had some personal difficulties to contend against, among which his near sight, and an occasional hesitation in speaking, were not the least. But, in spite of them, he soon established for himself a good position with his audience, and obtained as much control over them as any of his contemporaries. There was sense and sound reasoning even in his most unprepared speeches, and he always, in speaking no less than in writing, had at his command a copious supply of polished language. His delivery was never free from embarrassment; but notwithstanding this there was something fine and classical in his way of speaking.’ That he should have been touched by the enthusiasm of the Anglican movement, and with another enthusiasm sometimes combined with it, that of political radicalism, during these years is only natural. He was indeed, for a few years after he took his degree, considered by the Oxford tory party as a dangerous innovator. Others saw a little further. ‘Conington,’ some one is reported to have said, ‘write about the working classes! They are only a large generalisation from his scout.’

In the summer of 1847 he went to Dresden with his friends, Mr. Goldwin Smith and Mr. Philpot, and had an interview at Leipzig