Book: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4

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The facts of Byng's life are fairly set out in Charnock's _Biogr. Nav._
vol. iv. pp. 145 to 179. The number of contemporary pamphlets about his
case is very great, but they are of no historical value, except as
illustrating the state of public opinion.

(D. H.)

BYNKERSHOEK, CORNELIUS VAN (1673-1743), Dutch jurist, was born at
Middleburg in Zeeland. In the prosecution of his legal studies, and while
holding the offices first of member and afterwards of president of the
supreme court, he found the common law of his country so defective as to be
nearly useless for practical purposes. This abuse he resolved to reform,
and took as the basis of a new system the principles of the ancient Roman
law. His works are very voluminous. The most important of them are _De foro
legatorum_ (1702); _Observationes Juris Romani_ (1710), of which a
continuation in four books appeared in 1733; the treatise _De Dominio
Maris_ (1721); and the _Quaestiones Juris Publici_ (1737). Complete
editions of his works were published after his death; one in folio at
Geneva in 1761, and another in two volumes folio at Leiden in 1766.

BYRD, WILLIAM (1543-1623), English musical composer, was probably a member
of one of the numerous Lincolnshire families of the name who were to be
found at Lincoln, Spalding, Pinchbeck, Moulton and Epworth in the 16th
century. According to Wood, he was "bred up to musick under Thomas Tallis."
He was appointed organist of Lincoln cathedral about 1563, and on the 14th
of September 1568 was married at St Margaret in the Close to Ellen or
Julian Birley. On the 22nd of February 1569 he was sworn in as a member of
the Chapel Royal, but he does not seem to have left Lincoln immediately. In
the Chapel Royal he shared with Tallis the honorary post of organist, and
on the 22nd [v.04 p.0897] of January 1575 the two composers obtained a
licence for twenty-one years from Elizabeth to print music and music-paper,
a monopoly which does not seem to have been at all remunerative. In 1575
Byrd and Tallis published a collection of Latin motets for five and six
voices, printed by Thomas Vautrollier. In 1578 Byrd and his family were
living at Harlington, Middlesex. As early as 1581 his name occurs among
lists of recusants, and though he retained his post in the Chapel Royal he
was throughout his life a Catholic. About 1579 he set a three-part song in
Thomas Legge's Latin play _Ricardus Tertius_. In 1588 he published
_Psalmes, Sonets and Songs of Sadnes and Pietie, _and in the same year
contributed two madrigals to Nicolas Yonge's _Musica Transalpina_. In 1589
appeared _Songs of Sundrie Natures_, a second edition of which was issued
in 1610. In the same year he published _Liber Primus Sacrarum Cantionum_, a
second series of which was brought out in 1591. In 1590 two madrigals by
Byrd were included in Thomas Watson's _First Sett of Italian Madrigalls
Englished_; one of these seems to have been sung before Queen Elizabeth on
her visit to Lord Hertford at Elvetham in 1591. In April 1592 Byrd was
still living at Harlington, but about 1593 he became possessed of the
remainder of a lease of Stondon Place, Essex, a farm of some 200 acres,
belonging to William Shelley, who was shortly afterwards convicted of high
treason. The property was sequestrated, and on the 15th of July 1595 Byrd
obtained a crown lease of it for the lives of his eldest son Christopher
and his daughters Elizabeth and Rachel. On the death of Shelley his son
bought back his estates (in 1604), whereupon his widow attempted to oust
Byrd from Stondon Place, on the ground that it formed part of her jointure.
Byrd was upheld in his possession of the property by James I. (_Calendar of
State Papers, Dom. Series_, James I. add. series, vol. xxxvi.), but Mrs
Shelley persevered in her suit, apparently until her death in 1609. In the
following year the matter was settled for a time by Byrd's buying Stondon
Place in the names of John and Thomas Petre, part of the property being
charged with a payment to Byrd of L20 for his life, with remainder to his
second son Thomas. Throughout this long suit Byrd, though in possession of
property which had been confiscated from a recusant and actually taking
part as a member of the Chapel Royal at the coronation of James I., had
been excommunicated since 1598, while from 1605 until 1612, and possibly
later, he was regularly presented before the archidiaconal court of Essex
as a Catholic. In 1603 Easte published a work (no copies of which are known
to exist) entitled _Medulla Musicke. Sucked out of the sappe of two_ [_of_]
_the most famous Musitians that ever were in this land, namely Master
Wylliam Byrd ... and Master Alphonso Ferabosco ... either of whom having
made 40tie severall waies (without contention), showing most rare and
intricate skill in 2 partes in one upon the playne song Miserere_. In 1607
appeared two books of _Gradualia_, a second edition of which was issued in
1610. In the following year he published _Psalmes, Songs and Sonnets; some
solemne, others joyfull, framed to the life of the Words_. Probably in the
same year was issued _Parthenia_, a collection of virginal music, in which
Byrd was associated with Bull and Orlando Gibbons. The last work to which
he contributed was Sir Thomas Leighton's _Teares or Lamentations of a
Sorrowfull Soule_ (1614). His death took place on the 4th of July 1623. It
is recorded in the _Cheque Book_ of the Chapel Royal as that of a "father
of musicke." His will, dated the 15th of November 1622, shows that he
remained a Catholic until the end of his life, and he expresses a desire
that he may die at Stondon and be buried near his wife. From the same
document it seems that his latter years had been embittered by a dispute
with his eldest son, but that the matter was settled by an agreement with
his daughter-in-law Catherine, to whom he left his property at Stondon,
charged with the payment of L20 to his second son Thomas and L10 to his
daughter Rachel, with remainder to his grandson Thomas and his second son
of the same name. In 1635 the estate again came before the court of
chancery, on the ground that the annuities had not been paid. The property
seems about 1637 to have been let to one John Leigh, and in 1651 was held
by a member of the Petre family. The committee for compounding with
delinquents at that date allowed Thomas Byrd the annuity of L20 bequeathed
by his father. Byrd's arms, as entered in the Visitation of Essex of 1634
_ex sigillo_ were three stags' heads cabossed, a canton ermine. His
children were (1) Christopher, who married Catherine, daughter of Thomas
Moore of Bamborough, and had a son, Thomas, living at Stondon in 1634; (2)
Thomas; (3) Elizabeth, who married successively John Jackson and--Burdett;
(4) Rachel, married (1)--Hook, by whom she had two children, William and
Catherine, married to Michael Walton; in 1634 Rachel Hook had married (2)
Edward Biggs; (5) Mary, married (1) Henry Hawksworth, by whom she had four
sons, William, Henry, George and John; (2) Thomas Falconbridge. Anne Byrd,
who is mentioned in the proceedings _Shelley_ v. _Byrd_ (_Exchequer
Decrees_, 7 James I., series ii. vol. vii. fol. 294 and 328), was probably
a fourth daughter who died young.

Besides the works already mentioned Byrd was the composer of three masses,
for three, four and five voices respectively, which seem to have been
published with some privacy about 1588. There exists a second edition (also
undated) of the four-part mass; all three have recently appeared in modern
editions, and increase Byrd's claim to rank as the greatest English
composer of his age. In addition to his published works, a large amount
still remains in MS., comprising nearly every kind of composition. The
Fitzwilliam _Virginal Book_ contains a long series of interesting pieces
for the virginal, and more still remains unpublished in Lady Neville's
_Virginal Book_ and other contemporary collections. His industry was
enormous, and though his work is unequal and the licences he allowed can
hardly be defended on strict grounds, his Latin church music and his
instrumental compositions entitle him to high rank among his
contemporaries. As a madrigalist he was inferior to Morley, Wilbye and
Gibbons, though even in this branch of his art he often displays great
charm and individuality.

(W. B. S.*)

BYROM, JOHN (1692-1763), English poet, writer of hymns and inventor of a
system of shorthand, was born at Kersal Cell, near Manchester, on the 29th
of February 1692, the younger son of a prosperous merchant. He was educated
at Merchant Taylors school, and at Trinity College, Cambridge, of which he
became a fellow in 1714. His first poem, "Colin to Phoebe," a pastoral,
appeared in the _Spectator_, No. 603. The heroine is said to have been Dr
Bentley's daughter, Joanna, the mother of Richard Cumberland, the
dramatist. After leaving the university Byrom went abroad, ostensibly to
study medicine, but he never practised and possibly his errand was really
political, for he was an adherent of the Pretender. He was elected a member
of the Royal Society in 1724. On his return to London he married his cousin
in 1721, and to support himself taught a new method of shorthand of his own
invention, till he succeeded (1740) to his father's estate on the death of
his elder brother. His diary gives interesting portraits and letters of the
many great men of his time whom he knew intimately. He died on the 26th of
September 1763. A collection of his poems was published in 1773, and he is
included in Alexander Chalmers's _English Poets_. His system of shorthand
was not published until after his death, when it was printed as _The
Universal English Shorthand; or the way of writing English in the most
easy, concise, regular and beautiful manner, applicable to any other
language, but particularly adjusted to our own_ (Manchester, 1767).

The _Private Journal and Literary Remains of John Byrom, related by Richard
Parkinson, D.D._, was published by the Chetham Society (1854-1857).

BYRON, GEORGE GORDON BYRON, 6TH BARON (1788-1824), English poet, was born
in London at 16 Holles Street, Cavendish Square, on the 22nd of January
1788. The Byrons were of Norman stock, but the founder of the family was
Sir John Byron, who entered into possession of the priory and lands of
Newstead in the county of Nottingham in 1540. From him it descended (but
with a bar-sinister) to a great-grandson, John (1st Baron) Byron (_q.v._),
a Cavalier general, who was raised to the peerage in 1643. The first Lord
Byron died childless, and was succeeded by his brother Richard, the
great-grandfather of William, the 5th lord, who outlived son and grandson,
and was [v.04 p.0898] succeeded by his great-nephew, the poet. Admiral the
Hon. John Byron (_q.v._) was the poet's grandfather. His eldest son,
Captain John Byron, the poet's father, was a libertine by choice and in an
eminent degree. He caused to be divorced, and married (1779) as his first
wife, the marchioness of Carmarthen (born Amelia D'Arcy), Baroness Conyers
in her own right. One child of the marriage survived, the Hon. Augusta
Byron (1783-1851), the poet's half-sister, who, in 1807, married her first
cousin, Colonel George Leigh. His second marriage to Catherine Gordon (b.
1765) of Gight in Aberdeenshire took place at Bath on the 13th of May 1785.
He is said to have squandered the fortunes of both wives. It is certain
that Gight was sold to pay his debts (1786), and that the sole provision
for his wife was a settlement of L3000. It was an unhappy marriage. There
was an attempt at living together in France, and, when this failed, Mrs
Byron returned to Scotland. On her way thither she gave birth to a son,
christened George Gordon after his maternal grandfather, who was descended
from Sir William Gordon of Gight, grandson of James I. of Scotland. After a
while her husband rejoined her, but went back to France and died at
Valenciennes on the 2nd of August 1791. His wife was not a bad woman, but
she was not a good mother. Vain and capricious, passionate and
self-indulgent, she mismanaged her son from his infancy, now provoking him
by her foolish fondness, and now exciting his contempt by her paroxysms of
impotent rage. She neither looked nor spoke like a gentlewoman; but in the
conduct of her affairs she was praiseworthy. She hated and avoided debt,
and when relief came (a civil list pension of L300 a year) she spent most
of it upon her son. Fairly well educated, she was not without a taste for
books, and her letters are sensible and to the point. But the violence of
her temper was abnormal. Her father committed suicide, and it is possible
that she inherited a tendency to mental derangement. If Byron owed anything
to his parents it was a plea for pardon.

The poet's first years were spent in lodgings at Aberdeen. From 1794 to
1798 he attended the grammar school, "threading all classes" till he
reached the fourth. It was a good beginning, a solid foundation, enabling
him from the first to keep a hand over his talents and to turn them to a
set purpose. He was lame from his birth. His right leg and foot, possibly
both feet, were contracted by infantile paralysis, and, to strengthen his
muscles, his mother sent him in the summers of 1796, 1797 to a farm house
on Deeside. He walked with difficulty, but he wandered at will, soothed and
inspired by the grandeur of the scenery. To his Scottish upbringing he owed
his love of mountains, his love and knowledge of the Bible, and too much
Calvinism for faith or unfaith in Christianity. The death of his
great-uncle (May 19, 1798) placed him in possession of the title and
estates. Early in the autumn Mrs Byron travelled south with her son and his
nurse, and for a time made her home at Newstead Abbey. Byron was old enough
to know what had befallen him. "It was a change from a shabby Scotch flat
to a palace," a half-ruined palace, indeed, but his very own. It was a
proud moment, but in a few weeks he was once more in lodgings. The shrunken
leg did not improve, and acting on bad advice his mother entrusted him to
the care of a quack named Lavender, truss-maker to the general hospital at
Nottingham. His nurse who was in charge of him maltreated him, and the
quack tortured him to no purpose. At his own request he read Virgil and
Cicero with a tutor.

In August 1799 he was sent to a preparatory school at Dulwich. The master,
Dr Glennie, perceived that the boy liked reading for its own sake and gave
him the free run of his library. He read a set of the _British Poets_ from
beginning to end more than once. This, too, was an initiation and a
preparation. He remained at Dulwich till April 1801, when, on his mother's
intervention, he was sent to Harrow. His school days, 1801-1805, were
fruitful in two respects. He learned enough Latin and Greek to make him a
classic, if not a classical scholar, and he made friends with his equals
and superiors. He learned something of his own worth and of the worth of
others. "My school-friendships," he says, "were with me passions." Two of
his closest friends died young, and from Lord Clare, whom he loved best of
all, he was separated by chance and circumstance. He was an odd mixture,
now lying dreaming on his favourite tombstone in the churchyard, now the
ring-leader in whatever mischief was afoot. He was a "record" swimmer, and,
in spite of his lameness, enough of a cricketer to play for his school at
Lord's, and yet he found time to read and master standard works of history
and biography, and to acquire more general knowledge than boys and masters
put together.

In the midsummer of 1803, when he was in his sixteenth year, he fell in
love, once for all, with his distant relative, Mary Anne Chaworth, a "minor
heiress" of the hall and park of Annesley which marches with Newstead. Two
years his senior, she was already engaged to a neighbouring squire. There
were meetings half-way between Newstead and Annesley, of which she thought
little and he only too much. What was sport to the girl was death to the
boy, and when at length he realized the "hopelessness of his attachment,"
he was "thrown out," as he said, "alone, on a wide, wide sea." She is the
subject of at least five of his early poems, including the pathetic
stanzas, "Hills of Annesley," and there are allusions to his love story in
_Childe Harold_ (c. i _s.v._), and in "The Dream" (1816).

Byron went into residence at Trinity College, Cambridge, in October 1805.
Cambridge did him no good. "The place is the devil," he said, and according
to his own showing he did homage to the _genius loci_. But whatever he did
or failed to do, he made friends who were worthy of his choice. Among them
were the scholar-dandy Scrope Berdmore Davies, Francis Hodgson, who died
provost of Eton, and, best friend of all, John Cam Hobhouse (afterwards
Lord Broughton). And there was another friend, a chorister named Edleston,
a "humble youth" for whom he formed a romantic attachment. He died whilst
Byron was still abroad (May 1811), but not unwept nor unsung, if, as there
is little doubt, the mysterious Thyrza poems of 1811, 1812 refer to his
death. During the vacation of 1806, and in 1807 which was one "long
vacation," he took to his pen, and wrote, printed and published most of his
"Juvenile Poems." His first venture was a thin quarto of sixty-six pages,
printed by S. and J. Ridge of Newark. The "advertisement" is dated the 23rd
of December 1806, but before that date he had begun to prepare a second
collection for the press. One poem ("To Mary") contained at least one
stanza which was frankly indecent, and yielding to advice he gave orders
that the entire issue should be thrown into the fire. Early in January 1807
an expurgated collection entitled _Poems on Various Occasions_ was ready
for private distribution. Encouraged by two critics, Henry Mackenzie and
Lord Woodhouselee, he determined to recast this second issue and publish it
under his own name. _Hours of Idleness_, "by George Gordon Lord Byron, a
minor," was published in June 1807. The fourth and last issue of
_Juvenilia_, entitled _Poems, Original and Translated_, was published in
March 1808.

_Hours of Idleness_ enjoyed a brief triumph. The _Critical_ and other
reviews were "very indulgent," but the _Edinburgh Review_ for January 1808
contained an article, not, as Byron believed, by Jeffrey, but by Brougham,
which put, or tried to put, the author and "his poesy" to open shame. The
sole result was that it supplied fresh material and a new title for some
rhyming couplets on "British Bards" which he had begun to write. A satire
on Jeffrey, the editor, and Lord Holland, the patron of the _Edinburgh
Review_, was slipped into the middle of "British Bards," and the poem
rechristened _English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_ (published the 1st of
March 1809).

In April 1808, whilst he was still "a minor," Byron entered upon his
inheritance. Hitherto the less ruinous portions of the abbey had been
occupied by a tenant, Lord Grey de Ruthven. The banqueting hall, the grand
drawing-room, and other parts of the monastic building were uninhabitable,
but by incurring fresh debts, two sets of apartments were refurnished for
Byron and for his mother. Dismantled and ruinous, it was still a splendid
inheritance. In line with the front of the abbey is the west front of the
priory church, with its hollow arch, once a "mighty window," its vacant
niches, its delicate Gothic mouldings. The abbey buildings enclose a grassy
quadrangle [v.04 p.0899] overlooked by two-storeyed cloisters. On the
eastern side are the state apartments occupied by kings and queens not as
guests, but by feudal right. In the park, which is part of Sherwood Forest,
there is a chain of lakes--the largest, the north-west, Byron's "lucid
lake." A waterfall or "cascade" issues from the lake, in full view of the
room where Byron slept. The possession of this lordly and historic domain
was an inspiration in itself. It was an ideal home for one who was to be
hailed as the spirit or genius of romance.

On the 13th of March 1809, he took his seat in the House of Lords. He had
determined, as soon as he was of age, to travel in the East, but before he
sought "another zone" he invited Hobhouse and three others to a
house-warming. One of the party, C.S. Matthews, describes a day at
Newstead. Host and guests lay in bed till one. "The afternoon was passed in
various diversions, fencing, single-stick ... riding, cricket, sailing on
the lake." They dined at eight, and after the cloth was removed handed
round "a human skull filled with Burgundy." After dinner they "buffooned
about the house" in a set of monkish dresses. They went to bed some time
between one and three in the morning. Moore thinks that the picture of
these festivities is "pregnant in character," and argues that there were
limits to the misbehaviour of the "wassailers." The story, as told in
_Childe Harold_ (c. I. s. v.-ix.), need not be taken too seriously. Byron
was angry because Lord De La Warr did not wish him goodbye, and visited his
displeasure on friends and "lemans" alike. May and June were devoted to the
preparation of an enlarged edition of his satire. At length, accompanied by
Hobhouse and a small staff of retainers, he set out on his travels. He
sailed from Falmouth on the 2nd of July and reached Lisbon on the 7th of
July 1809. The first two cantos of _Childe Harold's Pilgrimage_ contain a
record of the principal events of his first year of absence.

The first canto describes Lisbon, Cintra, the ride through Portugal and
Spain to Seville and thence to Cadiz. He is moved by the grandeur of the
scenery, but laments the helplessness of the people and their impending
fate. Talavera was fought and won whilst he was in Spain, but he is
convinced that the "Scourge of the World" will prevail, and that Britain,
"the fond ally," will display her blundering heroism in vain. Being against
the government, he is against the war. History has falsified his politics,
but his descriptions of places and scenes, of "Morena's dusky height," of
Cadiz and the bull-fight, retain their freshness and their warmth.

Byron sailed from Gibraltar on the 16th of August, and spent a month at
Malta making love to Mrs Spencer Smith (the "Fair Florence" of c. II. s.
xxix.-xxxiii.). He anchored off Prevesa on the 28th of September. The
second canto records a journey on horseback through Albania, then almost a
_terra incognita_, as far as Tepeleni, where he was entertained by Ali
Pacha (October 20th), a yachting tour along the shores of the Ambracian
Gulf (November 8-23), a journey by land from Larnaki to Athens (December
15-25), and excursions in Attica, Sunium and Marathon (January 13-25,
1810).

Of the tour in Asia Minor, a visit to Ephesus (March 15, 1810), an
excursion in the Troad (April 13), and the famous swim across the
Hellespont (May 3), the record is to be sought elsewhere. The stanzas on
Constantinople (lxxvii.-lxxxii.), where Byron and Hobhouse stayed for two
months, though written at the time and on the spot, were not included in
the poem till 1814. They are, probably, part of a projected third canto. On
the 14th of July Hobhouse set sail for England and Byron returned to
Athens.

Of Byron's second year of residence in the East little is known beyond the
bare facts that he was travelling in the Morea during August and September,
that early in October he was at Patras, having just recovered from a severe
attack of malarial fever, and that by the 14th of November he had returned
to Athens and taken up his quarters at the Franciscan convent. Of his
movements during the next five months there is no record, but of his
studies and pursuits there is substantial evidence. He learnt Romaic, he
compiled the notes to the second canto of _Childe Harold_. He wrote (March
12) _Hints from Horace_ (published 1831), an imitation or loose translation
of the _Epistola ad Pisones_ (Art of Poetry), and (March 17) _The Curse of
Minerva_ (published 1815), a skit on Lord Elgin's deportation of the
metopes and frieze of the Parthenon.

He left Athens in April, passed some weeks at Malta, and landed at
Portsmouth (c. July 20). Arrived in London his first step was to consult
his literary adviser, R.C. Dallas, with regard to the publication of _Hints
from Horace_. Of _Childe Harold_ he said nothing, but after some hesitation
produced the MS. from a "small trunk," and, presenting him with the
copyright, commissioned Dallas to offer it to a publisher. Rejected by
Miller of Albemarle Street, who published for Lord Elgin, it was finally
accepted by Murray of Fleet Street, who undertook to share the profits of
an edition with Dallas.

Meanwhile Mrs Byron died suddenly from a stroke of apoplexy. Byron set off
at once for Newstead, but did not find his mother alive. He had but little
affection for her while she lived, but her death touched him to the quick.
"I had but one friend," he exclaimed, "and she is gone." Another loss
awaited him. Whilst his mother lay dead in his house, he heard that his
friend Matthews had been drowned in the Cam. Edleston and Wingfield had
died in May, but the news had reached him on landing. There were troubles
on every side. On the 11th of October he wrote the "Epistle to a Friend"
("Oh, banish care," &c.) and the lines "To Thyrza," which, with other
elegies, were appended to the second edition of _Childe Harold_ (April 17,
1812). It was this cry of desolation, this open profession of melancholy,
which at first excited the interest of contemporaries, and has since been
decried as morbid and unreal. No one who has read his letters can doubt the
sincerity of his grief, but it is no less true that he measured and
appraised its literary significance. He could and did turn it to account.

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