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JACOB BRYANT.

"UNUM liceat memorare hodie superstitem, sed provectum annis, et valetudine infirmâ, lumen sæculi, famæque certum postere, virum perenni virtutis ingeniique memoriâ dignissimum, JACOBUM BRYANT, qui inter gravia et recondita scientiarum et historiæ principia, et in Christi fide promovendâ versatissimus, Musis tamen omnibus vacans, Romani carminis vestigia domi et in hospitio tenet, colitque non ut advena, sed ut civis Romanus in ætate Augusti." Such is the testimony borne by one accomplished Etonian to the genius of another; such the tribute paid by a devoted son to the merits of a father's friend!1

Jacob Bryant, one of the most learned scholars whom it has been the fortune of Eton to produce, was the son of an officer in the Civil Service of the Customs at Plymouth, in which town the future mythologist and philological writer was born in the

1 Judge Hardinge, ' De Vitâ Nicolai Hardinge;' N. Hardinge's 'Poems,"

p. iv.

year 1715. Having previously been instructed in the elements of classical literature at a private school at Luddesdown, in Kent, he was thence transferred to the foundation at Eton, where, ere long, the rapid progress which he made in his studies, combined with the extraordinary retentiveness of his memory, not only led to his being regarded as a prodigy of youthful learning, but, long after he had left Eton, the intellectual feats which he had there achieved are said to have been still traditionary in the school. Though of diminutive stature and delicate frame, we find him remarkable at Eton for his agility, especially as a swimmer, an accomplishment which enabled him, on a critical occasion, to effect the rescue of Dr. Barnard, afterwards successively Head Master and Provost of Eton, who, when in the form below him at school, was indebted to him for his deliverance from a watery grave. In 1736 Bryant was elected to King's College; in 1740 he took his degree as B.A., and in 1744, his degree as M.A.

About the year 1749, Jacob Bryant, having previously filled the situation of private tutor to Sir Thomas Stapylton, afterwards father to Thomas Lord Le Despencer, was chosen by Charles, third Duke of Marlborough, to superintend in the same capacity the pupilage of his grace's two elder sous, George Marquis of Blandford and Lord Charles Spencer, on their first admission to Eton school.

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That he discharged his preceptoral duties to the entire satisfaction of the Duke may be assumed from the facts of his grace, on being constituted Master General of the Ordnance in 1755, selecting him to be his Private Secretary, and subsequently appointing him to a lucrative post in that department. Moreover, on the occasion of the Duke's last visit to Germany, where he died in 1758, the friend whom he invited, and induced to accompany him, was his former Private Secretary.

It was probably shortly after the return of Jacob Bryant from Germany that he settled himself at Cypenham, in Berkshire, in the classical vicinity of Windsor and Salt Hill, a spot which, during the remainder of his long existence, continued to be his home and the scene of his literary labours. Here not only was his useful existence gracefully and tranquilly passed, but so contented does he seem to have been with his lot, that, according to the authority of his old schoolfellow, Cole the antiquary, although the Mastership of the Charter House was twice offered to him, the appointment was on both occasions refused. The loss, in the mean time, which he sustained by the death of his kind patron, the Duke of Marlborough, was at once made up to him by the succession as fourth Duke of his attached pupil, Lord Blandford, who not only continued to him the liberal allowance said to be a thousand a year-which had been paid to him by the late Duke, but by a legal

settlement converted it into an irrevocable annuity. Happily, a love of books and of intellectual retirement, which was common to both, rendered the Duke and his former tutor admirably well suited to enjoy each other's society. To the close indeed of the scholar's life, not only do the gates of Blenheim seem to have ever opened to him as if it had been to his second home, but during two generations of the house of Spencer, its members, young as well as old, appear to have entertained no other feelings towards him than those of veneration and love.

Jacob Bryant, in fact, was apparently gifted with every qualification calculated to render him an object of admiration and love. His conversation is described as having been the happiest combination of instructive knowledge, of lively anecdote, and innocent fun. Enjoying a strong, though harmless, sense of the ridiculous, it was the bent of his quaint and quiet humour to convulse a whole company with laughter, while he himself sat with every muscle in his face unmoved. He was liberal, hospitable, and charitable. His temper was sweet; his manners gentle and engaging. Moreover, he was not only a deeply-read and firm believer of the truth of Christianity, but in all the relations of life fulfilled, in the purest and plainest acceptation of the term, the duties of the Christian character.

The literary work by which Jacob Bryant first established a high reputation for schorslarip was his

learned dissertation on the wind Euroclydon (Acts xxvii. 14), and on the Island of Melita, a work in which he had the boldness to combat the hitherto unanswered theories of Grotius, Bochart, and Bentley. This publication, which first appeared in 1767, was followed, in 1774, by his magnum opus, and still highly-valued, Analysis of Heathen Mythology.' Other works-sometimes, indeed, paradoxical, yet on all occasions displaying uncommon learning and research-emanated from time to time from his pen; one exceptionable and notable literary failure, however, to which he exposed himself, being his advocacy of the antiquity and authenticity of Chatterton's celebrated metrical forgeries; yet, even in this case, egregiously as he had deceived himself, no less unsparing a rival disputant than Walpole has borne ample testimony to the ability with which he had defended his propositions. "Mr. Bryant," he writes reasons admirably, and

to Cole, "as I expected,

staggered me; but when I took up the poems called Rowley's again, I protest I cannot see the smallest air of antiquity but the old words."1 Bryant's remaining literary productions may be passed over with little remark. Ever ready to testify his gratitude to the Spencer family, the mythologist, at the wish and expense of the Duke of Marlborough, produced a splendid volume on the Marlborough Cabinet of Gems; and, in 1792, at the solicitation of the 1 Walpole's 'Letters,' vol. viii. p. 137.