ess 



BRUYN, CORNELIUS. 



BRYANT, JACOB. 



936 



Among the somewhat large sacrifices which La Bruyere thought it 

 expedient to make to the prevailing opinions of the day, his work 

 frequently gives indications of a bolder manner of thinking the pre- 

 cursor of the philosophy of the succeeding century. It even appears 

 to have been his wish to let posterity into the secret of his cautious 

 dissimulation. " Satire," says he, " is shackled in him who is born a 

 Christian and a Frenchman. Great topics are interdicted him. He 

 enters upon them now and then, but soon turns aside to minor 

 subjects, to which he imparts an interest and ail importance by his 

 genius and his style." Since it was this twofold relation of subject of 

 Louis XIV. and of Christian (he ought rather to have said Papist) 

 that imposed upon La Bruyere the trammels of which he complains, 

 it may be inferred, that notwithstanding his cold eulogies of the 

 absolute monarch and his gloomy theology, he by no means par- 

 ticipated in that respect for despotism and for the abuses of Popery 

 which so strongly characterised the age of Louis XIV. The persecu- 

 tions which rewarded the generous and liberal principles advocated, 

 in hia ' Telemachus,' by Fe'ne'lon, as well as those suffered by Moliere, 

 turned La Bruyere aside to less dangerous subjects, to the details of 

 social, and the follies of private life. Malignity however assailed him, 

 even within the narrow limits to which he had confined himself, of 

 criticisms on the morals and the habits of his times. Upon com- 

 pleting his ' Characters,' he showed the book to M. de Malezieux, who 

 said, "this will procure you many readers and many enemies," a 

 prediction which was fully accomplished, for while the book was read 

 with avidity the moment it appeared, intentions were attributed to 

 the author of which he was certainly innocent. The originals of La 

 Bruyere' s portraits were discovered, as it was pretended, and their 

 names were published in a 'Key to the Characters," which thus formed 

 a kind of scandalous commentary, in which the persons designated 

 could not complain that they were calumniated, though they were 

 held up to public ridicule. 



La Bruyere, though rarely profound, is always judicious, natural, 

 and nicely discriminative; and if his views of human nature are not 

 very extensive, he amply compensates for the deficiency by the close- 

 ness of his inspection. He places the most trite and common cha- 

 racters in a new and unexpected light which strikes the imagination, 

 and keeps attention alive. Perhaps he too often affects strong contrasts 

 and violent antitheses, and in wishing to avoid sameness falls into the 

 error of attempting too much variety, in which he loses his indi- 

 viduality. His style is characterised by strong powers of delineation, 

 and the talent of a great painter must undoubtedly be conceded to 

 him, though he is not altogether free from the charge of occasional 

 affectation. 



If it be true, as has been remarked, that Theophrastus, whose work 

 was studied and translated by our author ('Sieur de la Bruyere's 

 posthumous Dialogues upon Quietism, continued and published by 

 Louis Ellias Dupin,' Paris, 1699, 12mo.) may be said to have formed 

 La Bruyere, it must be admitted that this is the highest praise that 

 we can give to the Greek author. But nothing is less just than to 

 draw this manner of parallel. It is impossible to judge rightly or 

 even to understand the 'Characters' of Theophrastus, without pos- 

 sessing accurate notions of the political, moral, and social condition 

 of the people whose features they represent If we compare for a 

 moment only the political and social position of the Athenians with 

 the reign of Louis XIV., before whose despotism and ostentation 

 men of all ranks in France obsequiously bowed ; if we identify and 

 familiarise ourselves with the respective circumstances under whose 

 influence the two authors wrote, we shall no longer entertain the 

 idea of comparing Theophrastus with La Bruyere : the sole resem- 

 blance between them consists in the minuteness and accuracy of their 

 observation, and in the justness and spirit of the strokes by which 

 each has delineated his characters. 



La Bruyere's work, stamped as it is with the impress of a sound 

 judgment and a good-natured satire, is one of those advisers we always 

 consult with pleasure and advantage. It anticipates our knowledge 

 of the world and perfects it ; and although the manners and characters 

 therein delineated may undergo changes and modifications, its interest 

 will be always the same, because, like all great works which take 

 nature as their basis, jf, will always be true. 



Numerous editions of the ' Characters ' of La Bruyere have appeared 

 since 1687 ; but the best is that of 1827. 2 vols. 8vo, with a life of La 

 Bruyere, by Monsieur Sicard, a prefatory notice and original notes by 

 Monsieur Auger, to which are annexed the ' Characters ' of Theo- 

 phrastus, with additions and notes by M. Schweighaeuser. 



BROYN, CORNELIUS, a painter and traveller of some eminence, 

 was born at the Hague in 1C52. In 1674 he quitted his native country 

 to explore by rather a novel route Russia, Persia, the Levant, and 

 the East Indies, and he did not return home for many years. His 

 first work, ' Voyage to the Levant,' was published iu folio at Paris in 

 1714. It relates chiefly to Egypt, Syria, the Holy Laud, Rhodes, 

 Cyprus, Scio, and Asia Minor, and is embellished with more than 200 

 engravings, representing eastern cities, ruins, natural productions, 

 costumes, &c. All these plates were executed from drawings made 

 by himself on the spot, and, though somewhat hard, there is a great 

 deal of truth and nature in them. His second work, ' Travels through 

 Muscovy, in Persia, and the East Indies,' was published at Amsterdam 

 by the brothers Wetgtein in 1718 ; it contains upwards of 300 



engravings, and is also in folio. Many of these plated, representing 

 eastern ceremonies, ancient edifices, animals, birds, fish, plants, and 

 fruit, are admirably executed. Several of the engravings are devoted 

 to the ruins of Persepolis. Another edition of the second work 

 with corrections and notes, by the Abb<5 Banier, was brought out'at 

 Rouen in 4to, 1725. In this second work will be found much informa- 

 tion concerning the coasts of Arabia, the island of Ceylon, Batavia, 

 Bantam, and parts of Russia. At Batavia, where there were many 

 Chinese colonists, he carefully investigated some of the manners and 

 customs of that extraordinary people. He was residing on that island 

 when the English buccaneer William Dampier, or, as he calls him, 

 " the famous Captain Damper," arrived there from Ternate, after a 

 most extraordinary voyage and series of adventures. [DAMPIEH.] The 

 value of Bruyn's second work is further increased by an account of 

 the route taken by M. Isbrants, the ambassador of Muscovy, through 

 Russia and Tartary to China. 



In 1714, the year in which he published his first great work, Bruyn 

 put forth in Holland a small disputative treatise, entitled ' Remarks 

 on the engravings of old Persepolis, formerly giveu by Messieurs 

 Chardin and Ksempfer, and the mistakes and errors in them clearly 

 pointed out.' In this pamphlet he defends himself for the differences 

 between the plates of his own work and those of Chardin, arid shows 

 in what portions of the engravings his own are the more correct. His 

 ' Remarks ' are in Dutch, his ' Travels' in French ; but the ' Remarks' 

 were afterwards translated into French, and published in an appendix 

 to his second great work in 1718. 



The compilers of cyclopaedias and biographical dictionaries have 

 gone on repeating one after the other, and evidently without looking 

 into the old traveller's books, that, though curious and instructive, 

 Bruyn is inelegant in his style, and not always exact iu his facts. 

 Now in reality his style, though exceedingly simple, and somewhat 

 deficient in warmth and picturesque beauty, is very far from being 

 inelegant, and his exactness, a quality he had in common with so 

 many old travellers of his nation, is everywhere admirable. For the 

 fidelity of his descriptions of most of the places he visited in the 

 Levant, we can vouch from our own personal observation. He was 

 not credulous himself, and he several times censures the credulity of 

 explorers who had preceded him. 



BRYANT, JACOB, was born at Plymouth in 1715 ; his father, who 

 held a post in the custom-house of that town, was transferred in the 

 seventh year of his son's age to Kent, in which county Jacob Bryant 

 received his early education at Luddesdown, near Rochester, whence 

 he was afterwards removed to Eton. Having been elected fellow of 

 King's College, Cambridge, he graduated A.B. in 1740, and A.M. in 

 1744. Being early distinguished for his attainments and love of 

 letters, he was appointed tutor to Sir Thomas Stapylton, and after- 

 wards to the Marquis of Blandford and his brother Lord Charles 

 Spencer, at that time at Eton. A complaint in the eyes obliged him 

 for a short time to relinquish this occupation, but having returned to 

 it, he was rewarded in 1756 by the appointment of secretary to the 

 Duke of Marlborough, who, continuing his patronage when nominated 

 master-general of the ordnance, took him as a secretary and travelling 

 companion during his command in Germany, and gave him a lucrative 

 situation in his own public office. His circumstances thus being ren- 

 dered easy, he devoted his whole life to literature, and twice refused 

 an office which has frequently been much coveted by others the 

 mastership of the Charterhouse. 



The history of his life is embraced in that of his publications, all of 

 which are distinguished by learning, research, and acuteneas, but are 

 more or less disfigured by fanciful conjectures and wild speculations. 

 His first work was ' Observations and Inquiries relating to Various 

 Parts of Ancient History,' Cambridge, 4to, 1767. In contradiction to 

 Bochart, Grotius, and Bentley, he here, among other things, contends 

 that the wind Euroclydon, mentioned in Acts xxvii. 14, ought properly 

 to be termed Euroaquilo ; and in opposition to the same writers, 

 together with Cluverius and Beza, he affirms that the island Melite, 

 mentioned in the last chapter of the same book, is not Malta. The 

 remaining subjects treated of in this volume are very obscure and 

 very remote from common inquiry. He professed to throw light upon 

 the earliest state of Egypt, upon the Shepherd Kings, and upon the 

 history of the Assyrians, Chaldacans, Babylonians, and Edomites. 

 Pursuing a similar course, he published in 1774 the first two volumes 

 of the work upon which his fame chiefly depends ' A New System or 

 Analysis of Ancient Mythology, wherein an attempt is made to divest 

 Tradition of Fable, and to restore Truth to its Original Purity.' It 

 appeared in quarto, and was followed by a third volume in 1776. 

 Besides the nations whose history he had formerly investigated, he 

 now turned to the Canaanites, Helladians, lonians, Leleges, Dorians, 

 Pelasgi, Scythse, Indoscythic, Ethiopians, and Phoenicians; pressing 

 into his service every scattered fragment which his extensive reading 

 enabled him to collect, and supporting his arguments by numerous 

 forced and oftentimes false etymologies. This publication involved 

 him in much controversy, which he undertook in part anonymously, 

 and in part, particularly iu defence of the Apamean medals, in the 

 ' Gentleman's Magazine.' The Apameau medals were struck in honour 

 of Septimius Seyerus, at Apameia, a town in Phrygia. The devices 

 on them are a rainbow, a dove, a raven, and an olive-branch, and the 

 legend NtlE. This treatise was published separately in 1775, in 4to; 



