were free from the disease which it seems feeds the all his plays it was the last to be banished from the lower slopes of Parnassus with poisonous air. No stage. So late as 1842 Macready revived it (modithree writers were ever more generally beloved-fied of course) at Drury Lane, and this was followed none were ever beloved more deservedly than these. And even Wycherley-he whose literary sins were the most grievous of all-was, on account of his fine social qualities, called 'Manly Wycherley.' That a corrupt court should have spoiled such men as these is, among all the heavy impeachments of the Restoration, the heaviest. Congreve's freedom from the fussy egotism of the literator served him in good stead in regard to the Old Bachelor. Dryden, while declaring that he 'never saw such a first play in his life,' hinted at the same time that a great deal of skilful | manipulation was required before it could be safely placed upon the boards. And he and Southerne and Maynwaring, who set about manipulating it, seem to have had from Congreve carte blanche to do with it as they liked. The brilliant success of the Old Bachelor-a play whose merits were of entirely | a literary kind-is evidence of the enormous change that has come over play-goers since those days. Congreve's second comedy, the Double Dealer, which appeared in the November of 1693, was more firmly knit, and in every way stronger than the Old Bachelor, but the satire on the morals of the time -especially on the meanness and heartless treachery in sexual relations which had become the fashion of the court, was administered in too serious a temper to please an audience composed largely of the very people satirised. The empty-headed beaux and callous women who went to the theatre went there to be amused, not to be sermonised. But besides this repellent quality, the play suffered from a want of dramatic illusion greater in a certain sense than even the Old Bachelor had displayed. An audience can scarcely be interested in the doings of a villain who every few minutes comes to the footlights in order to assure them what a consummate villain he is, and on what admirable psychological principles his creator has fashioned him, nor yet in a hero who lets a villain do what he will in order that the dramatist's plot may be conveniently worked out. In stage-craft Congreve was always weaker than Vanbrugh and Wycherley, but the weakness made itself specially conspicuous here. It was to this play that was prefixed Dryden's famous verses To my dear friend, Mr Congreve,' verses whose generosity passes into pathos. Congreve's next publication was the Mourning Muse of Alexis, a poetic dialogue upon the subject of Queen Mary's death, as full of artificial conceits as his novel. Love for Love, the finest prose comedy in the English language, finished in 1694, was produced at the theatre in Little Lincolns Inn Fields' in 1695. It has an abandonment of humour, an irresistible rush of sparkling merriment, such as Congreve's previous plays had not promised. In judging of its qualities we must not forget that in comedy as in tragedy-in prose as in versenothing is really informed by artistic vitality which lacks the rhythmic rush born of creative enjoyment. To him who is really and truly organised to write, whether in verse or in prose, there is always in the genuine exercise of his faculty a sense of sport as delightful as it is deep, an exhilaration that cannot be simulated and that cannot be supplied to the nervous system of the true writing man by any other stimulant. Not all the Paradis artificiels summoned up by the genii of Opium, Hashish, or Alcohol, can compete with the true paradise which the Genius of the Inkhorn throws open to the born literator when the impulse is really upon him. And as surely as the hilarity of artistic creation is seen in Aristophanes, in Lucian, in Rabelais, in Shakespeare, in Swift, in Dickens, is it seen in Congreve's Love for Love. No wonder then that of by still later revivals, the last of all being a version of the play in three acts, compressed by Mr John Hollingshead at the Gaiety Theatre in November 1871, with Miss Cavendish in Angelica and Miss Farren in Prue. In Love for Love culminated the prose comedy of England. Abundant and brilliant as is the wit, the coruscations do not, as in Congreve's other plays, outdazzle the sweeter and softer light of the humour. The characterisation is true, true under the conditions which, as he himself admirably said in his letter to Dennis, the comedian must always work under. The distance of the stage,' says he, 'requires the figure represented to be something better than the life; and, sure, a picture may have features larger in proportion and yet be very like the original. If this exactness of quantity were to be observed in wit, as some would haye it in humour, what would become of those characters that are designed for men of wit? I believe, if a poet should steal a dialogue of any length from the extempore discourse of the two wittiest men upon earth, he would find the scene but coldly received by the town.' Some of the characterisation, such as that of Angelica, is really beautiful, while some, like that of Sir Sampson Legend, in its genial breadth passes from the comedy of artifice into absolute comedy, and is almost Shakespearian. In 1697 Congreve's one tragedy, the Mourning Bride, appeared. The honours it received in the last century were as excessive as the contempt it has met with in this. No doubt it is full of improbabilities, but it shows a considerable power of invention of melodramatic if not of tragic incident. The purely theatric and scenic qualities of the second act are of a most original, if not of high order, and with the scenic appliances of our own day might be made theatric ally effective. Of course, however, it is coldcold as those monumental caves of death' which 'shot a chillness' to the 'trembling hearts' of Drs Johnson and Blackmore-and nothing could really warm it. : Between the date of the Mourning Bride and that of Congreve's last comedy, the Way of the World, he was busily occupied, in company with several others, in the famous Jeremy Collier controversy, defending the morality of the new stage. The great mistake of Congreve's life was thisof defending his plays on moral grounds. To let well alone is wise: to let ill alone is perhaps wiser still. Of all sins, that of producing harmful literature is the blackest. It is the peculiar glory of letters that stronger than king or kaiser is he who writes strongly. It is so to-day it was so when the warrior kings of Nineveh went out to reap glory-i.e., to slay and flay-in order to furnish the scribe with subjects-in order that the scribe should, in bas-relief and cuneiform character, record their doings. Hence, in the truest and deepest sense, to write is, as Bishop Butler has said, to act; and if, as he declares, endeavouring to force upon our minds a practical sense of virtue, or to beget in others that practical sense of it which a man really has himself, is a virtuous act,' what, on the other hand, was the act of him who wrote certain scenes in the Double Dealer and Love for Love? And yet even this new stage was not without one saving grace till Congreve defended it; it had a frankness in sin that was something at least. Its place was not alongside those filthy French fictions of our own time which, while pandering to the bestial side of man, set up an impudent pretence of doing so for the good of his soul. Congreve in his lame defence condescended to But the part of the hypocrite-condescended to exploit Aristotle's paradox about comedy being an imitation of bad characters-an imitation with an ethical end; as if such comedy as his had anything to do with ethical ends! Notwithstanding the conventional tags at the end of Congreve's plays -tags which had no serious meaning, and were meant to have none-the 'Seventh Hell' of the Hypocrite could never claim the author of Love for Love until he set about defending that play. Better to leave ill alone, we say. Congreve's last play, the Way of the World, was produced in 1700. Though quite as full of intellectual brilliance as Love for Love, and evidently written with more care, not to say labour, it lacks the humorous impulse which we have seen in Congreve's masterpiece. The glitter is that of icicles in the sunlight. The wit of the dialogue is not sufficiently held in hand to work out the characters and the plot. In a word, it comes more completely than does any other of Congreve's plays within the scope of the Duke of Buckinghamshire's strictures upon the comedy of repartee: Another fault, which often does befal, Well may we laugh, but at the poet's cost. This play was received with comparative coldness, and Congreve wrote no more for the stage; but he lived till January 1729. Socially his life was one unbroken success. Physical suffering he had, but most of it was the result perhaps of his own youthful indiscretions. Kneller's portrait shows him to have been a handsome man with dark eyes. His career shows him to have been a man of fine genius who, smitten with the English canker of rankworship, succeeded in half-misprising his endowments and living and dying genteel. He amassed a fortune, and left it not to his greatest friend Mrs Bracegirdle, a woman of genius, of surpassing beauty, and most lovable nature, who had sacrificed everything for him, but to the Duchess of Marlborough, who, after his death, had a waxen statue of him made a statue which sat at her table in his very clothes, and nodded mechanically over the dinner at Her Grace's smallest joke, even as he had used to nod in the flesh. Socially, we say his life was one unbroken success; and in his death he and gentility were not divided. Congreve, SIR WILLIAM, inventor of the Congreve rocket, was born 20th May 1772, the eldest son of William Congreve, Comptroller of the Royal Laboratory at Woolwich, created a baronet in 1812. Young Congreve passed through the Royal Academy at Woolwich, and in 1808, after a long series of experiments, contrived the Congreve rocket. It was tried in the Basque roads in 1809, and at Leipzig in 1813, scarcely with the success that was expected. Honours were heaped on Congreve; he was elected F. R.S., and returned to parliament in 1812. Two years later he succeeded to the baronetcy and his father's place. He died at Toulouse, 16th May 1828. See ROCKET. Coni, or CUNEO, capital of an Italian province, stands in a fruitful district, 48 miles SW. of Turin by rail. It has a fine cathedral, lately restored. It was once strongly fortified, and a place of great strategic importance. Its chief manufactures are silk, cotton, and paper. Pop. (1881) 12,413. Conic Sections. See CONE, CIRCLE, ELLIPSE, PARABOLA, and HYPERBOLA. Coniferæ. This important and interesting order of dicotyledons attained its maximum importance during past geological periods; its world-wide CONIFERÆ geographical distribution and strongly marked family and generic differences being in this way explained-i.e. when we regard the existing forms as the survivors of a larger and once predominant coniferous flora, which has been in good part displaced by the more recent and higher monocotyledonous and dicotyledonous (angiospermous) forms. About 300 species, included in about 33 genera, now remain. Leaving the questions of floral morphology and minute structure which separate the conifers (along with Cycads and Gnetaceae) from the remaining phanerogams or 'angiosperms' to the article GYMNOSPERMS, it may be most profitable here to make a rapid survey of the most important groups of the order, with their principal types. Various systems of classification have been propounded; an old and widely adopted one recognises three sub-orders, the pines (Abietine), cypresses (Cupressinea), and yews (Taxinea). Since, however, the first two of these are much less widely separated from each other than from the third, later systematists are returning to the classification of Lindley, and regard these as making up a single sub-order (Pinoidea) equivalent to the yew (Taxoidea). On account of the exceptional importance of this order, alike in forestry and horticulture, a brief enumeration of the families of these suborders, with mention of their most important species, may now be given. Commencing with the Abietineæ division of Pinoidea, we find three families, the pines proper (Abietina), Araucarias (Araucariina), and Taxodiums (Taxodiina). The genus Abies (including Picea) consists of evergreen trees, or sometimes shrubs, in which the linear and always more or less completely needle-shaped leaves arise singly, and are never clustered in branchlets, while the scales of the cones are not thickened at the tip. The list may be headed by the Spruce Fir, or Norway Spruce (A. excelsa), one of our commonest trees, while A. Douglasii, A. nobilis, and other Californian species are of special beauty as trees and value as timber, with other species too numerous to mention. The old Linnean genus Pinus (from which the firs, larches, and cedars have been separated off as Abies, Larix, and Cedrus respectively) still includes about 100 species, easily distinguished from Abies by the grouping of the leaves upon arrested branchlets, the thickening of the tips of the cone-scales, and other characters. Among the more important species, P. sylvestris (the Scotch fir), P. austriaca (the Austrian pine), P. Laricio (the Corsican pine), P. Pinaster (the cluster pine), and P. Pinea (the stone pine of southern Europe), may be first mentioned, alike on account of their frequency of occurrence in forests and plantations in Europe, and as agreeing in having usually only two leaves on each branch let. large and chiefly Californian series agrees in having three leaves on each sheath. Of these, P. insignis (the Oregon pitch pine), P. Benthamiana, and P. radiata may be mentioned; finally a series, usually five-leaved, includes the Weymouth Pine and White Pine of North-east America (P. Strobus), the Siberian Stone Pine (P. Cembra), &c. Of the allied genus Larix (see LARCH) only L. europaea (deciCEDAR) C. Libanus and C. Deodara are of special dua) need here be mentioned, while of Cedrus (see importance. The Araucariina are familiarly represented by the A. imbricata of Chili, so common in suburban gardens (see ARAUCARIA), and other more graceful but usually less hardy species; as also by the important Kauri pine and other species of Dammara. See DAMMAR. The Taxodiinæ include a number of very important trees, notably the curious umbrella pine (Sciadopitys) of Japan, Cunninghamia sinensis of China, and the colossal Sequoia (Wellingtonia gigantea) CONINGTON of California, with its allied species (see SEQUOIA). In addition to these we may mention also the Japanese Cedar (Cryptomeria japonica, the Virginian Bald Cypress (Taxodium distichum). Among the Cupressiner we have first the cypresses proper, which includes besides the wellknown genus Cupressus (see CYPRESS) the closely allied Retinospora of Japan. Juniperus (see JUNIPER) alone forms another sub-family; while Thuja (see ARBOR VITE) with its immediate allies Thujopsis and Libocedrus constitute a third; and Callitris with Actinostrobus and Fitzroya make up the fourth. Passing now to the sub-order of yews (Taxoidea) we have again two main divisions, the yews proper or Taxes, and the Podocarpeæ. Among the latter we shall only mention the oriental genus Podocarpus, and the beautiful Dacrydium cupressinum of New Zealand; but the former are of much greater variety and importance (see YEW). Besides the species of Taxus, we have especially the Chinese and Japanese Cephalotaxus, the curious Ginkgo (Salisburia) adiantifolia of the same region, together with the Chinese and Californian species of Torreya. In addition to the general article GYMNOSPERMS, and to those devoted to particular genera or species of conifers, the reader should especially consult Engler's Pflanzenfamilien, both for a full summary of our present knowledge and copious references. For the purposes of the English horticulturist Veitch's Manual of Coniferæ is most exhaustive, while Gordon's Pinetum, and Hemsley's Handbook of Hardy Trees, &c. (Lond. 1877), will be found of service to the amateur. Conington, JOHN, a great classical scholar, was born at Boston, 10th August 1825. He was educated at Beverley, and for five years at Rugby, obtained a demyship at Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1843, and next year carried off, in the same term, the Hertford and Ireland scholarships. In 1846 he betook himself to University College, where he was elected to a fellowship two years later. Other distinctions he won were the chancellor's prize for Latin verse, for an English essay, and for a Latin essay. Determining not to take orders, he tried the study of law, but soon abandoned it in disgust. In 1854 he was appointed to the newly-founded chair of Latin Language and Literature at Oxford, which he filled until his untimely death at his native place, October 23, 1869. The impulse that Conington's lofty and contagious enthusiasm gave to classical scholarship and real culture in England was far more considerable than anything he was able to effect in the way of performance. His unique personality and the singular charm of his simple but serious nature made a profound and permanent impression upon his friends and pupils. His greatest work is his edition of Virgil (3 vols. 1861-68), with its singularly subtle and suggestive essays. His edition of the Agamemnon (1848) and Choephori (1857) of Eschylus are of less moment, though indeed the latter is admirable. In his last years he gave himself much to translation, the results of which were his metrical version of the Odes of Horace (1863); the Eneid (1866), in Scott's ballad-metre; the Iliad (1868), in the Spenserian stanza; and the Satires and Epistles of Horace (1869), in the couplet of Pope. Of these the last is without doubt the most valuable. His edition of Persius was published in 1872, and in the same year his Miscellaneous Writings (2 vols.), with a short Life by Professor H. J. S. Smith. Conirostres, a term often applied to a section of Passerine birds, characterised by a strong conical beak. It includes numerous families, and such types as weaver-birds, finches, sparrows, and larks. The character referred to is too external and adaptive to be of much importance, and the term is too wide in its application to be of much use. It is better disused. Coniston Grits and Flags, a series of siliceous sandstones, grits, flags, and conglomerates, belonging to the Silurian system of Cumberland, &c. They take their name from Coniston in Lancashire, and attain a maximum thickness of probably not less than 7000 feet. They are characterisedthe finer grained beds (flags) especially-by the presence of many species of graptolites and other fossils. They are believed to be on the same geological horizon as the Denbighshire grits and flags of Wales. See SILURIAN SYSTEM. Coniston Lake, in the English Lake District, lies in North Lancashire, at the east foot of the Coniston Fells, 9 miles W. of Bowness on Windermere, and 10 by rail NNE. of Foxfield Junction. It is 5 miles long, mile broad, 147 feet above the sea, and its greatest depth is 260 feet. Its waters abound with trout and perch. On the east shore stand Ruskin's home, Brantwood, and Tent House, once Tennyson's residence. The Old Man of Coniston, to the north-west, is 2633 feet high. Conium. See HEMLOCK. Conjugal Rights. See MARRIAGE. Conjugation, a term in Grammar applied to a connected view or statement of the inflectional changes of form that a verb undergoes in its various relations. See the articles GRAMMAR and INFLECTION. Conjugation of Cells, a mode of reproduction in which two apparently similar cells unite, as in Amoeba, Diatoms, Spirogyra, &c. See ALGE, DESMIDS, DIATOMS, and REPRODUCTION. Conjunction, in Astronomy, is one of the Aspects (q.v.) of the planets. Two heavenly bodies tude-that is, when the same perpendicular to the are in conjunction when they have the same longiecliptic passes through both. If they have, at the same time, the same latitude-that is, if they are both equally far north or south of the ecliptic-they appear from the earth to be in the same spot of the heavens, and to cover one another. The sun and In the case of the inferior planets Mercury and moon are in conjunction at the period of new moon. Venus, there is an inferior conjunction when the planet is between the earth and the sun, and a superior when the sun is between the earth and the planet. In general, a heavenly body is in conjunc tion with the sun when it is on the same side of the earth, and in a line with him; and it is in opposi tion to the sun when it is on the opposite side of the earth, the earth being in a line between it and the sun. Planets are invisible when in conjunction with the sun, except in rare cases when an inferior planet passes over the sun's disc, and may be seen as a speck on his surface. Conjunctions are either geocentric or heliocentric, according as they are actually witnessed from the earth, or as they would be witnessed if observed from the sun. In observing a conjunction from the earth's surface it is usual to reduce the observation to what it would be if made from the earth's centre; by this means the exact times of conjunction are more accurately fixed, and the observations of one astronomer made available to every other, wherever he may be on the earth's surface. Grand conjunctions are those where several stars or planets are found together. Chinese history records one in the reign of the Emperor Tehuen-hiu (2514-2436 B.C.), which astronomers calculate to have actually taken place. Conjuring, as understood at the present day, signifies the production of effects apparently miraculous by natural means. The art of producing apparently supernatural phenomena has been cultivated from remote antiquity. The earlier professors of the art claimed bona-fide supernatural powers; and in ages when the most elementary principles of physical science were unknown beyond a very limited circle, it was not difficult to gain credence for such a pretension. The modern conjurer makes no such claim, but tells the public frankly that his marvels are illusory, and rest either on personal dexterity or on some ingenious application of natural principles. Of the conjurers of remote antiquity we have few reliable records; though it is a tolerably safe conjecture that the prestige of the ancient mysteries rested in no small degree upon effects of natural magic. It may also be gathered that the conjurers of old were familiar with certain forms of optical illusion, in which the use of plane and concave mirrors, and a partial anticipation of the principle of the magiclantern, played prominent parts. Chaucer mentions illusions of his own day of which the above seems the most probable solution. In the accounts of very early writers, however, large deductions must be made for the comparative ignorance of the observer, and the desire, common to all narrators of extraordinary occurrences, to make the marvel as marvellous as possible. Perhaps the earliest really trustworthy authority is Reginald Scot, who in his Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584) has enumerated the stock feats of the conjurers of his day. The list includes swallowing a knife; burning a card and reproducing it from the pocket of a spectator; passing a coin from one pocket to another; converting money into counters, or counters into money; conveying money into the hand of another person; making a coin pass through a table, or vanish from a handkerchief; tying a knot, and undoing it by the power of words; taking beads from a string, the ends of which are held fast by another person; making corn to pass from one box to another; turning wheat into flour by the power of words;' burning a thread and making it whole again; pulling ribbons from the mouth; thrusting a knife into the head or arm; putting a ring through the cheek; and cutting off a person's head and restoring it to its former position. Strange to say, many of these feats, which were doubtless already old in the time of Scot, are still performed, with more or less variation of detail, by conjurers at the present day. The conjurers of Scot's time, and even of much later date, were accustomed, in order to facilitate the substitutions on which a great part of their tricks depended, to wear an apron with pockets, known (from its resemblance to a game-bag) as the gibécière. A later school suppressed this tell-tale article of costume, and used instead a table, with cover reaching nearly or quite to the ground. This table concealed an assistant, who worked most of the required transformations, &c., either handing the needful articles to the conjurer as he passed behind the table, or pushing them up through traps in the table-top. Conus the elder, a French conjurer who flourished at the close of the 18th century, made a further improvement by discarding the concealed assistant, and using an undraped table with a secret shelf (now known as the servante) behind it, on which his substitutions were made. His immediate competitors did not follow his example, a whole generation of later conjurers, including Comte, Bosco, and Philippe, retaining the suggestive draped table. Its death-blow, however, was struck by Robert Houdin (1805–71), with whom about 1844 a new era began. His miniature theatre in the Palais Royal was remarkable for the elegant simplicity of its stage arrangements, and in particular for the complete suppression of the boîte à compère ('wooden confederate'), as Robert Houdin CONNAUGHT sarcastically terms it. The new style took with the public, and by degrees Robert Houdin's contemporaries found themselves compelled to follow his example. To Robert Houdin belongs the credit of devising some of the best-known and most ingenious pieces of magical apparatus, as also that of the application of electro-magnetism, then little understood, to the production of magical effects. The wellknown magic drum, that beats without visible drumsticks, the magic clock and bell, and the chest, light or heavy at command, are all fruits of his inventive genius. The most modern school of conjurers, following the lead of Wiljalba Frikell, and at present represented by Hartz, Hermann, Buatier de Kolta, Verbeck, Lynn, Bertram, &c., generally aim at producing their magical results with the minimum of visible apparatus. There are, however, signs of a reaction in favour of more spectacular illusions, such as those of Messrs Maskelyne and Cooke, in which the resources of optical and acoustic, as well as mechanical science, are laid under contribution in aid of conjuring proper. See the articles MAGIC and JUGGLERS. For practical information as to the methods of conjurers, see Hoffmann's Modern Magic (6th ed. 1886) and More Magic (1889); Sleight of Hand, by Edwin Sachs (2d ed. 1885); Robert Houdin's Secrets de la Prestidigita tion et de la Magie (1868; reprinted in 1878 under the title of Comment on devient Sorcier) and Magie et Physique Amusante (1877); and an anonymous work, Recueil de Tours de Physique Amusante (published by De La Rue of Paris). The three last-named works have been translated into English by Hoffmann, under the titles of The Secrets of Conjuring and Magic, The Secrets of Stage Conjuring, and Drawing-room Conjuring respectively. Conkling, ROSCOE, American politician, born in Albany, New York, 30th October 1829, was admitted to the bar in 1850, sat in congress as a Republican in 1858-62 and 1864-66, and was elected to the United States senate in 1867, 1873, and 1879. He was now an influential member of his party; in 1876 he received ninety-three votes for the presidential nomination, and, in 1880, by his support of Grant, and his personal opposition to Blaine, divided the Republicans into two sections. In 1881 he and his colleague suddenly resigned from the senate, owing to a dispute with President Garfield on a question of patronage, and sought re-election; but after a warm canvass, both were rejected, though vigorously supported by Vice-president Arthur. city. He died 18th April 1888. Conkling afterwards practised law in New York Conn, LOUGH, a picturesque Irish lake in the north of County Mayo, together with Lough Cullin (from which it is separated by a narrow neck of land), 13 miles long, and 1 to 3 broad. It lies in a wild romantic region of hills, glens, rocky slopes, precipices, broken ground, and bogs, contains many islets, and has bold shores. Connara'ceæ, a sub-order of Terebinthaceae, including about 25 species, all tropical, of which the most important is Omphalobium Lamberti of Guiana, the source of the zebra-wood of cabinetmakers. Connaught, the most westerly and the smallest, both in extent and population, of the four provinces of Ireland. It is bounded N. and W. by the Atlantic; E. by Ulster and Leinster, from the latter of which it is separated by the Shannon and S. by Munster. It contains the counties of Galway, Leitrim, Mayo, Roscommon, and Sligo. Greatest length from north to south, 105 miles; greatest breadth, not including Achil Island, 92 miles. Area, 6863 sq. m. The west coast has many fine bays and harbours, and the surface, especially in the western half, is mountainous and |