Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 12.djvu/66

 sorrow.’ He was, however, self-conscious, ill at ease, and fantastic in movement. Macready, after stating that he was deservedly a favourite, says: ‘But unfortunately the tendency of his study was by isolated and startling effects to surprise an audience into applause’ (Reminiscences, i. 41). The knowledge of his height (six feet) preyed upon him. Hazlitt, in his ‘View of the English Stage,’ 1818, dealing with Miss O'Neill's Juliet, has a passage, omitted from the following editions, on Conway's Romeo. ‘He bestrides the stage like a Colossus, throws his arms like the sails of a windmill, and his motion is as unwieldy as that of a young elephant; his voice breaks as thunder on the ear like Gargantua's, but when he pleases to be soft, he is “the very beadle to an amorous sigh.”’ This criticism he ends with the significant addition, ‘Query, why does he not marry?’ For this and other attacks upon Conway Hazlitt made a public apology. An account of Conway's fate, showing that he was mad, and a touching letter to his mother indicating his intention, if possible, to take holy orders, appear in the ‘Dramatic Magazine’ for December 1830. A portrait of Conway by Dewilde is in the Mathews collection in the Garrick Club.



CONY, WILLIAM (d. 1707), captain in the navy, attained that rank on 1 April 1704, when he was appointed to command the Sorlings frigate. In September 1705 he was sent, in company with Captains Foljambe, of the Pendennis, and Martin, of the Blackwall, to convoy the trade to the Baltic. On the return voyage they fell in on 20 Oct. with a squadron of five French ships, four of them of fifty guns, commanded by the Chevalier de Saint-Pol, and having five privateers in company. The privateers captured the merchant ships, thus permitting the ships of war to devote themselves to the three ships of the escort. After a stubborn fight they took them all three, Foljambe and Martin being slain and Cony dangerously wounded. On the part of the French, De Cayeux, one of the captains, lost an arm, and Saint-Pol was killed—a loss which, in the opinion of the French, was poorly compensated for by the successful issue of the combat (, Histoire Maritime, ii. 242). ‘I would,’ the French king is reported to have said, ‘that the English ships were safe at home if I had but Saint-Pol back again.’ Cony, while still a prisoner in France, was tried by court-martial for the loss of his ship, and very honourably acquitted on 20 Jan. 1705–6; and the court further reporting that he had particularly distinguished himself in the action, and had received several dangerous wounds, recommended him to his royal highness's favour. He was accordingly shortly afterwards appointed to the Romney of 50 guns, and commanded her in the Mediterranean under the orders of Sir Clowdisley Shovell. He seems to have been successfully engaged in cruising against the enemy's privateers in the Straits, and was returning home the following year, when, in company with the Association [see ], the Romney and all in her were lost among the Scilly Islands on 22 Oct. 1707.



CONYBEARE, JOHN (1692–1755), bishop of Bristol, was born 31 Jan. 1691–2 at Pinhoe, near Exeter, of which place his father was vicar. He was educated at the Exeter free school. His father's vicarage was wrecked by the famous storm of 1703, and the father died about 1706 of a disorder caught on that occasion. Friends helped Conybeare to continue his education, and he was admitted at Exeter College, Oxford, 22 March 1707–8. He was elected a probationary fellow of his college June 1710, full fellow 14 July 1711. He graduated as B.A. 17 July 1713, and on 30 June 1714 was appointed prælector in philosophy by his college. On 19 Dec. 1714 he was ordained deacon, and 27 May 1716 priest. After holding a curacy for a short time at Fetcham, Surrey, he returned to Oxford, became tutor of his college, and soon obtained reputation as a preacher. St. Mary's was crowded when he was in the pulpit. A sermon on ‘Miracles’ published in 1722 went through four editions, and was followed by another on the ‘Mysteries’ in 1724. Bishop Gibson appointed him one of the king's preachers at Whitehall; and in May 1724 Lord-chancellor Macclesfield presented him to the small rectory of St. Clement's, Oxford. He was proctor 1725, B.D. June 1728, and D.D. Jan. 1729. Among Conybeare's pupils were two sons of Charles Talbot, then solicitor-general. Conybeare dedicated two sermons to the solicitor-general and his father, the bishop of Durham. His chances of preferment were injured by the death of the bishop in 1730. In the same year, however, he was elected rector of Exeter College. Tindal's ‘Christianity as old as the Creation’