{{Short description|British poet and playwright}} thumb|150px|The coat of arms of Jacob of Bromley, Sir Hildebrand Jacob, 4th Bt, Baronets.<ref>{{cite book | title = Thomas Wootton et al, The Baronetage of England, Volume 2, p311|url= https://www.myjacobfamily.com/jacobpedigrees/horseheathjacobs.htm}}</ref>
'''Hildebrand Jacob''' (1692 or 1693–1739) was a British poet and playwright, whose major works include the epic poem ''Brutus the Trojan'' and the tragic verse drama ''The Fatal Constancy''.<ref name=odnb>{{cite web|last=Bullen|first=A. H.|title=Jacob, Hildebrand|url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/14568|work=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography|accessdate=23 January 2013|author2=Bridget Hill}}</ref> His collected works (entitled ''The Works of H. Jacob, Esqr.'') were published in 1735.<ref>{{cite book|last=Black|first=Jeremy|title=Culture in Eighteenth-Century England: A Subject for Taste|year=2007|publisher=Continuum International Publishing Group|page=77}}</ref>
==Family== His father was Sir John Jacob, third baronet of Bromley, Middlesex (c.1665–1740) and his mother was Dorothy (c.1662–1749). Sir John served in the army from 1685 to 1702, seeing action at the Battle of Killiecrankie and in Ireland.
Following his father, Hildebrand served in the army until at least 1715, then in 1717 he married Meriel, daughter of another baronet, Sir John Bland of Kippax-Park, Yorkshire. They had a son, also Hildebrand, and a daughter, Anne<ref>{{cite book|last=Betham|first=William|title=The baronetage of England: or The History of the English baronets, and such baronets of Scotland, as are of English families; with genealogical tables, and engravings of their coats of arms|year=1802|publisher=Burrell and Bransby|pages=[https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_QS8wAAAAYAAJ/page/n374 366]–367|url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_QS8wAAAAYAAJ|quote=Hildebrand Jacob.}}</ref> They made their home at West Wratting Park, Cambridgeshire.
He never succeeded to his father's seat, dying in 1739, a year before Sir John. His son Sir Hildebrand Jacob (1717 or 1718–1790) succeeded Sir John at his death on 31 March 1740, becoming the fourth baronet.<ref name=odnb/> The junior Sir Hildebrand was known as an excellent scholar, particularly of Hebrew.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Nichols|first=John|journal=The Gentleman's Magazine|date=1790|volume=68|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=W3rPAAAAMAAJ&q=Hildebrand+Jacob&pg=PA1055|page=1055|title=The Gentleman's Magazine}}</ref>
==''Brutus the Trojan''== ''Brutus the Trojan'' (1735<ref>{{cite book |last1=Armitage |first1=David |title=The Ideological Origins of the British Empire |date=2000 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=9780521789783 |page=193 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PkuozOfNnKkC&pg=PA193 |accessdate=10 March 2019 |language=en}}</ref>) is an epic poem about Brutus of Troy, the legendary founder of Britain, according to the histories of Nennius and Geoffrey of Monmouth.
==Plays== His plays included the tragedy ''The Fatal Constancy'' (1723). He also wrote comedies: ''The Nest of Plays'' (1738) comprised ''The Prodigal Reform'd'', ''The Happy Constancy'', and ''The Trial of Conjugal Love''.
==Other works== Jacob produced a number of bawdy works, probably including ''The Curious Maid'' (1720), although this is sometimes attributed to Matthew Prior (1664–1721).<ref>{{cite book|last=Benedict|first=Barbara M.|title=Curiosity: A Cultural History of Early Modern Inquiry|year=2002|publisher=University of Chicago Press|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JY5WgEAZ-6kC&q=Hildebrand+Jacob&pg=PA271|page=271|isbn=9780226042640}}</ref>
Other works include ''Bedlam'' (1723), ''Chiron to Achilles'' (1732), ''Hymn to the Goddess of Silence'' (1734), ''Of the sister arts: an essay'' (1734), ''The progress of religion'' (1737), and ''Donna Clara to her daughter Teresa: an epistle'' (1737).<ref>{{cite book|last=Watson|first=George|title=The New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature: 1660-1800|year=1971|publisher=Cambridge University Press|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5-s8AAAAIAAJ&q=Hildebrand+Jacob&pg=PA1968-IA266|author2=Ian R. Willison|page=553|isbn=9780521079341}}</ref>
==Portrait== The National Portrait Gallery in London has an engraving of him by Jacobus Houbraken after George Knapton (NPG D18752).<ref>{{cite web|title=Sir Hildebrand Jacob (1693-1739), Poet|url=http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp67470/sir-hildebrand-jacob|work=National Portrait Gallery website|accessdate=23 January 2013}}</ref>
== References == <!--- See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Footnotes on how to create references using <ref></ref> tags which will then appear here automatically --> {{Reflist}}
== External links == * [http://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/authors/pers00111.shtml Hildebrand Jacob] at the [http://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/ Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive (ECPA)]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Jacob, Hildebrand}} <!--- Categories ---> Category:People from West Wratting Category:1690s births Category:1739 deaths Category:English male poets Hildebrand Category:18th-century British poets Category:18th-century British dramatists and playwrights