honorable place in the history of voyages round the world, since he was the first of those renowned circumnavigators of the globe, including Wallis, Carteret and Cook, whose enterprises were not merely mercantile, but were directed to scientific objects. In 1769 Commodore Byron was appointed to the government of Newfoundland, which he held till 1772. He was raised to the rank of vice-admiral in 1778, was worsted by d'Estaing in an indecisive action off Granada in 1779 and died in 1786. Such was his general ill fortune at sea that he was called by the sailors "Foul-Weather Jack.»

BYRON BAY, a bay on the northeastern coast of Labrador, situated about lat. 55° N., and long. 58° W., and north of Hamilton Inlet. The width of the bay is about 50 miles.

BYRON ISLAND, Micronesia, a small island of the Gilbert group, in the Pacific Ocean, about 12 miles in length, abounding in cocoanuts. It was discovered by Commodore Byron in 1765, and belongs to Great Britain.

BYRON'S LETTERS. The letters of Lord Byron are numerous. In Moore's 'Life of Byron' 560 appear. It is reasonable to suppose that his biographer did not select the least interesting, and we are thus able to form a tolerably accurate judgment of Byron's merits as a letter-writer. The chief qualities revealed in these letters are naturalness, good sense and straightforward sincerity. He writes much about himself, as every good letter-writer must, but with no more egoism than is usually displayed in a frank communication between friends. The character thus revealed is at total variance with the character invented for him by his critics and his enemies, and partially sustained by the nature of his poems. He appears as the very reverse of a sentimentalist. There are few passages of tenderness; even when he speaks of the death of his daughter, Allegra, for whom he had a deep affection, he does little more than record his loss in the simplest language. In speaking of the death of Shelley the same restraint is practised; beyond a brief picture of the romantic scene on the shore at Pisa, where the body was burned, there is nothing that reveals the poet. He is at his best when describing his own daily life, his literary aims and ideals and his opinions of his contemporaries. In describing his fellow'writers he sometimes has a flash of true illumination, but his habitual attitude is hostile and satiric. For Walter Scott he has a genuine appreciation; but the rest move him only to contempt "Southey twaddling, Wordsworth drivelling, Coleridge muddling, Bowles quibbling, squabbling and snivelling- Barry Cornwall will do better by and by, if he don't get spoiled by green tea and the praises of Pentonville and Paradise Row."

It is the pervading quality of robustness which is the chief characteristic of the 'Letters. There is nothing of the delicate wordfelicity of Edward Fitzgerald, nor of his fine literary discrimination. There are none of those passages of wild imagination and prophetic passion which give to Carlyle's letters a place in literature equal to that attained by his most deliberate essays and histories. Nevertheless he can strike out memorable phrases, as when he speaks of the unpublished letters

of Burns as revealing a strangely antithetical mind "dirt and deity. -a compound of inspired clay."

Nor are his thoughts upon life and religion without value, though to the modern mind, familiar with the problems of philosophic doubt, his reflections may appear to have little depth or originality. They are, however, the sincere utterances of a mind in revolt against the sluggishness of conventional opinion, and intent upon a freedom which few were bold enough to seek. Upon the whole, it may be said that the real Byron is more faithfully depicted in his letters than in his poetry. We cannot read them without being aware of a mind possessing great natural force, characterized by a trenchant sanity, a hard, clear vision of material facts and a justness of apprehension which belong more frequently to the great critic than the popular poet. W. J. DAWSON.

BYSSUS, bis'sus, a kind of fine flax, and the linen made from it, used in India and Egypt at a very early date. In the latter country it was used in embalming, and mummies are still found wrapped in it. As an article of dress it was worn only by the rich. Dives, in Christ's parable (Luke xvi, 19), was clothed in byssus, and it is mentioned among the riches of fallen Babylon (Rev. xviii, 12). Byssus was formerly erroneously considered as a fine kind of cotton. The fine stuff manufactured from the byssus is called more particularly "sindon." Foster derives the word byssus from the Coptic. Byssus was also used by the ancients, and is still used to signify the hairlike or threadlike substance (also called the beard), with which different kinds of sea-mussels fasten themselves to rocks. Pinna marina, particularly, is distinguished by the length and silky fineness of its beard, from which very durable cloths, gloves and stockings are still manufactured (mainly as curiosities) in Sicily and Calabria.

BYSTRÖM, Johan Niklas, Swedish sculptor: b. Filipstad, Wermland, Sweden, 18 Dec. 1783; d. Rome, 11 March 1848. He studied art under Sergell in Stockholm, and in 1810 went to Rome. In 1815 he returned, and winning the favor of the Crown Prince by his statue of the latter, received several important commissions. Several years before his death he again took up his residence in Rome. Among his more important works are 'Drunken Bacchante'; 'Nymph Going into the Bath'; 'Reclining Juno; Hygieia'; 'Dancing Girl'; a polychrome marble statue of Victory) in the palace at Charlottenburg; a statue of Linnæus and colossal statues of Charles X, XI, XII, XIII, XIV, and Gustavus Adolphus.

BYWATER, Ingram, English scholar: b. London, 27 June 1840; d. 17 Oct. 1914. He was educated at University College and King's College schools, London, and Queen's College, Oxford. He was Regius professor of Greek at Oxford University 1893-1908. Among his works are Fragments of Heraclitus (1877); Works of Priscianus Lydus' (1886); (Textual Criticism of the Nicomachean Ethics' (1892); 'Aristotle on the Art of Poetry, with Translation and Commentary) (1909).

BYZANTINE ARCHITECTURE designates the style and type of architecture which were developed in the Byzantine empire after