Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 07.djvu/163

 Bowyer's 'Miscellaneous Tracts,' 1785, 4to; and his literary labours closed with 'Observations upon some Passages in Scripture' (relating to Balaam, Joshua, Samson, and Jonah), London, 1803, 4to. It is apparent, however, from the preface to Faber's 'Mysteries of the Cabiri,' 1803, 8vo, that Bryant had written a kind of supplement to his 'Analysis of Ancient Mythology,' a work on the Gods of Greece and Rome, which, in a letter to Faber, he said, 'may possibly be published after his death,' but his executors have never produced the work. Some of his humorous poems are found in periodicals of his time, but are of little interest except as examples of elegant Latin and Greek verse.

Bryant, who was never married, had resided a long time before his death at Cypenham, in Farnham Royal, near Windsor. There the king and queen often visited him, and the former passed hours alone with him enjoying his conversation. A few months before his end came he said to his nephew, 'All I have written was with one view to the promulgation of truth, and all I have contended for I myself have believed.' While reaching a book from a shelf he hurt his leg, mortification set in, and he died 14 Nov. 1804. His remains were interred in his own parish church, beneath the seat he had occupied there, and a monument was erected to his memory near the same.

In person he was a delicately formed man of low stature; late in life he was of sedentary habits, but in his younger days he was very agile and fond of field sports, and once by swimming saved the life of Barnard, afterwards provost of Eton. To the last he was attached to his dogs, and kept thirteen spaniels at a time. He was temperate, courteous, and generous. His conversation was very pleasing and instructive, with a vein of quiet humour. There are many pleasant anecdotes of him in Madame d'Arblay's 'Diary and Letters.' In his lifetime his curious collection of Caxtons went to the Marquis of Blandford, and many valuable books were sent from his library to King George III. The classical part of his library was bequeathed to King's College, Cambridge; 2,000l. to the Society for Propagating the Gospel, 1,000l. to superannuated collegers of Eton School, 500l. to the poor of Farnham Royal, &c.

The English portrait prefixed to the octavo edition of his work on ancient mythology is from a drawing by the Rev. J. Bearblock, taken in 1801. All literary authorities, and his monument, give the year of his birth as above, but in the Eton register-book he is entered as '12 years old in 1730.'

 BRYCE, ALEXANDER (d. 1832), major-general and colonel-commandant royal engineers, entered the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, as a cadet on 7 Oct. 1782, and passed out as a second lieutenant, royal artillery, on 25 Aug. 1787. In the autumn of that year he was employed with Captain (afterwards Major-general) W. Mudge in carrying out General Roy's system of triangulation for connecting the meridians of Greenwich and Paris, and in the measurement of a 'base of verification' in Romney Marsh, particulars of which will be found in 'Phil. Trans.' 1790. Bryce was transferred from the royal artillery to the royal engineers in March 1789, and became a captain in the latter corps in 1794. After serving some years in North America and the Mediterranean, he found himself senior engineer officer with the army sent to Egypt under Sir Ralph Abercromby, in which position he was present at the landing, in the battles before Alexandria, and at the surrender of Cairo, and directed the siege operations at Aboukir, Fort Marabout, and Alexandria. For his services in Egypt he received the brevet rank of major and permission to wear the insignia of the Ottoman order of the Crescent. Subsequently, as colonel, he served some years in Sicily. In the descent on Calabria he commanded a detachment of Sir John Stuart's army that captured Damienti, and was commanding engineer in the expedition to the bay of Naples in 1809 and in the defence of Sicily against Murat (, Narrative). In 1814 he received the rank of brigadier-general, and was appointed president of a commission to report on the restoration of the fortresses in the Netherlands. He became a major-general in 1825, and in 1829 was appointed inspector-general of fortifications, a post he was holding at the time of his decease. Bryce, who was much esteemed in private life as well as professionally, died, after a few hours' illness, at his residence, Hanover Terrace, Regent's Park, on 4 Oct. 1832. [Kane's List of Officers R. Art. (Woolwich, 1869); Phil. Trans. 1790; Annual Army Lists; Wilson's Expedition to Egypt (London, 1802); Bunbury's Narrative of certain Passages in the