He was Craven university scholar in 1821 (bracketed with Lord Macaulay and Henry Maiden), wrangler and senior chancellor's medallist in 1822 and became a fellow of Trinity in 1823.[4] In 1824 he was elected professor of ancient languages in the new University of Virginia at Charlottesville, but after four years returned to England as the first professor of Greek at the newly founded University College in London.[1] Long owned (or possibly hired) a slave named Jacob while he was at the University.[5]
He contributed the Roman law articles to Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, and wrote also for the companion dictionaries of Biography and Geography. He is remembered, however, mainly as the editor of the Bibliotheca Classica series—the first serious attempt to produce scholarly editions of classical texts with English commentaries—to which he contributed the edition of Cicero's orations (1851–1862).[6]
See HJ Matthews, in Memoriam, reprinted from the Brighton College Magazine, 1879.
Family
During his time in Virginia, Long married Harriet Selden (nee Gray), the widow of Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph Selden, a judge of the Supreme Court of Arkansas.[2] When the Longs returned to England in 1828, they took with them their Virginia-born slave, Jacob Walker. As slavery was no longer legal in England, Jacob is listed as a manservant on the 1841 census. The Longs had four children together, along with two daughters from Harriet's previous marriage. Harriet died from cancer in 1841, and when Jacob Walker died two months later from smallpox following an inoculation, he was interred in the same grave, which is now listed Grade II on the National Heritage List for England.[2]
^Gayle M. Schulman (2005). "Slaves at the University of Virginia"(PDF). Latin American Studies. Retrieved 17 October 2020. Soon after he arrived from England George Long acquired a slave, Jacob.