Long, GEORGE

Long, GEORGE, scholar, was born at Poulton, Lancashire, 4th November 1800, and from Macclesfield went up in 1818 to Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1821 he was bracketed with Malden and Macaulay for the Craven scholarship; in 1822 graduated as a wrangler and senior Chancellor's medallist, and in 1823 was made Fellow of his college. In 1824 he accepted the chair of Ancient Languages in the university of Virginia, United States; but he returned to England in 1828 to become Greek professor in London University. Subsequently, at different periods of his life, he taught as professor of Latin at University College, London (1842-46), reader in jurisprudence and civil law to the Middle Temple (1846-49), and classical lecturer at Brighton College (1849-71). He had a share in founding the Royal Geographical Society (1830), and from 1831 took an active interest in the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, writing books for its library and editing its Journal of Education. But the magnum opus of his life was the editing (1833-46) of the Penny Cyclopaedia, to which he was one of the most valuable contributors. Besides this he edited the Biographical Dictionary (1842-44), Knight's Political Dictionary (1845-46), the excellent Bibliotheca Classica series, and many admirable versions of classic authors. He also translated Selections from Plutarch's Lives, Thoughts of M. Aurelius (1862), and Discourses of Epictetus (1877), contributed extensively to Smith's Classical Dictionaries, and wrote Decline of the Roman Republic in 5 vols. He died 10th August 1879.