advancing charity;’ and, the jury returning a verdict of guilty, the defendants were fined 6s. 8d. each. In 1722 Comyns was again returned to parliament for Maldon. In 1726 (7 Sept.) he was sworn a baron of the exchequer in the place of Sir Francis Page, and knighted. In January 1735–6 he was transferred to the common pleas, and two years later (July 1738) he was appointed lord chief baron of the exchequer by Lord Hardwicke. He died on 13 Nov. 1740, and was buried in the parish church of Writtle near Chelmsford. He married thrice, but left no issue. His estate of Highlands, near Chelmsford, passed to his nephew, John Comyns. Comyns is the author of two legal works of great authority, viz.: 1. ‘Reports of Cases adjudged in the Courts of King's Bench, Common Pleas, and Exchequer.’ 2. ‘A Digest of the Laws of England.’ Both works were written in ‘law French.’ The ‘Reports’ were translated by the judge's nephew, J. Comyns of the Inner Temple, and published in one volume in 1744, with the sanction and approbation of the judges. They were re-edited in 1792 by Samuel Rose. A translation of the ‘Digest’ was issued in five instalments between 1762–7 (inclusive), and a supplement in one volume was added by ‘a gentleman of the Inner Temple’ in 1776. The work was re-edited and issued in 5 vols. 8vo by Samuel Rose in 1800, and by Anthony Hammond, with considerable additions, in 8 vols. 8vo in 1822. A reprint of this, which is known as the fifth edition, edited by Thomas Day, and incorporating American decisions, was published in New York and Philadelphia in 1824–6, also in 8 vols. 8vo. The authority of Comyns has been treated with signal respect by some of the most eminent of his successors on the bench. Thus Lord Kenyon observed that ‘his opinion alone was of great authority, since he was considered by his contemporaries as the most able lawyer in Westminster Hall;’ Lord Ellenborough described the ‘Digest’ as a ‘book of very excellent authority;’ and Lord-chief-justice Best thought himself ‘warranted in saying that we cannot have a better authority than that eminent writer.’
[Morant's Essex, ii. 60; Lists of Members of Parliament (Official Return of); Luttrell's Relation of State Affairs, v. 561, vi. 720; Howell's State Trials, xv. 1410–14; Lord Raymond's Reports, ed. Bayley, p. 1420; Gent. Mag. ii. 825, vi. 56, viii. 381, 547, x. 571, xiv. 112; Harris's Life of Lord Hardwicke, i. 188, 291, 305; Foss's Lives of the Judges; Maule and Selwyn's Rep. i. 363; Barnewall and Alderson's Rep. i. 713; Price's Rep. viii. 61; Term Rep. iii. 64, 631; Bingham's Rep. v. 387.]
CONCÆUS. [See Cinn, George.]
CONANT, JOHN (1608–1693), rector of Exeter College, Oxford, son of Robert and Elizabeth Conant, was born at Yettington in the parish of Bicton, Devonshire, on 18 Oct. 1608. As a child he showed signs of genius, and accordingly his uncle, John Conant, rector of Limington, Somerset, put him to the free school at Ilchester, where he remained until he was eighteen, and then, on 18 Feb. 1626-7, he matriculated as a commoner of Exeter, having Lawrence Bodley, nephew of Sir Thomas Bodley, as his tutor. He was distinguished for his ability, and Dr. Prideaux, the rector of the college, used to say of him, 'Conanti nihil difficile.' He proceeded B. A. 26 May 1631, and incepted M.A. 12 Jan. 1634. Thoroughly master of Greek he disputed several times publicly in the schools in that language, and he not only understood Hebrew, but had a considerable knowledge of Arabic, Syriac, and other oriental languages. On 30 June 1632 he was chosen probationer, and was admitted actual fellow on 3 July 1633. He entered deacon's orders, and remained at the college taking pupils until 1642, when the outbreak of the civil war scattered his pupils. He left Oxford, and, as he hoped before long to be able to return, did not take his books with him ; they were of considerable value, and he never regained them. He went down to Limington, intending to remain with his uncle, who had evidently acted as a kind of guardian to him. The rector, however, appears to have already left the parish ; he was a prominent puritan, and had had some difficulties with Piers, his bishop. Conant stayed for a while at Limington and preached there every week. When in April the commons voted that an assembly of godly divines should be called to reform the church, the two ministers selected for Somerset were Samuel Crooke [q. v.] of Wrington, and Conant of Limington (A Catalogue of Names approved), and it has been asserted that this was the young fellow of Exeter (Prince, Worthies of Devon, 224, who confuses the Somerset village with the town of the same name in Hampshire ; CALAMT, i. 229 ; Chalmers, Biog. Dict. x. 131). It is certain, however, that the selected divine was Conant's uncle, the rector, for Conant himself never took the covenant (see Bliss's note to Wood's Athenæ, iv. 398). After he had for a time taken his uncle's place he was forced to flee, for on one occasion he had been seized by some soldiers, and taken some way with them in the hope of extorting ransom (Conant, Life, 6). He accordingly joined his uncle, who was then ministering at St. Botolph's
