Chapter Collins to Cooper of C by Biographical Dictionary of English Literature

soon relinquished it, and devoting himself to scholarship, became Professor of Latin at Oxford (1854- 1869). His chief work is his translation of Virgil’s Æneid in the octosyllabic metre of Scott (1861-68). He also translated the Satires and Epistles of Horace in Pope’s couplets, and completed Worsley’s Iliad in Spenserian stanza. He also brought out valuable edition of Virgil and Perseus. Conington was one of the greatest translators whom England has produced.

Constable, Henry (1562-1613).—Poet, son of Sir Robert Constable, educated at Cambridge, but becoming a Roman Catholic, went to Paris, and acted as an agent for the Catholic powers. He died at Liège. In 1592 he published Diana, a collection of sonnets, and contributed to England’s Helicon four poems, including Diaphenia and Venus and Adonis. His style is characterised by fervour and richness of colour.

Cooke, John Esten (1830-1886).—Novelist, born in Virginia, illustrated the life and history of his native state in the novels, The Virginia Comedians (1854), and The Wearing of the Gray, a tale of the Civil War, and more formally in an excellent History of the State. His style was somewhat high-flown.

Cooper, James Fenimore (1789-1851).—Novelist, born at Burlington, New Jersey, and educated at Yale Coll., he in 1808 entered the U.S. Navy, in which he remained for 3 years, an experience which was of immense future value to him as an author. It was not until 1821 that his first novel, Precaution, appeared. Its want of success did not discourage him, and in the next year (1822), he produced The Spy, which at once gained him a high place as a story-teller. He wrote over 30 novels, of which may be mentioned The Pioneers (1823), The Pilot (1823), The Last of the Mohicans (1826), The Prairie (1826), The Red Rover (1831), The Bravo (1840), The Pathfinder, The Deerslayer (1841), The Two Admirals (1842), and Satanstoe (1845). He also wrote a Naval History of the United States (1839). Cooper was possessed of remarkable narrative and descriptive powers, and could occasionally delineate character. He had the merit of opening up an entirely new field, and giving expression to the spirit of the New World, but his true range was limited, and he sometimes showed a lack of judgment in choosing subjects with which he was not fitted to deal. He was a proud and combative but honest and estimable man.