on 20 Sept. 1670 he received priest's orders from his father-in-law. On 18 Dec. following he was elected minister of St. Mary, Aldermanbury, by the vestry, but preferring to remain at Northampton he exchanged with the vicar of All Saints, and was instituted to that church on 15 Feb. 1670–1; and, although the living was worth only 100l. a year, he refused to leave it for other preferments which were offered him. These offers were especially made when his church, together with a large part of the town, was destroyed by fire on 20 Sept. 1675, a calamity of which he has left an account in a letter printed by his son. His charities were large, and he was much beloved, being very successful in bringing over nonconformists to the church. On 8 June 1676 he was made archdeacon of Norwich in succession to his wife's uncle, and on 3 Dec. 1681, on the intercession of the earl of Radnor, he received a prebend in Worcester Cathedral. For some years his sight gradually grew weaker, and in 1686 he became totally blind. He died on 12 March 1693, at the age of eighty-six, and was buried in his church at Northampton, where there is an epitaph recording the principal events of his life (Gent. Mag. lxxv. 210).
Six volumes of Conant's sermons have been published: the first in 1693, while he was still alive, by Dr. John Williams; the second, third, fourth, and fifth, in 1697, 1698, 1703, and 1708, by the same when bishop of Chichester; and the sixth, at the request of Conant's son, Dr. John Conant, in 1722, by Digby Coates, principal of Magdalen Hall, Oxford. Besides these his only other extant piece is his copy of verses in Latin and English, printed in the ‘Biographia Britannica.’ One or two letters of his have been printed (Hutchins, Dorsetshire, iii. 25, 26). By his wife, Elizabeth, he had six sons and six daughters. His family is now represented by the Conants of Lyndon Hall, Rutlandshire, who are descended from a younger son.
John Conant (d. 1723), eldest son of John Conant, rector of Exeter, wrote a life of his father, which was published by the Rev. W. Staunton in 1823. He was elected fellow of Merton College, Oxford, in 1676, took the degree of LL.D., and became a member of Gray's Inn. He settled in London and practised successfully at Doctors' Commons. In 1693 he was one of three who were presented to the visitor of Merton for the wardenship, but was not selected. About this time he married Mary, daughter of John West, of the manor of Hampton Poyle in the county of Oxford, and widow of Henry Street of Kidlington. By the death of his father-in-law in 1696 he succeeded to the Hampton Poyle property in right of his wife, and was engaged in some lawsuits connected with the succession. When compelled by failing health to retire from practice he resided at Kidlington, and appears to have died there on 23 Aug. 1723 (Nichols, Herald and Genealogist, iii. 296–9; Brodrick, History of Merton College, 122, 295; Wood's Life, cxi; Fasti Oxon. (Bliss), ii. 387).
[J. Conant's (LL.D.) Life of John Conant; Boase's Register of Exeter College, xxx, 64, 69, 70; Wood's Fasti Oxon. ii. 183, Athenæ Oxon. iv. 397 (Bliss), Hist. and Antiq. ii. 294, pt. ii. 645, 846, Colleges and Halls, 108 (Gutch); Kennet's Historical Register, 180, 843; Calamy's Nonconf. Memorial, i. 229–34, has a hopeless confusion of persons; A Catalogue of Names approved (Somerset); Prince's Worthies of Devon (1701), 223; Bibl. Brit. (1750), iii. 1433–9; Chalmers's Biog. Dict. x. 130–4; Gent. Mag. lxxv. 210.]
CONCANEN, MATTHEW (1701–1749), miscellaneous writer, was born in Ireland in 1701, and deserted the law for literature. In 1721 he brought out a comedy called ‘Wexford Wells.’ In the same year he published a mock-heroic poem called ‘A Match at Football,’ and in 1722 ‘Poems on Several Occasions.’ He came to London with J. Sterling, author of two tragedies (1722 and 1736), and afterwards a clergyman in Maryland. They took to hackwork in literature, and decided (Cibber, Lives) by the toss of a halfpenny that Concanen should defend the ministry, while Sterling was to be in opposition. Concanen published a collection of ‘Miscellaneous Poems’ ‘by several hands’ in 1724. He took part in the ‘London Journal,’ and in a paper called the ‘Speculatist,’ published in 1730. In 1726 Warburton, then a young clergyman in search of preferment, visited London and made the acquaintance of Concanen, Theobald, the Shakespearean critic, and other authors by profession. Warburton says that he gave Concanen money ‘for many a dinner,’ and presented him with the copy of his youthful essay on ‘Prodigies and Miracles’ (1727), which Concanen sold to the booksellers for ‘more money than you (Hurd) would think.’ Concanen had introduced some Shakespearean criticisms of Theobald's, published in the ‘London Journal,’ by some suitable remarks. He also wrote to Warburton for some Shakespearean annotations promised to Theobald, and Warburton replied in a letter (dated 2 Jan. 1727), in which he was unlucky enough to remark that Pope ‘borrowed for want of genius.’ When Warburton had become famous as Pope's literary confidant and advocate, this letter was published by Akenside in a note to his ‘Ode to the late Thomas Edwards’ in
