of the red. In 1704 he assisted at the reduction of Gibraltar. His gallantry in the battle of Malaga, which followed soon afterwards, won for him the honour of knighthood, and his services to the house of Hanover were rewarded in 1715 with the dignity of a baronet. In 1718 he was made admiral and commander-in-chief of the fleet, and totally defeated a Spanish fleet off Messina—a blow which completed the destruction of the naval power of Spain, and compelled the Spanish court to accept the terms presented by the quadruple alliance. In 1721 Sir George was created Baron Byng of Southill and Viscount Torrington, and one of the knight's companions of the Bath. On the accession of George II. in 1727, he was appointed first lord of the admiralty—an office which he held till his death, in the seventieth year of his age, January 17, 1733.—J. T.
BYNG, John, a British admiral, fourth son of the preceding, was born in 1704. At an early age he entered the navy, and passed rapidly through the various subordinate grades till in 1756 he was, unfortunately for himself, appointed to command the fleet sent to relieve Minorca, at that time threatened by the French. The British government had received ample notice of the preparations made by the French king, but utterly neglected the warning; and at length hastily despatched ten ships, so badly equipped that they had to put in at Gibraltar to obtain a supply of provisions and to refit. There Byng learned that the French had already landed 19,000 men in Minorca, supported by a powerful fleet, and that the whole island, except Fort St. Philip, was in their hands. A council of war was held, at which the major of artillery and the captain of engineers, who had been employed in the erection of the fortifications of Minorca, declared that it was impossible under these circumstances to relieve the island. Byng, however, made an attempt to open up a communication with the fort, but failed. An action followed with the French fleet, which ended in a drawn battle, and Fort St. Philip capitulated. A furious clamour immediately arose in England; and the ministry resolved to sacrifice Byng, in the hope of averting public attention from their own imbecility and gross negligence. He was accordingly superseded, and sent home under arrest. The government journals employed the vilest arts for the purpose of inflaming the minds of the populace against the unhappy admiral, and inducing them to clamour for his blood. He was tried before a court-martial, 28th December, 1756, and found guilty of not having done his utmost to destroy the French fleet, and sentenced to be shot, but unanimously recommended to mercy on the ground that he had failed solely from an error in judgment. Strong representations were made in his favour from various quarters, and even, at the instigation of Voltaire, from the French general. Marshal Richelieu; but in spite of the vigorous efforts made to save the life of the ill-fated admiral, the iniquitous sentence was carried into effect at Portsmouth, 17th March, 1757. He met his fate with the courage of a hero, and the resignation of a christian. Posterity has reversed the sentence of his accusers and judges, and done justice to his memory.—J. T.
BYRD, William, or, as his name is sometimes spelt, BYRDE or BIRD, one of the most profound musicians of the sixteenth century, is supposed to have been the son of Thomas Byrd, a gentleman of Edward VI.'s chapel. It appears that he was brought up in the music-school of St. Paul's cathedral; and, according to Wood, received his musical education under the great master, Tallis. In the year 1554 he was senior chorister of St. Paul's, and his name occurs at the head of the school in a petition for the restitution of certain obits and benefactions, which had been seized under the act for the suppression of colleges and hospitals in the preceding reign. The precise date of his birth is unknown, but the fact of his being senior chorister in 1554, tends to fix it about 1538. In 1563 he was appointed organist of Lincoln cathedral, where he continued till 1569, when he was appointed gentleman of the chapel royal. The chief part of his ecclesiastical compositions being composed to Latin words, Byrd is supposed, notwithstanding the office he held, to have retained his predilection for the Romish communion. He continued to publish his works as late as the middle of the reign of James I.; it is, however, scarcely to be supposed that he composed any part of them at so advanced a period of life. In 1575, it appears by the title-page of the "Cantiones Sacræ," and the patent annexed to that work, that Byrd and Tallis were not only gentlemen of the chapel royal, but organists to her majesty, Queen Elizabeth. Byrd is thought to have derived very considerable pecuniary advantages from a patent granted to him and Tallis by Queen Elizabeth, for the exclusive privilege of printing music and vending music-paper. Upon the decease of Tallis in 1585, the patent devolved wholly to Byrd, according to the conditions on which it had been granted. The following is a list of Byrd's works, printed and published under this patent—"Cantiones quæ ab argumento sacræ vocantur, quinque et sex partium. Authoribus Thoma Tallisio et Gulielmo Birdo Anglis, serenissimæ majestati à privato sacello generosis et organistis," 1575; "Psalmes, Sonets, and Songs of Sadnes and Pietie, made into musicke of five parts," 1587; "Songs of Sundrie Natures, some of Gravitie and others of Myrth, fit for all Companies and Voyces," 1589; "Liber Primus Sacrarum Cantionum quinque vocum," 1589; "Liber Secundus Sacrarum Cantionum," &c., 1591; "Gradualia, ac Cantiones Sacræ, &c., Liber Primus," 1607; "Gradualia, &c., Liber Secundus," 1610; "Psalmes, Songs, and Sonets, some solemne, others joyful, framed to the life of the words," &c., 1611. In addition to this list, Byrd published three masses (one of which has been reprinted by the Musical Antiquarian Society) without date or printer's name, and contributed largely to the works of Young, Watson, Leighton, &c. Of his compositions for the organ or virginals, a few specimens are printed in the "Parthenia, or the first Musick that ever was printed for the Virginals," 1611; the rest, to a considerable extent, may be seen in the MS. virginal books of Queen Elizabeth, Lady Nevil, &c. For his church music, the collections of Dr. Alldrich in Christ church, Oxford, and those of Dr. Tudway in the British Museum, may be consulted with advantage. Before closing this account of Byrd's compositions, it will be necessary to say a few words respecting his claim to the authorship of the celebrated canon "Non nobis, Domine." Dr. Pepusch, in his Treatise on Harmony printed in 1730, distinctly calls it "the famous canon by William Byrd," and Dr. Burney states that it is to be found, with Byrd's name, in Hilton's Catch that Catch can. The canon, it is true, may be found in this work, a copy of which is now before us; but the name of the author does not appear to it, at least in the edition of 1652. Dr. Tudway, in the MS. collection of music made for the earl of Oxford, 1715, and now in the British Museum attributes it to Thomas Morley!—a mistake solely arising from the circumstance of Morley having given the first six bars as a canto fermo in his Introduction to Practicall Musick.
Byrd was an inhabitant of the parish of St. Helen's, Bishopsgate, and resided opposite to Crosby Hall, and adjoining the garden of Sir Thomas Gresham. We learn from the cheque-book of the chapel royal that he died July 4th, 1623. In the record of his death he is styled "the father of musick," in allusion, probably, to his great age. Of his family very little is known. He left a son named Thomas, who was educated in his own profession. In 1601 he acted as substitute for Dr. John Bull, then travelling abroad for the recovery of his health, and in that capacity read the music lecture at Gresham college.
Byrd's talents were highly appreciated by his countrymen and brother professors. Morley in his Introduction before quoted, first printed in 1597, speaks of him as "his loving master never without reverence to be named of musicians;" and Henry Peacham, in his Compleat Gentleman, says—"For motets and musicke of pietie and devotion, as well for the honour of our nation as the merit of the man, I preferre above all other our phœnix, Mr. William Byrd, whom in that kind I know not whether any may equal." Byrd lived on terms of the strictest intimacy with the elder Ferrabosco, and more than once was his rival in trials of skill and ingenuity in the intricacies of composition. Of Byrd's moral character and natural disposition, Burney remarks—"There can perhaps be no testimony more favourable, or less subject to suspicion, than those of rival professors, with whom he appears to have lived during a long life, with cordiality and friendship. And of the goodness of his heart it is to me no trivial proof, that he loved and was beloved by his master, Tallis, and scholar, Morley, who, from their intimate connexion with him, must have seen him en robe de chambre, and been spectators of all the operations of temper, in the opposite situations of subjection and dominion." An engraved portrait of Byrd (probably unique) is in the collection of the writer of this notice.—(Rimbault's Life of Byrd, prefixed to a Mass for Five Voices, printed by the Musical Society.)—E. F. R.
BYROM, born in 1691 at Kersall, near Manchester; died in
