mand of the Butler influence and was unable to injure him. On Bellingham's departure from Ireland on 16 Dec 1549 council recognised Bryan's powerful postion by electing him lord justice pending the arrival of a new deputy. But on 2 Feb 1549-50 Bryan died suddenly at Clonmel. A postmortem examination was ordered to the cause of death, but the doctors came no more satisfactory conclusion than that died of grief, a conclusion unsupported external evidence. Sir John Allen, the chancellor who was present at Bryan's and at the autopsy, states that 'he very godly.' Roger Ascham, in the 'Schole-master,' 1568, writes: 'Some men being so old and spent by yeares will still be full youthfull conditions, as was Syr F. Bryan, evermore wold have bene (ed. Mayor, p. 129).
Bryan like many other of Henry VIII's courtiers interested himself deeply in literature He is probably the Brian to Erasmus frequently refers in his correspondence as one of his admirers in England he was the intimate friend of the poets Wyatt and Surrey Like them he wrote poetry although Bryan had once a high reputation as a poet, his poetry is now unfortunately undiscoverable. He was an anonymous contributor to the 'Songes and Sonettes written by the ryght honorable Lorde Henry Howard, late earl of Surrey, and others,' 1557, usually known as 'Tottel's Miscellany;' but it is impossible to distinguish his work there from that of the other anonymous writers. Of the high esteem in which his poetry was held in the sixteenth century there is abundant evidence. Wyatt dedicated a bitter satire to Bryan on the contemptible practices of court life; and while rallying him on his restless activity in politics speaks of his fine literary taste. Drayton in his 'Heroicall Epistle' of the Earl of Surrey to the Lady Geraldine (first published in 1629, but written much earlier), refers to
sacred Bryan whom the Muses kept
And in his cradle rockt him while he slept);
the poet represents Bryan as honouring Surrey 'in sacred verses most divinely pen'd.' Similarly Drayton in his 'Letter ... of Poets and Poesie,' is as enthusiastic in praise of Bryan as of Surrey and Wyatt, and distinctly states that he was a chief author
Of those small poems which the title beare
Of songs and sonnets —
a reference to 'Tottel's Miscellany. Francis Meres in his 'Palladis Tamia,' 1598, describes Bryan with many other famous poets as 'the most passionate among us to bewail and bemoan the complexities of love.’
Bryan was also a student of foreign languages and literature. It is clear that his uncle John Bourchier lord Berners [q. v.], consulted him about much of his literary work. It was at Bryan's desire that Lord Berners undertook his translation of Guevara's 'Marcus Aurelius' (1534). Guevara, the founder of Euphuism, was apparently Bryan's favourite author. Not content with suggesting and editing his uncle's translation of one of the famous Spanish writer's books, he himself translated another through the French. It first appeared anonymously in 1548 under the title of 'A Dispraise of the Life of a Courtier and a Commendacion of the Life of a Labouryng Man,' London (by Berthelet), August 1548. In this form the work is of excessive rarity. In 1575 'T. Tymme minister,' reprinted the book as 'A Looking glasse for the Courte, composed in the Castilion tongue by the Lorde Anthony of Guevarra, Bishop of Mondonent and Cronicler to the Emperor Charles, and out of Castilion drawne into Frenche by Anthony Alaygre, and out of the Frenche tongue into Englishe by Sir Frauncis Briant, Knight, one of the priuye chamber in the raygn of K. Henry the evght.' The editor added a poem in praise of the English translator. A great many of Bryan's letters are printed in Brewer and Gairdner's 'Letters and Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII.' Three interesting manuscript letters are in the British Museum (Cotton MS. Vitell. B. x. 73, 77; and Harl. MS. 298, f. 18).
[Nott's edition of Surrey and Wyatt's Poems; Brewer and Gairdner's Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, 1509-35; Rymer's Fœdera, xiv. 380; Brewer's Reign of Henry VIII, ed. Gairdner, 1884, vol. ii. Archæologia, xxvi. 426, et seq.; Chronicle of Calais (Camden Soc.); Collins's Peerage, ed. Brydges, ix. 98; Lodge's Peerage of Ireland, i. 71, 265; Metcalfe's Book of Knights, 29, 220; Hunter's MS. Chorus Vatum (Add. MS. 24490, ff. 104-5); Friedmann's Anne Boleyn; Cal. State Papers (Foreign), 1509-35; Cal. State Papers (Irish), 1509-73; Hazlitt's Bibliographical Handbook; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), i. 169-70; Bagwell's Ireland under the Tudors (1885).]
BRYAN, JOHN (d. 1545), logician, was born in London and educated at Eton whence he was elected in 1510 to King's College Cambridge (B.A. 1515, M.A. 1518). He gained the reputation of being one of the most learned men of his time in the Greek and Latin tongues. For two years he was ordinary reader of logic in the public schools, and in his lectures he wholly disregarded the knotty subtleties of the realists and nominalists who then disturbed the university with their frivolous altercations. This displeased
