Samuel egerton brydges biography books

BRYDGES, Samuel Egerton (1762-1837: ODNB)

He was born at Wootton Court in Wootton, Kent, on 30 Nov. 1762 to Edward Brydges (or Bridges) and his wife Jemima Egerton, the daughter of a Canterbury prebendary. He was educated at Maidstone grammar school and at King’s school, Canterbury, before being admitted on 12 Feb. 1780 to Queen’s College, Cambridge. He left without taking a degree and was admitted to the Middle Temple on 2 May 1782. He was called to the bar in 1787 but never practiced. On 24 Jan. 1786 he married Elizabeth Byrche (d 1796); they had five children, one of whom, Jemima, married Edward Quillinan (q.v.). Brydges purchased Denton Court, near Wootton; although it became dilapidated during his ownership, the house still stands. Elizabeth died on 30 July 1796 and he married Mary Robinson on 15 Sept. of the same year; they had ten children. Brydges devoted himself to literature and published numerous works of topography, genealogy, biography, travel, and autobiography. (The bibliography of his works that he prepared in 1831 lists 71 individual titles.) He wrote two moderately successful novels: Mary De-Clifford (1792) and Arthur Fitz-Albini (1798) but he was disappointed that his poetry never met with acclaim. He also reissued long-forgotten English books and in 1813 established a printing press at Lee Priory, Ickham, Kent; among other works, it printed some of his and Quillinan’s books. With a brother, the Rev. Edward Brydges, he spent years prosecuting a claim to the Barony of Chandos; the claim was rejected first in 1803 and again in 1834 but this did not stop Brydges from styling himself Baron Chandos. In 1812 he was elected MP for Maidstone, Kent, and on 27 Dec. 1814 he was made a baronet. He lost his seat in the 1818 election and, embarrassed for money, he settled near Geneva in about 1821. His sons devised a fraudulent scheme to recover money lost on his estates; its discovery led to th

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      BRYDGES, SIR SAMUEL EGERTON (1762–1837), editor of early English literature and genealogist, was born at the manor-house of Wootton, situated between Canterbury and Dover, on 30 Nov, 1762, and was the second son of Edward Brydges (or Bridges) of Wootton, by Jemima, daughter of William Egerton, LL.D., prebendary of Canterbury and chancellor of Hereford. He was educated at Maidstone School, at the King's School, Canterbury, and (from October 1780 till Christmas 1782) at Queens' College, Cambridge. On leaving the university he was entered of the Middle Temple, and was called to the bar in November 1787. He never, however, practised, and retired in 1792 to Denton Court, a seat which he had purchased near his birthplace in Kent. From his boyhood Brydges had had a passion for reading, and had sacrificed his degree at college by 'giving himself up to English poetry.' His first literary venture was made in March 1785, when he published a volume of poems, among which the earliest pieces are some sonnets dated 1782. A fourth and much enlarged edition of his miscellaneous poetry appeared in 1807. The volume of 1785 was coldly received, and Brydges continued to be much disheartened, even though his novels, 'Mary de Clifford' (1792) and 'Arthur Fitzalbini' (1798), obtained some popularity. He was by nature shy and proud, yet morbidly sensitive and egotistic, and being tormented by an extraordinary thirst for literary fame, he was unhappily led to mistake his delight in reading great works of literature for an evidence of his capacity to produce similar works himself. From the extremely naïve self-portraiture of his rambling but interesting 'Autobiography,' there can be no doubt that he imagined himself a poet and a man of genius. His poetry, however, is of the most mediocre description, recalling the dullest efforts of Bowles or Thomas Warton. Of his useful labours as a bibliographer and editor he is inclined to speak with con