Richard Mant

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, His maternal grandfather was the scholar Joseph Bingham. He was elected a Scholar of the College in 1794, graduated with a BA in 1797, and became a fellow of Oriel College in 1798 (a position he held up to 1804). The aim of the work included the other Lake Poets, Robert Southey and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 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's theories of biblical poetry, the psalms becoming "stiff and stately odes" according to John Julian.

Other works included:

A biblical commentary written with George D'Oyly 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.