Bryant, Jacob, was born at Plymouth in 1715, and graduated at King's College, Cambridge, 1740. The Duke of Marlborough gave him a lucrative place in the Ordnance Department. He settled at Cypen- ham, in Berkshire, and died Nov. 4, 1804, of a morti- fication in the leg, occasioned by falling from a chair in getting a book in his library. Bryant was an inde- fatigable and a learned writer, but fond of paradox. His writings are often acute, but at the same time ec- centric and fanciful. He wrote one work to maintain the authenticity of the pseudo Rowley's poems (1781, 2 vols. 12mo), and another to prove that Troy never existed (1796, 4to). His principal production is a New System or Analysis of Ancient Mytholoqu (Lond. 1774, 1776, 3 vols. 4to ; 3d*ed. Lond. 1807, 6 vols, 8vo), and among his other works are Observations relative to Ancient flistorj/ (Camb. 1787, 4to) : — A Treatise on the Authenticity of the. Scriptures (Lond. 1792, 8vo): — Observations on the Plagues of Egypt (Lond. 1794, 8vo): — and Observations on the Prophecy of Balaam, etc. Lond. 1803, 4to). — Davenport, s. v. ; Darling, s. v.
Brydane. See Bkidain.
Bubastis. See Pi-beseth.
Bucer, Martin, an eminent coadjutor of Luther, was born at Schlettstadt, in Alsace, in 1491. His real name was probably Butzer, but some say that it was Kuhhorn, for which, agreeably to the taste of his age, he suIjsI ituted the Greek synonym Bucer (jlovc, tcepac). He assumed the habit of the Dominicans when only fifteen years of age, and studied at Heidelberg for sev- eral years. The writings of Erasmus first shook his faith in Romanism, and afterward, falling in with some of Luther's writings, and hearing Luther himself dis- puting with the Heidelberg doctors, April 26, 1518, he was so impressed as to adopt the doctrines of the Refor- mation. To escape persecution, he took refuge, in 1519, with Franz von Sickingcn ; and in 15"J0 the elec- tor palatine Frederick made him his chaplain. In 1520 he was freed from the obligations of the Domini- can order by the archbishop of Speyer, on the ground that, joining at so early an age as fifteen, he had been per vim el m< turn comptdstu. In 1522 he became pas- tor at Landstuhl, in Sickingen'a domain, ami in the same year married Elizabeth Pallast, thus, like Lu- ther, condemning in .his own practice the unscriptural Romanist notion of clerical celibacy. In 1524 he be- came pastor of St. Aurelia's, in Strashurg, and for twenty years lie was one of the great leaders of the Reformation in that city, and indeed throughout Ger- many, as preacher and professor. His great object throughout life was to promote union among the differ- ent Protestant bodies. In 1529 lie was deputed by the four towns of Strashurg, Memmingen, Landau, and Constance to the conferences appointed by Philip, landgrave of Hesse, to lie held at Marburg. Here Bu- cer exhibited all the astonishing 6ubtilty and fertility
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of bis mind, equalling the most refined of the scholas- tic theologians in subtilty and ingenuity. He suc- ceeded in effecting a kind of conciliation between the Lutherans and Zuinglians on the question of the real presence in the Lord's Supper. He afterward attended other conferences on the same subject, and drew up the concordat of Wittemberg in 1536, but endeavored in vain to bring over the Swiss churches. In 1548, at Augsburg, he refused to sign the celebrated Interim of Charles V. This act, exposing him to many difficul- ties and dangers, made him the more ready to accept the invitation sent to him by Cranmer of Canterbury to come over into England, where he was appointed divinity professor at Cambridge. When Hooper, al- though he had accepted the bishopric of Gloucester, refused to wear the vestments ordered for the episco- pal order, Bucer wrote to him a wise and moderate let- ter, which incidentally gives a deplorable picture of the state of the Anglican Church at this period. The services, he says, were said in so cold and unintelligi- ble a manner that they might as well have been said in the Indian tongue ; neither baptism nor marriage were celebrated with decency and propriety; there were, he says, no catechetical instructions, no private admonitions, no public censures. In 1550 he wrote his Censura, or Animadversions on the Booh of Common Prayer, Cranmer having desired to have his opinion of the book, which was for that purpose translated into Latin by Ales (q. v.). Although in the beginning of his work he declares that he found nothing in the book which was not either plainly taken out of Holy Writ, ©r at least agreeable to it, he urges pretty large alter- ations to avoid Romanist perversions, many of which were happily carried into effect. Bucer died Feb. 28, 1551, at Cambridge, and was followed to the grave by 3000 persons. Five years afterward (in Mary's time) his body was dug up and publicly burned as that of a heretic. He was a very prolific writer. A full list of his works is given by Ilaag, La France Prot. iii, G8. A bitterly prejudiced account of him is given by Hook, Eccl. B'wg. iii, 190-218. His Scripta Anglicana, pub- lished at Basel (1577, fol.), contains a biography of him. An edition of his works, which was to comprise 10 volumes, was commenced by K. Hubert (Basel, 1577), but only one volume appeared. The first good biography of Bucer was published by Baum, Capito und Bucer; Leben und ausgewiihlte Schriften (Elberf. 1860). — Procter, On Common Prayer, p. 32, 41 ; Burnet, Hist, of Reformation, ii, 139, 247, 538 ; Mosheim, Ch. Hist, iii, 162, 167; Herzog, Real-EncyklopMie, ii, 420; Landon, Feci. Dictionary, ii, 432.