Richard Mant (12 February 1776 – 2 November 1848) was an English churchman who became a bishop in Ireland. He was a prolific writer, his major work being a ''History of the Church of Ireland''.

Life

He was born at

Southampton Southampton is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in Hampshire, England. It is located approximately southwest of London, west of Portsmouth, and southeast of Salisbury. Southampton had a population of 253, ...

, where his father Richard Mant D.D. was headmaster of the King Edward VI School. He was educated at

Winchester College Winchester College is an English Public school (United Kingdom), public school (a long-established fee-charging boarding school for pupils aged 13–18) with some provision for day school, day attendees, in Winchester, Hampshire, England. It wa ...

and at

Trinity College, Oxford Trinity College (full name: The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity in the University of Oxford, of the foundation of Sir Thomas Pope (Knight)) is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford in E ...

(which he entered in 1793). His youngest sister was the writer Alicia Catherine Mant. His maternal grandfather was the scholar

Joseph Bingham Joseph Bingham (September 1668 – 17 August 1723) was an English scholar and divine, who wrote on ecclesiastical history. Life He was born at Wakefield in Yorkshire. He was educated at Wakefield Grammar School and University College, Ox ...

. He was elected a

Scholar A scholar is a person who is a researcher or has expertise in an academic discipline. A scholar can also be an academic, who works as a professor, teacher, or researcher at a university. An academic usually holds an advanced degree or a termina ...

of the College in 1794, graduated with a BA in 1797, and became a fellow of

Oriel College Oriel College () is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in Oxford, England. Located in Oriel Square, the college has the distinction of being the oldest royal foundation in Oxford (a title formerly claimed by University College, ...

in 1798 (a position he held up to 1804). Mant was ordained in the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...

, initially holding a curacy at Southampton in 1802. He was then appointed to the vicarage of

Coggeshall Coggeshall ( or ) is a town and civil parish in the Braintree district, in Essex, England, between Braintree and Colchester on the Roman road Stane Street and the River Blackwater. In 2001 it had a population of 3,919. It has almost 300 li ...

Essex Essex ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England, and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Kent across the Thames Estuary to the ...

in 1810, and in 1811 he became

Bampton Lecturer The Bampton Lectures at the University of Oxford, England, were founded by a bequest of John Bampton. They have taken place since 1780. They were a series of annual lectures; since the turn of the 20th century they have sometimes been biennial ...

. In 1816 he was made rector of St Botolph's, Bishopsgate, and in 1820 became

Bishop of Killaloe and Kilfenora The Bishop of Killaloe and Kilfenora was the Ordinary of the Church of Ireland diocese of Killaloe and Kilfenora in the Province of Cashel; comprising all of County Clare and the northern part of County Tipperary, Ireland. The Episcopal see w ...

, in

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

. In 1823 he was

translated Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''transla ...

to Down and Connor, and from 1842 was the

Bishop of Down, Connor and Dromore The Bishop of Down, Connor and Dromore was the Ordinary of the Church of Ireland diocese of Down, Connor and Dromore; comprising all County Down and County Antrim, including the city of Belfast. History The episcopal sees of Down and Connor ...

when the two dioceses united. Richard Mant died in

Ballymoney Ballymoney ( , meaning 'townland of the moor') is a town and Civil parishes in Ireland, civil parish in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. It is within the Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council area. The civil parish of Ballymoney is situated ...

, Ireland on 2 November 1848.

Works

In 1808 Mant published ''The Simpliciad'', a satirical poem that parodied ''

Poems, in Two Volumes ''Poems, in Two Volumes'' is a collection of poetry by English Romantic poet William Wordsworth, published in 1807. It contains many notable poems, including: * " Resolution and Independence" * "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" (sometimes antho ...

'' (1807) by

William Wordsworth William Wordsworth (7 April 177023 April 1850) was an English Romantic poetry, Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romanticism, Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication ''Lyrical Balla ...

. He gave notes relating his parodies to the originals. The aim of the work included the other

Lake Poets The Lake Poets were a group of English poets who all lived in the Lake District of England, United Kingdom, in the first half of the nineteenth century. As a group, they followed no single "school" of thought or literary practice then known. They ...

Robert Southey Robert Southey (; 12 August 1774 – 21 March 1843) was an English poet of the Romantic poetry, Romantic school, and Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, Poet Laureate from 1813 until his death. Like the other Lake Poets, William Wordsworth an ...

and

Samuel Taylor Coleridge Samuel Taylor Coleridge ( ; 21 October 177225 July 1834) was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets with his friend William Wordsworth ...

, with '' To a Young Ass'' by Coleridge used to tease the group as a whole. In 1832, Mant published ''The Gospel of Miracles, in a Series of Poetical Sketches, with Illustrative Conversations,'' an attempt to represent the miracles of the Saviour in verse. Mant's ''Ancient Hymns from the Roman Breviary'' (1837) was one of the earliest collections of translated Latin hymnody in English. He belonged to a group of revivalist translators of Latin hymns, with John Chandler (1806–1876) and Isaac Williams. John Ellerton commented on his good taste, but also discerned a lack of understanding of the group of hymns he was handling. The ''Psalms in an English Metrical Version'' (1824) were influenced by

Robert Lowth Robert Lowth ( ; 27 November 1710 – 3 November 1787) was an English clergyman and academic who served as the Bishop of Oxford, Bishop of St Davids, Professor of Poetry and the author of one of the most influential textbooks of Englis ...

's theories of

biblical poetry The ancient Hebrews identified poetical portions in their sacred texts, as shown by their entitling as "psalms" or as " chants" passages such as Exodus 15:1-19 and Numbers 21:17-20; a song or chant () is, according to the primary meaning of the t ...

, the psalms becoming "stiff and stately odes" according to

John Julian John Julian (March 26, 1733) was a pirate of multi-racial descent who operated in Americans, as the pilot of the ship '' Whydah''. Julian joined pirate Samuel Bellamy, and became the pilot of Bellamy's '' Whydah'' when he was probably only 16 ye ...

. Other works included: *A

biblical commentary Exegesis ( ; from the Greek , from , "to lead out") is a critical explanation or interpretation of a text. The term is traditionally applied to the interpretation of Biblical works. In modern usage, exegesis can involve critical interpretations ...

written with

George D'Oyly George D'Oyly (1778–1846) was an English cleric and academic, theologian and biographer. Life The fourth son of Matthias D'Oyly, archdeacon of Lewes and rector of Buxted, Sussex, he was born 31 October 1778; of his brothers the eldest was T ...

*''History of the Church of Ireland'' (1839–1841; 2 vols.).
''An Appeal to the Gospel''
(1812), Bampton Lectures.
''The Book of Common Prayer...with Notes''
(1850).
''An Explanation of the Rubrics of the Book of Common Prayer''
(1864).

Family

Mant married Elizabeth Wood (died 2 April 1846), of a Sussex family, on 22 December 1804. Their children were Walter Bishop Mant, another son, and a daughter.

References

* ''The Simpliciad'': 1808 (Revolution and Romanticism, 1789–1834) Publisher: Woodstock Books Inc.

Notes

External links

Bibliographic directory
from

Project Canterbury Project Canterbury (sometimes abbreviated as PC) is an online archive of material related to the history of Anglicanism. It was founded by Richard Mammana, Jr. in 1999 with a grant from Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold, and is ...

;Attribution {{DEFAULTSORT:Mant, Richard 1776 births 1848 deaths Alumni of Trinity College, Oxford Bishops of Down and Connor (Church of Ireland) Bishops of Down, Connor and Dromore Bishops of Killaloe and Kilfenora Fellows of Oriel College, Oxford People educated at Winchester College Clergy from Southampton Scholars of Trinity College Dublin Anglican liturgists