Jacob Bryant

Jacob Bryant (1715–1804) was an English antiquarian and mythographer. Educated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge, he served as secretary to the Duke of Marlborough and lived afterward on the duke's patronage, amassing a large library at Cypenham near Windsor. His New System, or an Analysis of Antient Mythology (1774–76) attempted to trace all pagan myth back to the descendants of Ham after the Flood by means of etymologies that scholars rejected even then; it was nevertheless widely read and influenced William Blake, who engraved for it. Bryant also argued, to general disbelief, that Troy had never existed and the Trojan War had never been fought.