Hildebrand Jacob, Esq.

Like his father he chose to enter the army, although not having much success in this his chosen career. On 1st October 1694, as an infant, he was granted a commission as ensign to Capt Bouheran in Brigadier Hasting's regiment, the 13th Regiment of Foot, of which his father was Colonel. On 7th July 1702 he was granted a commission as ensign in the Earl of Barrymore's regiment of foot. On 27th January 1705 he was commissioned a Lieutenant in the regiment. (Calendar of State Papers). He was still serving in the army in 1715, but it is not known whether he saw active service.

The army was obviously not a career for which he was suitable. On 19th December 1710 he wrote to his uncle Lord Allington at his lodgings in Pall Mall to desire his uncle the Earl of Barrymore to restore him to his former post in his regiment and give him leave to go with him to Portugal in the next campaign; his inclinations call him to arms or court more than anything else, but he does not neglect his studies, and understands both Latin and Greek perfectly well. West Wratting (Bodleian Library, Oxford, Rawlinson MS 861).

In 1720 he published a clever but indelicate poem, The Curious Maid, which was sometimes attributed to Prior and was frequently imitated. In the following years he produced a stream of anonymous ribald poems, not all of which he acknowledged in his collected works (1735). For the stage he wrote The Fatal Constancy (1723), a blank-verse tragedy acted six times at Drury Lane, twice by Command of the Princess of Wales, and the Nest of Plays (1738), consisting of three one-act prose comedies, The Prodigal Reformed, The Happy Constancy and the Trial of Conjugal Love, whose single performance at Covent Garden on 25th January 1738 was disrupted by protesters against the recent Stage Licensing Act. He also wrote two prose essays on aesthetics, Of The Sister Arts: An Essay (1734) and How the Mind is Rais'd to the Sublime (1735).

He died on 3rd June 1739 at Clarges Street, Mayfair, and was buried on 5th June at St Anne's, Soho, during the lifetime of his father.