Jacob Bryant
Encyclopedia
Jacob Bryant was a British scholar and mythographer, who has been described as "the outstanding figure among the mythagogues who flourished in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries".

Life

Bryant was born at Plymouth
Plymouth
Plymouth is a city and unitary authority area on the coast of Devon, England, about south-west of London. It is built between the mouths of the rivers Plym to the east and Tamar to the west, where they join Plymouth Sound...

. His father worked in the customs there, but was afterwards moved to Chatham. Bryant was first sent to a school near Rochester, and then to Eton College
Eton College
Eton College, often referred to simply as Eton, is a British independent school for boys aged 13 to 18. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor"....

. In 1736 he was elected to a scholarship at King's College, Cambridge
King's College, Cambridge
King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college's full name is "The King's College of our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge", but it is usually referred to simply as "King's" within the University....

, where he took his degrees of B.A. (1740) and M.A. (1744), later being elected a fellow. He returned to Eton as private tutor to the Duke of Marlborough
George Spencer, 4th Duke of Marlborough
George Spencer, 4th Duke of Marlborough KG, PC, FRS , styled Marquess of Blandford until 1758, was a British courtier and politician...

. In 1756 he accompanied the duke, who was master-general of ordnance and commander-in-chief of the forces in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, to the Continent
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

 as private secretary. He was rewarded by a lucrative appointment in the ordnance department, which allowed him time to indulge his literary tastes. He was twice offered the mastership of Charterhouse school, but turned it down.

Bryant died on the 14th of November 1804 at Cippenham
Cippenham
Cippenham is a suburb of the unitary authority of Slough in the county of Berkshire, England. It was transferred to Berkshire from Buckinghamshire in 1974.The name, Cippenham derives from the old English Cippan-ham, meaning Cippa's homestead....

 near Windsor
Windsor, Berkshire
Windsor is an affluent suburban town and unparished area in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead in Berkshire, England. It is widely known as the site of Windsor Castle, one of the official residences of the British Royal Family....

. He left his library to King's College, having previously made some valuable presents from it to the king and the Duke of Marlborough. He bequeathed £2000 to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and £1000 for the use of the retired collegers of Eton.

Works

His chief works were A New System or Analysis of Ancient Mythology (1774-76, and later editions), Observations on the Plain of Troy
Troy
Troy was a city, both factual and legendary, located in northwest Anatolia in what is now Turkey, southeast of the Dardanelles and beside Mount Ida...

(1795), and Dissertation concerning the Wars of Troy (1796).

The New System attempted to link the mythologies of the world to the stories recorded in Genesis. Bryant argued that the descendents of Ham
Ham, son of Noah
Ham , according to the Table of Nations in the Book of Genesis, was a son of Noah and the father of Cush, Mizraim, Phut and Canaan.- Hebrew Bible :The story of Ham is related in , King James Version:...

 had been the most energetic, but also the most rebellious peoples of the world and had given rise to the great ancient and classical civilisations. He called these people "Amonians", because he believed that the Egyptian god Amon
Amon
Amon can refer to:* Amun, an Ancient Egyptian deity, also known as Amon and Amon Ra* Amon , a Goetic demon* Amon * Former name of the band Deicide* Amon of Judah, king of Judah and son of Manasseh...

 was a deified form of Ham. He argued that Ham had been identified with the sun, and that much of pagan European religion derived from Amonian sun worship.

In his books on Troy he endeavoured to show that the existence of Troy and the Greek expedition were purely mythological, with no basis in real history.

Though sceptical about Troy he was an implicit believer in the authenticity of Thomas Chatterton
Thomas Chatterton
Thomas Chatterton was an English poet and forger of pseudo-medieval poetry. He died of arsenic poisoning, either from a suicide attempt or self-medication for a venereal disease.-Childhood:...

's fabrications. Chatterton had created poems written in mock Middle English
Middle English
Middle English is the stage in the history of the English language during the High and Late Middle Ages, or roughly during the four centuries between the late 11th and the late 15th century....

 and had attributed them to Thomas Rowley, an imaginary monk of the 15th century.

Bryant's theories are widely credited as an important influence on the mythological system of William Blake
William Blake
William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age...

, who had worked in his capacity as an engraver on the illustrations to Bryant's New System. Bryant's theories also influenced the work of his friend Sir William Jones
William Jones (philologist)
Sir William Jones was an English philologist and scholar of ancient India, particularly known for his proposition of the existence of a relationship among Indo-European languages...

.

He also wrote on theological subjects.

External links

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