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.

The separation was followed by an astonishing public clamor against Byron, whose friends seem to have thought his life in danger. Sir 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 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.

the

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 unanimouslywhether 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 unfortunate 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

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 fellowwriters 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'sŭs, 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