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His first publication was “Observations and Inquiries relating to various parts of Ancient History: containing Dissertations on the wind Euroclydon, and on the Island Melite, together with an account of Egypt in its most early state, and of the Shepherd Kings; wherein the time of their coming, the province which they particularly possessed, and to which the Israelites afterwards succeeded, is endeavoured to be stated. The whole calculated to throw light on the history of that ancient kingdom, as well as on the histories of the Assyrians, Chaldeans, Babylonians, Edomites, and other nations,” 1767, 4to. In this volume, with great modesty, and yet with well-grounded resolution, he attacks Bochart, Grotius, and Bentley, who supposed that Euroclydon, the name of a wind mentioned in Acts xxvii. 14th verse, is a misnomer, and ought to be read Euroaquilo, and very ably supports the present reading. In proving that the island Melite, mentioned in the last chapter of the Acts, is not Malta, he has to contend with Grotius, Cluverius, Beza, Bentley, and Bochart, and his arguments on this question are upon the whole conclusive. It happened that the hypothesis he suggested was brought forward about the same time by an ingenious Frenchman, and neither of them was acquainted with the opinion of the other. The remainder of this volume evinces uncommon research and acuteness, but not unmixed with that inclination to bold conjecture and fanciful speculation which more or less influenced the composition of all Mr. Bryant’s works. His next communication to the public, and the work on which his character as a scholar must ultimately rest, was his “New System or Analysis of Ancient Mythology; wherein an Attempt is made to divest Tradition of Fable, and to reduce Truth to its original Purity.” Of this publication the first and second volumes came forth together, in 1774, and the third followed two years after. It being his professed design to present a history of the Babylonians, Chaldeans, Egyptians, Canaanites, Helladians, lonians, Leleges, Dorians, Pelasgi, and other ancient nations, his researches for this purpose were not only of necessity recondite, but in many instances uncertain; but to facilitate his passage through the mighty labyrinth which led to his primary object, he not only availed himself of the scattered fragments of ancient history wherever he could find them, but also of a variety of etymological aids; for being persuaded that the human race were the offspring of one stock, and conceiving thence that their language in the beginning was one, this favourite notion was exemplified by him in the investigation of radical terms, and application of these as collateral aids. As his knowledge of the oriental dialects was very confined, upon some occasions he has indulged too freely to fancy; yet his defects in this kind of learning form a strong plea in his favour; for if, without fully understanding these languages, he has succeeded in tracing out so many radicals as his table of them exhibits, and more especially if he has been right in explaining them, it will follow that his explanations must be founded on truth, and therefore are not chimerical. In opposition, however, to them, Mr. Bryant experienced some severe and petulant attacks: first, from a learned Dutchman, in a Latin review of his work; and shortly after from the late Mr. Richardson, who was privately assisted by sir William Jones; a circumstance which there is reason to think Mr. Bryant never knew. Mr. Richardson, in the preface to his Persian Dictionary, has no doubt successfully exposed some of Mr. Bryant’s etymological mistakes with regard to words of eastern origin. Bryant had a favoyrite theory with regard to the Amonians, the original inhabitants of Kgypt^ whose name, as well as descent, he derives from Ham, but Richardson has stated an insuperable objection to the derivation of the name, for though the Greeks and Latins used Ammon and Hammou indifferently, yet the Heth in Ham is a radical, not mutable or omissible; and had the Greeks or Latins formed a word from it, it would have been Chammon, and not Ammon, even with the aspirate. To these and other strictures, Mr. Bryant replied in an anonymous pamphlet, of which he printed only a few copies for the perusal of his friends; and that part of his work which relates to the Apamean. medal having been particularly attacked, especially in the Gentleman’s Magazine, he defended himself in “A Vindication of the Apamean Medal, and of the inscription NilE, together with an illustration of another coin struck at the same place in honour of the emperor Severus.” This was first published in the Archaeologia, and afterwards separately, 1775, 4to, and although what he offered on the subject was lightly treated by some, whose knowledge in inedallic history is allowed to be great, yet the opinion of professor Eckhel, the first medallist of his age, is decidedly in favour of Mr. Bryant. And whatever may be the merit, in the opinion of the learned, of Mr. Bryant’s “New System” at large, no person can possibly dispute, that a very uncommon store of learning is perceptible through the whole; that it abounds with great originality of conception, much perspicacious elucidation, and the most happy explanations on topics of the highest importance: in a word, that it stands forward amongst the first works of its age.

, or, as he signs in his French letters, La Croix, a learned Dutchman, was born at Delft, about the end of the sixteenth century, and was first educated under the elder Trelcatius at Leyden, and afterwards at Franeker, where he studied divinity, Hebrew, and Greek, under Drusius, &c. He also read history, philosophy, and poetry, and occasionally amused himself with writing Latin poetry. He became pastor at Delft, the only situation he appears to have held in the church. When he died is not mentioned by Foppen or Moreri; and the little we know of him is gleaned from his curious volume of miscellanies and epistolary correspondence, the best edition of which was published at Amsterdam, 1661, 12mo, under the title of “Jacobi Crucii Mercurius Batavus, sive epistolarum opus, monitis theologicis, ethicis, politicis, ceconomicis, refer turn, editio aucta et recognita.” This work is replete with judicious remarks, and literary anecdote, and contains many letters from Rivet, Colvius, Lanoy, Salmasius, Vossius, and other learned contemporaries. The freedom of some of Crucius’s observations procured it a place in the Index Expurgatorius, Jan. 25, 1684. He published also “Suada Delphica, sive orationes LXIX. varii argurnenti, ad usury studiosae juventutis,” Amst. 1675, 12mo, and often reprinted.

, a learned Dutchman, was born in 1579 at Losdun, a town near the Hague, where his father was minister. At six years of age his father began to teach him the elements of the Latin language; and the year after sent him to a school at the Hague, where he continued four years. He was then removed to Leyden, and made so great a progress in literature, that at twelve he could write with fluency in Latin. He advanced with no less rapidity in the Greek language, for which he conceived a particular fondness; insomuch that at thirteen he made Greek verses, and at sixteen wrote a “Commentary upon Lycophron,” the most obscure of all the Greek authors. When he had finished the course of his studies, and gained the reputation of a person from whom much might be expected, the famous John Barnevelt intrusted him with the education of his children; and he attended them ten years, at home and in their travels. This gave him an opportunity of seeing almost all the courts in Europe, of visiting the learned in their several countries, and of examining the best libraries. As he passed through Orleans, in 1608, he was made doctor of law. Upon his return to Holland, the curators of the academy of Leyden appointed him, in 1610, professor of history, and afterward of Greek; and the year following, the States of Holland chose him for their historiographer. In 1612 he married a lady of an ancient and good family, by whom he had a son, called after his own name, who died in the flower of his age, yet not till he had given specimens of his uncommon learning, by several publications.