inimitably broad character-sketches. During the last few years of his life Byron was in frail health; he died in Clapham on the 11th of April 1884. H. J. Byron was the author of some of the most popular stage pieces of his day. Yet his extravaganzas have no wit but that of violence; his rhyming couplets are without polish, and decorated only by forced and often pointless puns. His sentiment had T. W. Robertson’s insipidity without its freshness, and restored an element of vulgarity which his predecessor had laboured to eradicate from theatrical tradition. He could draw a “Cockney” character with some fidelity, but his dramatis personae were usually mere puppets for the utterance of his jests. Byron was also the author of a novel, Paid in Full (1865), which appeared originally in Temple Bar. In his social relations he had many friends, among whom he was justly popular for geniality and imperturbable good temper.
BYRON, JOHN BYRON, 1st Baron (c. 1600–1652), English cavalier, was the eldest son of Sir John Byron (d. 1625), a member of an old Lancashire family which had settled at Newstead, near Nottingham. During the third decade of the 17th century Byron was member of parliament for the town and afterwards for the county of Nottingham; and having been knighted and gained some military experience he was an enthusiastic partisan of Charles I. during his struggle with the parliament. In December 1641 the king made him lieutenant of the Tower of London, but in consequence of the persistent demand of the House of Commons he was removed from this position at his own request early in 1642. At the opening of the Civil War Byron joined Charles at York. He was present at the skirmish at Powick Bridge; he commanded his own regiment of horse at Edgehill and at Roundway Down, where he was largely responsible for the royalist victory; and at the first battle of Newbury Falkland placed himself under his orders. In October 1643 he was created Baron Byron of Rochdale, and was soon serving the king in Cheshire, where the soldiers sent over from Ireland augmented his forces. His defeat at Nantwich, however, in January 1644, compelled him to retire into Chester, and he was made governor of this city by Prince Rupert. At Marston Moor, as previously at Edgehill, Byron’s rashness gave a great advantage to the enemy; then after fighting in Lancashire and North Wales he returned to Chester, which he held for about twenty weeks in spite of the king’s defeat at Naseby and the general hopelessness of the royal cause. Having obtained favourable terms he surrendered the city in February 1646. Byron took some slight part in the second Civil War, and was one of the seven persons excepted by parliament from all pardon in 1648. But he had already left England, and he lived abroad in attendance on the royal family until his death in Paris in August 1652. Although twice married Byron left no children, and his title descended to his brother Richard (1605–1679), who had been governor of Newark. Byron’s five other brothers served Charles I. during the Civil War, and one authority says that the seven Byrons were all present at Edgehill.
BYRON, HON. JOHN (1723–1786), British vice-admiral, second son of the 4th Lord Byron, and grandfather of the poet, was born on the 8th of November 1723. While still very young, he accompanied Anson in his voyage of discovery round the world. During many successive years he saw a great deal of hard service, and so constantly had he to contend, on his various expeditions, with adverse gales and dangerous storms, that he was nicknamed by the sailors, “Foul-weather Jack.” It is to this that Lord Byron alludes in his Epistle to Augusta:—
A strange doom is thy father’s son’s, and past
Recalling as it lies beyond redress,
Reversed for him our grandsire’s fate of yore,
He had no rest at sea, nor I on shore.”
Among his other expeditions was that to Louisburg in 1760, where he was sent in command of a squadron to destroy the fortifications. And in 1764 in the “Dolphin” he went for a prolonged cruise in the South Seas. In 1768 he published a Narrative of some of his early adventures with Anson, which was to some extent utilized by his grandson in Don Juan. In 1769 he was appointed governor of Newfoundland. In 1775 he attained his flag rank, and in 1778 became a vice-admiral. In the same year he was despatched with a fleet to watch the movements of the Count d'Estaing, and in July 1779 fought an indecisive engagement with him off Grenada. He soon after returned to England, retiring into private life, and died on the 10th of April 1786.
BYSTRÖM, JOHAN NIKLAS (1783–1848), Swedish sculptor, was born on the 18th of December 1783 at Philipstad. At the age of twenty he went to Stockholm and studied for three years under Sergel. In 1809 he gained the academy prize, and in the following year visited Rome. He sent home a beautiful work, “The Reclining Bacchante,” in half life size, which raised him at once to the first rank among Swedish sculptors. On his return to Stockholm in 1816 he presented the crown prince with a colossal statue of himself, and was entrusted with several important works. Although he was appointed professor of sculpture at the academy, he soon returned to Italy, and with the exception of the years from 1838 to 1844 continued to reside there. He died at Rome in 1848. Among Byström’s numerous productions the best are his representations of the female form, such as “Hebe,” “Pandora,” “Juno suckling Hercules,” and the “Girl entering the Bath.” His colossal statues of the Swedish kings are also much admired.
BYTOWNITE, a rock-forming mineral belonging to the plagioclase (q.v.) series of the felspars. The name was originally given (1835) by T. Thomson, to a greenish-white felspathic mineral found in a boulder near Bytown (now the city of Ottawa) in Ontario, but this material was later shown on microscopical examination to be a mixture. The name was afterwards applied by G. Tschermak to those plagioclase felspars which lie between labradorite and anorthite; and this has been generally adopted by petrologists. In chemical composition and in optical and other physical characters it is thus much nearer to the anorthite end of the series than to albite. Like labradorite and anorthite, it is a common constituent of basic igneous rocks, such as gabbro and basalt. Isolated crystals of bytownite bounded by well-defined faces are unknown.
(L. J. S.)
BYWATER, INGRAM (1840–), English classical scholar, was born in London on the 27th of June 1840. He was educated at University and King’s College schools, and at Queen’s College, Oxford. He obtained a first class in Moderations (1860) and in the final classical schools (1862), and became fellow of Exeter (1863), reader in Greek (1883), regius professor of Greek (1893–1908), and student of Christ Church. He received honorary degrees from various universities, and was elected corresponding member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences. He is chiefly known for his editions of Greek philosophical works: Heracliti Ephesii Reliquiae (1877); Prisciani Lydi quae extant (edited for the Berlin Academy in the Supplementum Aristolelicum, 1886); Aristotle, Ethica Nicomachea (1890), De Arte Poetica (1898); Contributions to the Textual Criticism of the Nicomachean Ethics (1892).
BYZANTINE ART.[1] By “Byzantine art” is meant the art of Constantinople (sometimes called Byzantium in the middle ages as in antiquity), and of the Byzantine empire; it represents the form of art which followed the classical, after the transitional interval of the early Christian period. It reached maturity under Justinian (527–565), declined and revived with the fortunes of the empire, and attained a second culmination from the 10th to the 12th centuries. Continuing in existence throughout the later middle ages, it is hardly yet extinct in the lands of the Greek Church. It had enormous influence over the art of Europe and the East during the early middle ages, not only through the distribution of minor works from Constantinople but by the reputation of its architecture and painting. Several buildings in Italy are truly Byzantine. It is difficult to set a time for the origin of the style. When Constantine founded new Rome the art was still classical, although it had even then gathered up many of the elements which were to transform its aspect. Just two hundred years later some of the most characteristic works of this style of art were being produced, such
- ↑ For Byzantine literature see Greek Literature: Byzantine.
