164 Biographical Sketch of the [Sept. 



About this time he communicated various articles to the 

 British Bibliographer, under the signature of C. ; and amongst 

 others, we believe, an Abstract of all that had been pub- 

 lished on Saxon Literature : he had previously made some 

 communications to the Censura Literaria ; among them a short 

 memoir of W. Stevens, Esq. FSA. and Treasurer of Queen 

 Anne's Bounty, celebrated for his learning in Divinity, and the 

 intimate friend from youth of Bishop Home. In 1809, he 

 printed, for private distribution only, an abstract, in George 

 Ellis's manner, of the celebrated French metrical Romance of 

 Octavian, Emperor of Rome; the only exemplars of which 

 are the manuscript in the Bodleian Library from which 

 Mr. Conybeare made his abstract, and an indifferent trans- 

 lation into English, in the Cottonian Library. In November, 

 1811, he communicated to the Society of Antiquaries an 

 inedited fragment of Anglo-Saxon poetry, contained in a MS. 

 Volume of Homilies in the Bodleian Library ; and presenting 

 a specimen of our language and poetry, at the latest period at 

 which they could fairly be denominated Saxon ; Wanley sup- 

 posing it to have been written about the time of Henry the 

 Second; and Mr. Conybeare himself, from its inferiority to 

 earlier specimens, placing the time of its composition lower 

 than the era of the Norman Conquest. This communication 

 is printed in vol. xvii. of the .Archseoloo-ia. 



In the year 1812, Mr. Conybeare was elected to the office of 

 Regius Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford ; and 

 was presented by his College to the Vicarage of Bath Easton, 

 near Bath, which he held until his death. Whilst Professor of 

 Poetry he made some valuable communications to the Society 

 of Antiquaries ; of which learned body, however, he was not a 

 Fellow ; a circumstance somewhat remarkable, considering, 

 that next to Theology, his active attention was principally 

 engaged by Antiquarian Literature. The communications to 

 which we allude were as follows : 



The seventeenth volume of the Archfeologia contains, besides 

 the fragment of poetry just alluded to, three papers by Mr. C. 

 presenting extracts from as many poems contained in the 

 volume of Miscellaneous Saxon Poetry given by Leofric, the 

 first bishop of Exeter, to the Cathedral Church of that diocese, 

 and still preserved in its capitular library. These extracts he 

 accompanied with literal translations into Latin prose, preserv- 

 ing with the most scrupulous fidelity both the sense and 

 verbal construction of the original ; and with paraphrases 

 somewhat more liberal in English verse. " I have always con- 

 sidered this double version," he observes, " as the readiest 

 means of enabling those who are unacquainted with the lan- 

 guage of the originals, to form at the same time a tolerably 



