Byng family history now repeated itself. General Byng's grandfather, General Sir John Byng, 1st Earl of Strafford, had served as a youth in the disastrous campaigns in Flanders under Colonel Wellesley (afterward Duke of Wellington) in 1793-95. Over 120 years later Sir Julian Byng stood on the same battlefields, but at the side of his grandfather's enemies, the French. The troops under his command covered the Belgian retreat, checked the German onslaught at the first battle of Ypres, and "were repeatedly called upon to restore the situation at critical points, and to fill gaps in the line caused by the tremendous losses which occurred" (Sir John French, 4th dispatch, 20 Nov. 1914). General Byng commanded the 9th Army Corps in the Gallipoli campaign of 1915, and at the end of May 1916 he succeeded Lieut.-Gen. Sir Edwin Alderson in the command of the Canadian corps on the western front. Under his lead the Canadian troops performed prodigies of valor in the great Somme battles (q.v.), and again in the dashing capture of the German stronghold, Vimy Ridge. In June 1917 General Byng was placed in command of the 3d Army in succession to General Allenby, and on 20 Nov. 1917 his army opened what has been described as the most dramatic episode on the western front since the battle of the Marne, namely, the great drive on Cambrai (q.v.). Before the enemy realized what had happened, the so-called impregnable "Hindenburg Line" had been shattered and thousands of prisoners captured. The distinguishing feature of this brilliant exploit was the utter absence of the customary "artillery preparation." Accompanied by the formidable "tanks," the British infantry advanced at dawn and stormed the enemy's trenches with remarkably few losses. See WAR, EUROPEAN, WESTERN FRONT.

BYNKERSHOEK, bin'kers-hook, Cornelius van, Dutch jurist: b. Middleburg, Zealand, 29 May 1673; d. 16 April 1743. He studied at the University of Franeker, and after practising as a barrister at The Hague, became professor of law at Leyden, and president of the supreme council of Holland. He was one of the most learned among modern civilians. His books are in Latin, and his treatise 'De Foro Legatorum Competente' was translated by Barbeyrac into French under the title of 'Du Juge Compétent des Ambassadeurs' (1728). His most important writings are the Observationes Juris Romani'; 'De Dominio Maris'; "Quæstiones Juris Publici'; and a digest entitled 'Corpus Juris Hollandici et Zelandici.' A complete edition of his works was published at Geneva in 1761, and at Leyden in 1766.

BYR, bur, Robert, pseudonym of KARL ROBERT EMMERICH BAYER (q.v.).

BYRD, berd, William, American lawyer and author: b. Westover, Va., 1674; d. there, 26 Aug. 1744. He received a liberal education in England, possessed one of the largest libraries in the colonies, and, having a large property, lived in a splendid style, unrivaled in Virginia. He was a member and a last president of the King's Council. To French Protestants fleeing to Virginia from persecution in France, he extended the most generous assistance. The towns of Richmond and Petersburg were laid out by him, and he was one of the commissioners for establishing the boundary line between

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Virginia and North Carolina. He was a member of the Royal Society, and as a patron of literature and art deserves remembrance. own writings include the Westover Manuscripts, embracing 'The History of the Dividing Line'; 'A Journey to the Land of Eden'; and A Progress to the Mines.' In The Virginian Magazine of History and Biography (1902) appeared his letters, revealing much of interest concerning his personality and career. Consult Trent, English Culture in Virginia' (1889); A History of American Literature' (New York 1903).

BYRD, William, composer. See BIRD, WILLIAM.

BYRGIUS, bėr'ji-us, Justus (properly JOBET BÜRGI), Swiss mathematician: b. Lichtensteig, Canton of Saint Gall, Switzerland, 28 Feb. 1552; d. Cassel, Germany, 31 Jan. 1632. He was invited to Cassel by the Landgrave of Hesse to superintend the observatory which he had there erected, and constructed a number of astronomical instruments, some curious clocks and other machines, including the proportional compasses. A discovery involving that of the logarithms, and another exhibiting an application of the pendulum to clocks, have been attributed to him. He is eulogized by Kepler for his talents, but censured for his indolence and undue reserve, which kept back his discoveries from the public. Consult Gieswald, Justus Byrg als Mathematiker (Dantzig 1856).

BYRNE, Thomas Sebastian, American clergyman: b. Hamilton, Ohio, 29 July 1841. He was graduated from Saint Mary's College of the West in 1865. In youth he was an expert machinist, but deciding to enter the priesthood of the Roman Catholic Church, he went, after preparatory training, to the American College in Rome. In 1869 he was ordained in Cincinnati. He devoted himself to literature and teaching in Mount Saint Mary's Seminary; for a time had charge of the Cincinnati Cathedral and again became connected with the seminary, acting as rector until 1894. He wrote 'Man from a Catholic Point of View (1903), which was read at the Parliament of Religions in Chicago. He has published many other religious works and pamphlets. In collaboration with the Rev. Dr. Pabisch, he translated Dr. Alzog's 'Church History) (3 vols., 1874-78).

BYRNES, Thomas, American detective and chief of police: b. New York city 1842; d. there 7 May 1910. In young life a gasfitter, he served in the Civil War with the Ellsworth Zouaves, in 1863 joined the police force of New York city, was promoted captain in 1870, inspector in 1880, superintendent in 1892 and chief of police in 1895. He early became famous for his detective work, and despite great corruption in the police department, maintained an work is well brought out in two books, one by unbesmirched reputation. The nature of his himself, Professional Criminals of America' (New York 1886), and in collaboration with Campbell, H. S. T., and Knox, T. W., 'Darkness and Daylight, or Lights and Shadows of New York Life (Hartford 1899).

BYRON, George Gordon, 6th lord, English poet: b. London, 22 Jan. 1788; d. Misso

longhi, Greece, 19 April 1824. He was the son of "Mad Jack Byron," a good-looking, profligate soldier, who first married the divorced Marchioness of Carmarthen, and had by her a daughter Augusta, later Mrs. Leigh. Captain Byron became a widower in 1784 and, a little more than a year later, married a Scotch heiress, Catherine Gordon of Gight. Their only child, the poet, was born at No. 16 Holles street, Cavendish Square, and was lame from birth, owing to a defect in one of his ankles. The influences surrounding the child were deplorable. John Byron, to escape his creditors, had to flee to France, where he died in 1791. Mrs. Byron, with a much reduced income, resided in Aberdeen and proved to be a most indiscreet mother, now fondly petting her child, now reviling him. She was actually guilty of reproaching him for his lameness. The boy himself was capable of great affection for his nurse and for a cousin, Mary Duff, and his schoolmates seem to have regarded him as warm-hearted. His education was not neglected during his early years, but tutors and schools could not make up for his lack of training at home. He learned, however, to love nature amid the Scotch hills.

In 1794 the grandson of the then Lord Byron died, and the six-year-old boy became heir to the peerage, which he inherited in 1798. Then his mother obtained a pension and left Scotland, Byron being made a ward in chancery and Lord Carlisle being appointed his guardian, though his mother's lawyer, John Hanson, really looked after his welfare. A quack tortured his foot, and schoolmasters tried to make him studious, his main mental nutriment consisting, apparently, of the Bible and poetry. He wrote love verses to a young cousin, endured his mother's caprices and was doubtless glad to be entered at Harrow in 1801, where, however, he was at first discontented and not liked. He could not make a scholar of himself, though, as Mr. Coleridge has shown, his classical attainments have been much underrated; but he was a good declaimer and through his pluck in fighting and in athletics, despite his deformity, he became a leader in the school. He was romantically devoted to his friends, and once offered to take half the thrashing a bully was giving to the boy who later was known as Sir Robert Peel. Impulsiveness characterized both his insubordinate attitude toward the school authorities and his love affair with his cousin and senior, Mary Anne Chaworth, who soon married and left him disconsolate. His affection for her seems never to have been entirely effaced. Altogether, his childhood and youth were well adapted to produce a wayward man.

In October 1805 he went into residence as a nobleman at Trinity College, Cambridge. He took full advantage of his privileges, ran into debt, though he had an allowance of £500 a year, gambled, consorted with pugilists, won fame as a swimmer, traveled about in style, and, last, but not least, after stormy quarrels with his mother, successfully asserted his claim to be his own master. He formed some warm friendships with promising students, notably with John Cam Hobhouse, afterward Lord Broughton (q.v.); he dabbled in literature and wrote verses, and he received his M.A. "by special privilege as a peer," in July 1808.

Nearly two years previously he had printed Fugitive Pieces,' a volume of poetry, but had destroyed all save two or three copies because a clergyman friend had objected to one poem as too free. A small edition of what was practically the same book, 'Poems on Various Occasions, appeared early in 1807. A few months later this was reissued with considerable alterations as 'Hours of Idleness, which was again altered in a second edition of March 1808, two months after the now famous slashing review from the pen of Brougham had appeared in the Edinburgh Review.

Byron's youthful volume certainly gave little indication of the genius he was soon to display, but it called for no severe chastisement. Hence, the editor of the Edinburgh, Jeffrey, got only what he deserved when Byron pilloried him in English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, which appeared anonymously about the middle of March 1809, and was at once successful. It is still decidedly readable in parts and ranks with the best satires of its kind. It went through five editions in two years, the last being suppressed by its author, because he had become the friend of many of his victims.

Meanwhile Byron had settled-if such a word may be used of his riotous occupation of his domain-at Newstead Abbey, and had repaired it on borrowed money. In March 1809 he took his seat in the House of Lords. Then he prepared himself for a tour of the Continent, which was begun with Hobhouse and three servants in July. That Byron was to any marked extent as dissipated and misanthropical as his own Harold does not seem likely.

The travelers sailed to Lisbon and saw something of Portugal, Spain, Malta, Albania and Greece. At Athens Byron finished the first canto of 'Childe Harold' and celebrated the charms of his landlady's daughter, Theresa Macri, the "Maid of Athens." Then the friends visited Asia Minor and reached Constantinople shortly after Byron's famous swim from Sestos to Abydos (3 May 1810). About two months later Hobhouse returned to England and Byron to Athens, where, after a tour of the Morea, he spent the winter of 1810-11 apparently studying and writing and making excursions. He reached England, by way of Malta, about 20 July 1811.

Throughout his travels he had been in severe financial straits, which his mother had shared. Immediately on his return she was taken ill, and before he could reach her she died. He mourned for her in a passionate way, and the practically simultaneous deaths of three friends also afflicted him and gave him an excuse for writing melancholy verses. He had brought to England the first and second cantos of Childe Harold' and his paraphrase of the 'Ars Poetica,' the 'Hints from Horace.' The latter, which he is said to have preferred, was immediately accepted by a publisher, but for some reason it did not appear during Byron's life. 'Childe Harold,' after some delay, was the means of uniting its author with his famous publisher, John Murray. It appeared in March 1812, after Byron had made a successful speech in the House of Lords. As all the world knows he awoke one morning and found himself famous as a poet; it is no wonder that he put a parliamentary career, in

which he might have done great good, forever behind him.

It has been for some years fashionable to sneer at the earlier cantos of 'Childe Harold' ; but they are at least effective poetry, and their novel theme and romantic tone fitted them for the early readers who went wild over them. Melancholy and cynicism in a youth were more likely to attract than to shock men and women who were subjects of the Regent and contemporaries of Napoleon. Byron, who had previously made a fast friend of his would-be adversary, Thomas Moore (q.v.), became the social lion of the day. He was young and reckless, and unfortunately gave occasion for scandal through his relations with the notorious Lady Caroline Lamb and the equally frail Lady Oxford. People could also gossip about his handsome face and his drinking, and his strange diet for the reduction of his disfiguring obesity. His pecuniary difficulties, too, and his folly in presenting the money from his copyrights to his connection, Dallas, doubtless caused tongues to wag. He enjoyed his vogue, but not to such an extent as to grow idle. After the failure of the anonymous 'Waltz,' he gave the world (The Giaour in May 1813, The Bride of Abydos, in December of the same year, and The Corsair' two months later. All were dashed off, all were very popular, all deepened the atmosphere of mystery about him. Scott's supremacy as a romantic poet passed to the newcomer, and although the lines on the Princess Charlotte caused some hard feeling and he threatened to quit poetry, Byron continued for two years to have his fling both as a poet and as a gay man of the world. 'Lara' appeared in August 1814; 'Hebrew Melodies' in January 1815; 'The Siege of Corinth and Parisina in January and February 1816. The sums paid by Murray for these poems - Byron, harassed by debt, at last began to be businesslike-show plainly how well the poet continued to hold his public. Except for such lyrics as 'She walks in beauty like the night,' the work of this period has in the main failed to hold later generations. This is due no doubt to an unwholesome desire on the part of a puritanical race "to take it out" upon Byron's far from impeccable character and career, as well as to a natural change of taste toward greater polish and refinement, and to the effect of such a story as that its author wrote the first sketch of "The Bride of Abydos' in four nights after coming home from balls. That latter-day criticism has been altogether wrong in correcting the excessive praise given by Byron's contemporaries to this facile group of poems cannot be maintained; but it is well to remember that copious power is a good sign of genius, that Byron managed to put into The Giaour not a little narrative vigor and into the whole group of Oriental tales much of the color and the spirit of the East, and that English literature would have been deprived of many beautiful lyric and descriptive passages if he had allowed society completely to turn him from writing verse.

Meanwhile Byron had seen much of Moore and Rogers and had met, after many years, his half-sister, Mrs. Leigh, the "Augusta" of some of his best poems, and the being of all others to whom his heart went out most fondly. In after years his memory and hers were to be

clouded by a dark suspicion which, whether true or false, would probably never have soiled the ears of the world but for the jealousy of another woman - his wife. Whether the scandal which Mrs. Stowe (q.v.) spread and which Byron's own grandson, Lord Lovelace, unaccountably revived will ever be substantiated or laid completely to rest is a matter upon which the data for a decision are not forthcoming. In the interim generous minds and hearts will prefer to believe in the purity of the 'Epistle to Augusta.'

The story of Byron's courtship and marriage, while less mysterious than that of Milton, is not a clear one. In 1812 he seems to have been rejected by an heiress in expectation, Miss Anna Isabella Milbanke, four years his junior and a connection of his flame, Lady Lamb. The young woman appears to have been fond of mathematics and theology, to have written poems, to have been somewhat priggish and prudish and very self-centred. Some correspondence was kept up between the pair and, as a marriage seemed likely to steady his habits and better his fortunes, Byron proposed again by letter in September 1814. This time he was accepted. Miss Milbanke was apparently proud of her catch and Byron of his. They were married on 2 Jan. 1815 and they seem to have got on well at first, though each later made reports to the contrary. The young wife soon inherited money and promised him a child; the poet behaved himself well on the surface, took an interest in the management of Drury Lane, saw something of Sir Walter Scott (always his defender) and helped Coleridge to publish 'Christabel. But the pair were evidently incompatible, and after the birth of their only child, Augusta Ada, on 10 Dec. 1815, a separation was arranged for, Lady Byron believing that her husband was insane a notion obviously stupid, but possibly charitable from her own point of view. The doctor, the lawyer and the father-in-law she let loose upon Byron may have irritated him into conduct that did not allay her suspicions. It is all a tangle; perhaps the easiest way out is to censure Byron and resolutely refrain from admiring his wife.

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The separation was followed by an astonishing public clamor against Byron, whose friends seem to have thought his life in danger. Leslie Stephen has contended that the public indignation was not unnatural. Perhaps it was not, in the sense that it represented some of the worst elements of human nature. For a society that tolerated the Regent and his boon associates to fawn upon a man and then to condemn him unheard on the score of practically unspecified charges was simply to put an indelible blot upon Englishmen of the upper and middle classes a blot the blackness of which may be somewhat gauged from the depth of the vindictiveness with which Byron's fame has been since attacked by many of his countrymen. It by no means follows, however, that Byron was at all justified in writing and publishing his numerous poems and passages relating to the separation-though literature would do ill without 'Fare Thee Well,' and would like to have had a chance to see his destroyed novel on the Marriage of Belphegor or that he can be excused for much of his conduct during the exile that began at the end of April 1816 and lasted for the rest of his spectacular life. One

can, however, pardon his constant desire to shock the British public; and, taking account of his temperament, one can understand his varying moods of conciliatory tenderness and defiant scorn toward his implacable wife.

Byron first visited Belgium, traveling luxuriously. Then he went, by the Rhine, to Geneva, where he met the Shelleys and Claire Clairmont, who had made up her mind in London to be his mistress. She bore him in January 1817 a daughter, Allegra, with whom he charged himself and whose death in 1822 grieved him deeply. The intercourse with the Shelleys at Geneva was probably more beneficial to Byron than to Shelley. The Prisoner of Chillon,' the most popular of his poems of the type, the third canto of Childe Harold' which, thanks to Shelley, showed the influence of Wordsworth, the stanzas To Augusta' and other poems are memorials of the period and proofs that his experiences had ripened Byron's poetic powers. After the Shelleys returned to England, Byron, with Hobhouse, crossed into Italy.

He was in Milan in October 1816 and then went for the winter to Venice, where he practically remained for three years. His excesses in the Palazzo Macenigo are unfortunately but too well known; yet, although his health and his character suffered from them, to say nothing of his reputation, he did not a little reading, and his poetical genius continued active. The fourth cantos of Childe Harold' and 'Manfred,' which date, in part at least, from 1817 and reveal the effects of a visit to Rome, show his genius almost at its zenith, and 'Beppo,' suggested by Frere's Whistlecraft Cantos' preluded the greatest of his works-perhaps the greatest of modern English poems - the incomparable medley, 'Don Juan,' the first canto of which was written in September 1818. The first two cantos, between which he wrote 'Mazeppa, were published, without indication of either author or publisher, in July 1819.

Meanwhile Byron had met the Countess Teresa Guiccioli, the young, beautiful and accomplished daughter of Count Gamba of Ravenna. They became passionately attached to each other, and, aided by the customs of the country, were constantly together at Ravenna and other places, Venetian society finally giving them up when she resided under his roof. After some extraordinary business negotiations with the lady's elderly husband, it looked as if the temporarily weary lover might regain his freedom; but finally the affection of the Countess prevailed, and Byron, yielding to an influence higher and better than any he had known of late, established himself near her at Ravenna at the end of 1819. Here for a time, at her request, he gave up 'Don Juan,' and, after some translating from the Italian poets, began to write dramas.

His first play was 'Marino Faliero,' in writing which Byron departed from English models and made a diligent study of authorities. It was finished in the summer of 1820 and played unsuccessfully at Drury Lane the next spring. The year 1821 saw the writing of the more effective (Sardanapalus,' (The Two Foscari,' the powerful, though not stylistically adequate 'Cain: a Mystery,' 'Heaven and Earth, another Mystery, and the inception of Werner,' his best acting play, taken largely from Harriet Lee's (q.v.) story Kruitz

ner.' That Byron had little dramatic genius is generally admitted; the literary power which he could not avoid putting into any composition is not, in the case of these experiments, sufficiently recognized.

While writing his dramas, Byron had more trouble with Count Guiccioli, who was finally separated from his wife, and he was led by the Gambas to take a deep interest in the Carbonari conspiracies. He had already in his poetry given evidence of liberal political sentiments; now he subscribed for the patriotic cause, headed a section of the conspirators, and, but for his birth and fame, would have got into trouble with the Austrian authorities. The Gambas and the Countess were exiled from Ravenna, and Byron, after some lingering, joined them at Pisa in November 1821. Here he saw much of Shelley, Medwin, Trelawny and other Englishmen, and here some time in 1822 he wrote an ineffective drama, 'The Deformed Transformed.) The same year he made with Shelley and Leigh Hunt (q.v.) the unfortunate arrangements which induced the latter to come to Italy and begin the publication of the quarterly journal, The Liberal. The details of this affair are too complicated to be entered upon without ample space. Shelley was imprudent, Byron rather brutal, Hunt exasperating. Shelley's death complicated matters still further, and The Liberal expired after four numbers. Its most memorable item was Byron's masterly satire upon Southey, A Vision of Judgment,' written in 1821. This Murray had been chary of publishing after the trouble he had had with the orthodox on account of 'Cain' an episode which had a good deal to do with Byron's willingness to establish a journal the chief expense of which he knew would fall on himself.

Meanwhile 'Don Juan' had been taken up once more, in a deeper vein, and the Gambas had been ordered to leave Tuscany. Byron, whose health and spirits were impaired, followed them to Genoa in the autumn of 1822. Here he wrote his satire The Age of Bronze,) upon the political reaction of the time, as well as his poor narrative poem The Island' and the later cantos of 'Don Juan.' He was growing restless and feared that he was losing his powers; but, fortunately, for his fame at least, a new outlet for his energies was at hand. A Whig and Liberal committee was formed in London to aid the Greek revolutionists and at Trelawny's suggestion Byron was made a member. He proposed to go in person to the Levant, and by midsummer of 1823 he completed his elaborate preparations for the expedition. Sailing from Genoa, with rising spirits, he reached Cephalonia early in August. Here he remained four months writing excellent letters of advice and sensibly waiting for a clear opportunity for action, not, in all likelihood, for an offer of the Greek crown. At the end of December 1823 he accepted the invitation of Prince Alexander Mavrocordatos to co-operate in the organization of western Greece and sailed for Missolonghi, where he was cordially welcomed. He appears to have shown great tact in harmonizing opposing factions and considerable practical genius as an organizer. He had no chance to lead into action the wild troops over whom he was placed as commander-in-chief, but he did hold out success

fully against a mutiny, awing by his courage the Suliotes that broke into his tent while he was ill. He recovered somewhat, but exposure to fatigue and the constant rains told heavily upon him, and he took no care of himself. At last he was prostrated with ague and received only the crudest medical attention. After much delirium he passed into a long slumber, which ended in his death at six o'clock in the evening of 19 April 1824. The news was a shock to the world. His body was sent to England and was buried, not in Westminster Abbey, but at Hucknall Torkard, near Newstead Abbey. The Greeks would have liked, more appropriately, to bury him at Athens, and, fortunately, they did secure his heart for interment at Missolonghi. There is no incongruity, however, in thinking of him as reposing, after his stormy life, in company with his passionate mother and his long line of wild ancestors.

Byron's position in English literature is a much disputed matter. Foreigners, influenced by the spell cast by his genius upon the romantic writers of their own countries as well as by his devotion to freedom and by the fact that his work in translation does not offend by its slipshod features, almost unanimously – whether they be Frenchmen, or Germans, or Italians, or Spaniards, or Russians,-place him only below Shakespeare. The English-speaking world knows the work of Chaucer, Spenser and Milton too well to admit such a high estimate of his genius; but it seems to have gone farther astray in depreciation than foreigners have in appreciation of his extraordinary gifts and achievements. With a few honorable exceptions like Matthew Arnold, English critics have magnified Byron's plain moral and artistic delinquencies and have minimized his powerful intelligence, his great range of work-he is one of the best of letter writers and the most brilliant of satirists, as well as the arch-romantic and revolutionary poet, and a notable descriptive and lyric one-his copius creative power, and his great "sincerity and strength." They have judged him as somewhat finicky connoisseurs of verse rather than as impartial appraisers of literature. They have underestimated the hold he has kept upon youth and the attraction which his later work, especially 'Don Juan,' so frequently exercises upon intelligent men of mature years. Whether he will ever receive his due from the more cultured of his countrymen is problematical; but there have been indications of late that a less banal attitude is being taken toward both him and his works. He may not be the greatest English poet of modern times, but he is certainly the most effective of all the enemies of cant. See CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE; DON JUAN; MANFRED; VISION OF JUDGMENT.

Bibliography. The bibliography of Byron is naturally immense. His memoirs, given to Moore, were burned, after many family complications, in 1824. Moore's 'Life, Letters and Journals of Lord Byron' (1830) is the standard biography. It was included in Murray's edition of the collected Life and Works' (1832-35; 17 vols., 1837). The number of separate editions of the poems and of translations is enormous, all previous editions being superseded by Murray's edition of the works in 13 volumes (6 of prose, edited by R. E. Prothero, 1898-1901; 7 of verse, edited by

E. H. Coleridge, 1898-1904). The best onevolume edition of the poems is that by Coleridge (1905); the [American] Cambridge edition by P. E. More (1905) is also good. The large list of memoirs and books of biographical value may be represented here by Karl Elze's 'Lord Byron' (1870), Emilio Castelar's 'Vida de Lord Byron' (1873). J. C. Jeaffreson's 'The Real Lord Byron' (1883), John Nichol's 'Byron' in the English Men of Letters' (1880) and Roden Noel's volume in the 'Great Writers' series (1887). Reminiscences by Lady Blessington, Medwin, the Countess Guiccioli, E. J. Trelawny, Hobhouse, Leigh Hunt and many others should also be consulted. Of critical essays, favorable and unfavorable, those by Matthew Arnold, Charles Kingsley, Mazzini, Macaulay, John Morley, J. A. Symonds and Swinburne may be mentioned. Among more recent studies are 'Byron: The Last Phase, by Richard Edgcumbe (1909) and a work in two volumes by Ethel Colburn Mayne (1912-13). The mass of continental criticism is very large and is steadily increasing.

WILLIAM P. TRENT, Professor of English Literature, Columbia University.

BYRON, Harriett, a character in Richardson's novel, Sir Charles Grandison.' She was attached to the hero and was the writer of the greater part of the letters comprising the novel.

BYRON, Henry James, English dramatist and actor: b. Manchester, January 1834; d. London, 11 April 1884. He studied at first for the medical profession, and afterward for the bar, but his passion for the stage caused him to abandon them. He was the first editor of Fun, and also started another paper entitled the Comic Times, which soon ceased to appear. He wrote an immense number of pieces, including a great many farces, burlesques and extravaganzas, besides comedies or domestic dramas, such as 'Fra Diavolo' (1858); Cyril's Success,' probably his best work; 'Dearer than Life'; Blow for Blow'; The Lady of Lyons'; 'Uncle Dick's Darling' "The Prompter's Box'; 'Partners for Life' and 'Our Boys' (1878), which had a run of four years and three months, the longest on record.

BYRON, John, English naval officer: b. Newstead, 8 Nov. 1723; d. 10 April 1786. At the age of 17 he sailed with Lord Anson on a voyage round the world, but was wrecked on the coast of the Pacific, north of the Straits of Magellan. Byron, with some of his unfor-. tunate companions, was conducted by the Indians to Chile and remained there till 1744, when he embarked on board a ship of Saint Malo, and in 1745 returned to Europe. At a subsequent period he published a narrative of his adventures, which is extremely interesting. In 1758 he commanded three ships of the line and distinguished himself in the war against France. George III, who wished to explore the part of the Atlantic Ocean between the Cape of Good Hope and the southern part of America, gave Byron command of a frigate, with which he set sail in June 1764. After having circumnavigated the globe he returned at the end of two years to England, where he arrived in May 1766. Although Byron's voyage was not fruitful in discoveries, it still deserves an