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JOHN CONINGTON (1825—1869)

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Originally appearing in Volume V06, Page 942 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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JOHN CONINGTON (1825—1869)  ,
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English classical scholar, was born on the loth of August 1825 at Boston in
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Lincolnshire . He knew his letters when fourteen months old, and could read well at three and a
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half . He was educated at Beverley Grammar school, at
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Rugby and at Oxford, where, after matriculating at University College, he came into residence at Magdalen, where he had been nominated to a demyship . He was Ireland and Hertford scholar in 1844; in March 1846 he was elected to a scholarship at University College, and in December of the same
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year he obtained a first class in
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classics; in
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February 1848 he became a
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fellow of University . He also obtained the Chancellor's prize for Latin verse (1847), English essay (1848) and Latin essay (1849) . He successfully applied for the Eldon law scholar-
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ship in 1849, and proceeded to
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London to keep his terms at Lincoln's
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Inn . The legal profession, however, proved distasteful, and after six months he resigned the scholarship and returned to Oxford . During his brief residence in London he formed a connexion with the
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Morning Chronicle, which was maintained for some time . He showed no
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special aptitude for journalism, but a series of articles on university reform (1849—1850) is noteworthy as the first public expression of his views on a subject that always interested him . In 1854 his appointment, as first occupant, to the chair of Latin literature, founded by Corpus Christi College, gave him a congenial position . From this time he confined himself with characteristic conscientiousness almost exclusively to Latin literature . The only important exception was the
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translation of the last twelve books of the Iliad in the Spenserian stanza in completion of the
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work of P .

S .

Worsley, and this was undertaken in fulfilment of a promise made to his dying friend . In 1852 he began, in conjunction with Prof . Goldwin Smith, a
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complete edition of Virgil with a commentary, of which the first
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volume appeared in 1858, the second in 1864, and the .third soon after his
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death . Prof . Goldwin Smith was compelled to withdraw from the work at an early stage, and in the last volume his place was taken by H . Nettleship . In 1866 Conington published his most famous work, the translation of the Aeneid of Virgil into the octosyliabic metre of Scott . The version of Dryden is the work of a stronger artist; but for fidelity of rendering, for happy use of the principle of compensation so as to preserve the general effect of the
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original, and for beauty as an
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independent poem, Conington's version is
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superior . That the measure chosen does not reproduce the majestic sweep of the Virgilian verse is a fault in the conception and not in the execution of the task . Conington died at Boston on the 23rd of
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October 1869 . His edition of
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Persius with a commentary and a spirited
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prose translation was published posthumously in 1872 .

In the same year appeared his

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Miscellaneous Writings, edited by J . A . Symonds, with a memoir by Professor H . J . S . Smith (see also H . A . J . Munro in Journal of
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Philology, ii., 1869) . Among his other
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editions are Aeschylus,
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Agamemnon (1848), Choephori (1857); English verse
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translations of Horace, Odes and Carmen Saeculare (1863), Satires, Epistles and Ars Poetica (1869) .

End of Article: JOHN CONINGTON (1825—1869)
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