known to travellers of that time. This tour forms the subject of his book, ‘A Tour through Sicily and Malta, in a Series of Letters to William Beckford, Esq., of Somerly in Suffolk,’ published in 1773. It was favourably reviewed (Monthly Review, xlix.), and so well received by the reading public, that it went through seven or eight editions in England in his lifetime, and was also translated into French and German (Brit. Mus. Cat.) In Italy, nine years after its publication, Count Borch published a volume of ‘Letters to serve as Supplement to the Voyage in Sicily and Malta of Mr. Brydone.’ And the writer of his biography in the ‘Annual Biography’ says: ‘It may be fairly doubted, after the lapse of near fifty eventful years, whether there be any publication of a similar kind so deserving of notice as the one now under consideration.’ Having returned to England in 1771, he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in the end of 1772 or beginning of 1773 (Phil. Trans.) He was also a F.R.S. of Edinburgh and a F.S.A. Besides his book, he wrote occasional papers, chiefly on electricity, which were published in the ‘Philosophical Transactions.’ He held the appointment of comptroller of the stamp office The latter art of his life was spent in retirement, and he died, on 19 June 1818, at Lennel House, Berwickshire.
[Annual Biog. iv. 85-111; Gent. Mag. lxxxviii. pt. i. p. 643.]
BRYDSON, THOMAS (1806–1855), poet, was born in Glasgow in 1806. After completing courses of study at the universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh he became a licentiate of the established church of Scotland. He officiated as assistant successively in the Middle Church, Greenock, in Oban, and in Kilmalcolm, and in 1839 was ordained minister of Levern Chapel, near Paisley. In 1842 he was presented to the parish of Killmalcolm, where he remained till his death, which, after some years of impaired health, took place suddenly, 28 Jan. 1855. He was the author of two volumes of verse, the one, under the title of ‘Poems,’ published in 1829, and the other, entitled ‘Pictures of the Past,’ in 1832. He also contributed to the ‘Edinburgh Literary Journal,’ the ‘Republic of Letters,' a Glasgow publication, and several of the London annuals. This verses manifest true appreciation of the varied beauties of pastoral scenery, and, though simple and unpretentious, have the charm of sincerity.
[Greenock Advertiser, 30 Jan. 1855; Rogers`s Modern Scottish Minstrel, iv. 172; Grant-Wilson's Poets and Poetry of Scotland, ii. 285.]
BRYER, HENRY (d. 1799), engraver, was a pupil of William Wynne Ryland, in partnership with whom he for some years carried on an extensive printselling business in Cornhill; but, owing chiefly to Ryland’s extravagance, the firm became bankrupt. In 1762 Bryer gained the Society of Arts premium for a large plate representing ‘Mars and Venus discovered by Vulcan.’ He exhibited at the Society of Artists between 1765 and 1774, and engraved several plates after Angelica Kauffmann. In 1778, when living in St. Martin’s Lane, Bryer published ‘Aglaia bound by Cupid,’ from the original picture by Angelica Kauffmann.
[Redgrave's Dictionary of Artists (1878); MS. notes in British Museum.]
BRYERWOOD, EDWARD. [See Brerewood.]
BRYGHTWELL or BRYTHWELL, THOMAS, D.D. (d. 1390), fellow of Merton College, Oxford, is chiefly known in connection with the proceedings against Wycliffe’s followers taken at the council of Blackfriars in London in 1382. He appeared before the council at its second session, 12 June, in company with Rygge, the chancellor of the university, to answer, as it seems, certain charges which were to be brought against Rygge by Peter Stokes, the archbishop’s agent at Oxford. The charge in which Bryghtwell was implicated was one of favouring Repyngdon, a notorious Wycliffite; but his action was in all probability due rather to jealousy of the archbishop's intrusion into academica affairs than to personal sympathy with Repyngdon’s opinions. Bryghtwell gave his assent to the condemnation of Wycliffe’s doctrine as declared by the council, and does not appear to have again exposed himself to any similar accusation. Indeed, in this very year (1382) he was appointed dean of the college of Newark at Leicester (Nichols, History of the County of Leicester, i. 338), In 1386 he was granted the prebend of Holborn in St. Paul’s Cathedral (Le Neve, Fasti, ed. Hardy, ii. 392), and perhaps before this date he possessed the prebend of Leicester St. Margaret in Lincoln Cathedral, which he held at the time of his death (Nichols, i. 561). Nor had he at all relinquished his connection with Oxford; he was elected chancellor of the university in May 1388 (Wood, Fasti Oxon. p. 33; cf. Anstey, Munimenta Academica, ii. 795) in succession to his old friend Robert Rygge, and retained the office in the following year. He died in 1390.
[Wood’s Hist. and Antiq. of the Univ. of Oxford, i. 493; Fasciculi Zizaniorum, ed. Shirley pp. 288, 297-308.]
