MEMOIR.

THE LIVES of literary men do not often offer any considerable variety of incident, and that of Professor Conington was far from being an exception to this general rule. The habits of a student and a scholar were formed in him at an unusually early age; he showed at all times a marked distaste for any change in his way of life, or for adventure of any kind; and though during a great part of his life he took a keen interest in political and social questions, he never cared to mix with a larger world than that offered to him by his own circle of family and university friends. There is little, therefore, for a biographer to do but to attempt to convey to the readers of these miscellaneous writings something of the impression which the character of their author, by its simplicity and force, its gentleness and purity, made on all who had any opportunities of knowing him intimately.

The following particulars relating to his parentage and early boyhood have been communicated by his family:

His father, the Rev. Richard Conington, was at first curate of the parish church of Boston, and afterwards incumbent of the Chapel-ofEase in the same town. This incumbency he held till the year 1827, when he was presented to the Rectory of Fishtoft, a retired village in the neighbourhood. In 1823 he married his cousin, Jane Thirkill, and their eldest son John was born on August 10, 1825. John was from his birth a grave, quiet child, preferring books to play, and, as he grew older, he always chose the society of grown-up people in preference to that of children of his own age. He knew his letters when he was fourteen months old, and could read well for his own

amusement at three and a half. From his earliest years until he went to school he was his father's constant companion, and under his careful training was laid that solid foundation of reverence for the Word of God, which was the safeguard of his after-life amidst the snares of an intellectual career. Before he was six years old he

was well acquainted with the historical parts of the Scriptures, and it was his constant habit to sleep with a Bible under his pillow, that he might read it as soon as he awoke in the morning. Books, and especially poetry, were ever his delight, and the greatest treat that could be given was to allow him to go into the study and choose a book for himself. When he was eight years old he would in this way amuse himself by comparing different editions of Virgil, and even before he was eight he repeated 1,000 lines of Virgil to his father. Even at that early age, in all his varied reading, the purity and refinement of his taste was remarkable. In 1834 he was sent to a small school at Silk Willoughby, where the Rev. J. Sanders became his tutor. The trial of leaving home for the first time was great, but his spirits were cheered by the promise of being allowed to go into the study when he liked. At the end of two years he was removed to the Beverley Grammar School, under the care of the Rev. Mr. Warren.

At Beverley he appears to have acquired the love of letterwriting, which he retained through his whole life, and which formed a marked peculiarity in his tastes in an age which is said to have almost forgotten the art. His early letters to his father are characterised by an ease and freedom from stiffness, which tell not only of the affectionateness of his temper but also of the command over expression to which he had already attained. The following is a fair specimen :

My dear Papa,

March 12, 1838.

I received your kind letter about a fortnight ago. I am very glad to hear that Henry has obtained the half-holiday, and that Frank has begun Euclid with a relish. I am sorry to hear that you must postpone sending the books I requested, since the third volume of Valpy's Greek Testament is requisite to my at all understanding the meaning of the Epistle to the Hebrews, or cutting anything like a respectable figure in the class. I hope you will not think me idle when I tell you that the five librarians, in which number I am of

course included, have been reading by ourselves, independently of the subjects we prepare for Mr. Warren, some extracts from Theocritus. We have also agreed that every one of our number should devote an hour on Saturday afternoon to the reciting of a lecture on some art or science, the composition of some one or other of the librarians. None but us five know anything of the scheme, so that, between ourselves, you are the only one to whom these arcana have been communicated. My finances are at present reduced to a very low degree; but they have not been expended in any eatables, or anything like that. Two or three weeks ago, seeing a copy of Sotheby's Homer, I resolved to make myself master of it. It was quite new, uncut, unsullied; its publishing price is 31. 128., this one cost me 17. 158. It is accompanied with seventy illustrations by Flaxman. As soon as Mr. Warren saw it, he told me that I had made a very excellent bargain, and soon after procured one himself, but I should hardly think at the same low price. There will then be an additional reason for sending me a parcel; but perhaps you will say you never take hints. I can only hope that this one will not be lost on you. In your next would you be so kind as to send me the last stanza of the parody on Roderick Dhu. Please remember that the books in request are three volumes of Valpy's Greek Testament and Mr. Gee's Virgil. The smallest donations will be thankfully received.

With love to all, I beg to subscribe myself

Your affectionate son,

J. CONINGTON.

P.S. A certain person, whose name I do not care to mention, told me to inform you that he was a good boy. I have written a poem of 104 lines on the Witch of Endor. I have shown it to Mr. Warren, who has as yet given no decision concerning it, so that I am on the eve of expectation.

It may gratify some youthful students of Latin to know that, in the postscript to another letter of about the same date, the future commentator of Virgil observes- Memorandum: My head was tapped yesterday morning for not perfectly understanding a passage of Virgil. The accompanying words' (some customary formula which, it may be presumed, was not very complimentary) were however dispensed with.'

In 1838, at the age of thirteen, he was sent to school at Rugby,

then at the height of its fame under Dr. Arnold. He was placed in the house of Mr. Cotton (afterwards successively Head Master of Marlborough School, and Bishop of Calcutta), to whom he became strongly attached, and whom he regarded through life as one of his most valued friends. But the earlier part of his time at Rugby was not a very happy one. His near-sightedness unfitted him for the active amusements of a public school, and he probably never took part in a game of cricket or football except against his will. The old custom of the school by which all the boys, with hardly any exceptions, were compelled to join in certain football matches, or big-sides, was singularly irksome to him as a young boy, and never found much favour with him when he was older. Indeed, the first recollection of him which I myself retain, is that of seeing him wearily pacing to and fro inside the goal at the sixth form match. But, besides the continual feeling of being out of place which must haunt the mind of every schoolboy who cares for books and does not care for games, there were other and more positive causes of discomfort. The Rugby of those days still retained some of its primæval roughness, and though it may be hoped that even then all the worst forms of bullying had already disappeared, enough of the spirit of it remained to interfere seriously with the comfort of a sensitive boy, whose character and tastes were so much in advance of those around him. But these comparatively evil days were not of long duration, and might have left no deep impression on his memory, if it had not been for the gratitude with which he always remembered any kindness shown to him at this period by his older schoolfellows. Writing in 1859 to a young friend, he says:

Another man there is who has just had his life written as an Indian hero-Hodson, of Hodson's Horse-but I have not seen the book yet, though I am anxious to do so. He was at Rugby years ago with me, though my senior, and for the last half year was head of Cotton's House, to which he had been sent to restore law and order a sort of patron of mine, having considerable literary taste,

while he was a great athlete, so that I used to have the privilege of going to see him in his study and hearing him talk about eminent persons in and out of Rugby, and in return used occasionally to do him a copy of verses, both before and after I got into the sixth form, a piece of compliance which as you know I do not approve of now. I felt quite inclined to regard him as a hero then, and am proud to think that he proved himself so on a wider stage to the world at large.

Conington had never been a fag, having been placed on first coming to the school in the fifth form. By the end of 1839 he was already at the top of the twenty, and in after years he could still remember with pleasure the second Sunday in Advent 1839, when I got perhaps my greatest kudos at Rugby, being thanked for my examination by Price' (the present Professor of Political Economy at Oxford) before the form, as having beaten everybody by 1,300 marks.'

The work of the school had at no time (as may easily be believed) been too hard for him, and in the sixth form which he now entered, and in which, as in most public schools, the boys did not change places, he sometimes found the incentives to exertion insufficient to induce him to put any great strain on his faculties. But he was never idle, and at the times when be was least absorbed in the work of the form, he read largely for himself. Dr. Arnold's estimate of his powers may be gathered from the following passages in letters addressed to his father:

Ambleside, June 20, 1840.

I spoke to him a little before he left Rugby, advising him rather to read during the holidays any good works in English literature, than to work at Latin or Greek. He has an immense advantage in his good scholarship, which will tell with double effect when his general powers of mind are more developed, and his knowledge becomes more extensive.

Fox How, Ambleside, December 26, 1840.

In his work I observe with great pleasure his remarkable memory and very good scholarship; his general knowledge is deficient, and his powers of thought or fancy are not in proportion to his memory; but this is the right order in which the faculties should develope