The galloping of horse. I did hear Shakspeare. For: noting continuance of time. This sense is not in use. Ferdinand and Isabella recovered the kingdom of Grenada from the Moors; having been in possession thereof by the space of seven hundred years. Bacon. As soon as; not later than: noting time. By this, the sons of Constantine which fled, Ambrise and Uther, did ripe years attain. Faerie Queene. Hector, by the fifth hour of the sun, Will with a trumpet, 'twixt our tents and Troy, To-morrow morning call some knight to arms. Shakspeare. By this time the very foundation was removed. Swift. By the beginning of the fourth century from the building of Rome, the tribunes proceeded so far as to accuse and fine the consuls. In presence. He overtook Amphialus, who had been staid here, In the temple, by and by with us, Beside: noting passage. make the town appear longer than it is to those that sail by it. Addison. Beside; near to; in presence: noting proximity of place. So thou may'st say, the king lies by a beggar, if a beggar dwell near him; or the church stands by thy tabour, if thy tabour stand by the church. Shakspeare. Before himself, herself, or themselves, it notes the absence of all others. He will imagine, that the king and his ministers sat down and made them by themselves, and then sent them to their allies to sign. Swift. Shakspeare. BY, n. s. From the preposition. Something not the direct and immediate object of regard. In this instance, there is, upon the by, to be noted, the percolation of the verjuice through the wood. Bacon So, while my loved revenge is full and high, I'll give you back your kingdom by the by. Dryden. BY. In composition, implies something out of the direct way, and consequently some obscurity, as a by-road; something irregular, as a by-end; or something collateral, as a by-concernment; or private, as a by-law. This composition is used at pleasure, and will be understood by the examples following. I afterwards entered a by-coffeehouse, that stood at the upper end of a narrow lane, where I met with a nonjuror.. BY-CONCERNMENT, n. s. not the main business. Addison. Augustus, who was not altogether so good as he was wise, had some by-respects in the enacting of this law; for to do any thing for nothing was not his Dryden An obscure unfrequented maxim. BY-ROAD, n. s. An affair which is path. Through slippery by-roads, dark and deep, They often climb, and often creep. Swift. BY-ROOM, n. s. A private room within ano Our plays, besides the main design, have underplots, or by-concernments, or less considerable persons and intrigues, which are carried on with the motion of the main plot. Dryden. BY-DEPENDENCE, n. s. An appendage; something accidentally depending on another. These, And your three motives to the battle, with I know not how much more, should be demanded; In the beginning of this record is inserted the law or institution; to which are added two by-laws, as a comment upon the general law. Addison. BY-MATTER, n. s. Something incidental. I knew one that, when he wrote a letter, would put that which was most material into the postscript, as if it had been a by-matter. Bacon. BY-NAME, n. s. A nick-name; name of reproach, or accidental appellation. Robert, eldest son to the Conqueror, used short hose, and thereupon was by-named court-hose, and shewed first the use of them to the English. Camden. BY-PAST, adj. Past; a term of the Scotch dialect. Wars, pestilences, and discases, have not been fewer for these three hundred years by-past, than ever they had been since we have had records. Cheyne. BY-PATH, n. s. A private or obscure path. Heaven knows, my son, By what by-paths, and indirect crooked ways, I got this crown. Shakspeare. BY-RESPECT, n. s. Private end or view. It may be that some, upon by-respects, find somewhat friendly usage in usance, at some of their hands. Carew. ther. sugar. I pr'ythee, do thou stand in some by-room, while I question my puny drawer to what end he gave the Shakspeare. BY-SPEECH, n. s. An accidental or casual speech, not directly relating to the point. When they come to allege what word and what law they meant, their common ordinary practice is to quote by-speeches, in some historical narration or other, and to use them as if they were written in most exact form of law. Hooker. BY-STANDER, n. s. A looker on; one uncon cerned. pose. No by-views of his own shall mislead him. Atterbury. BY-WALK, n. s. A private walk; not the main road. He moves afterwards in by-walks, or under-plots, as diversions to the main design, lest it should grow tedious; though they are still naturally joined. Dryden. BY-WAY, N. s. A private and obscure way. Night stealths are commonly driven in by-ways, and by blind fords, unused of any but such like. Spenser on Ireland. BY-WEST, adv. Westward; to the west of. Whereupon grew that by-word, used by the Irish, that they dwelt by-west the law, which dwelt beyond the river of the Barrow. Davies on Ireland. BY-WORD, n. s. A saying; a proverb. Bashful Henry be deposed; whose cowardice Hath made us by-words to our enemies. Shakspeare. BYBLIS, in fabulous history, the daughter of Miletus, who, falling in love with her brother Caunus, killed herself, and was metamorphosed into a fountain. BYBLUS, in ancient geography, a town of Phoniica, situated between Berytus and Botrys; it was the royal residence of Cinyras, and sacred to Adonis. Pompey delivered it from a tyrant, whom he caused to be beheaded. It stood near the sea, on an eminence, and near it ran the in after life, two other striking recollections of Harrow, that he fought lord Calthorpe there for writing atheist' under his name; and, in the best spirit of a young aristocrat, prevented the school-room from being burnt, during a rebellion of the boys, by pointing out to them the names of their fathers and grandfathers on the walls. Had I married Miss C- -'continued lord Byron to captain Medwin, perhaps the whole tenor of my life would have been different. She jilted me, however; but her marriage proved any thing but a happy one. She was at length separated from Mr. M - and proposed an interview with me, but by the advice of my sister I declined it. I remember meeting her after my return from Greece, but pride had conquered my love; and yet it was not with perfect indifference I saw her.' He has beautifully alluded to these circumstances in his well-known Dream. At the age of seventeen he was entered at Trinity College, Cambridge, and, as at Harrow, subjected himself to frequent rebukes for his vagaries he ever entertained, he says, great contempt for academical honors, and, among other proofs of it, trained a bear at college, designing it, as he stated, to take a degree. In 1807 he was himself complimented with the honorary degree of M. A. He quitted college the same year to take up his residence at Newstead, and printed, at Newark, in December, his first volume of poems. These were given to the world under the title of Hours of Idleness, and were criticised with memorable severity in the Edinburgh Review. They certainly contain but few traces of the towering genius he afterwards exhibited; but his critics have since made the amende honorable in all but direct terms: they inflicted on him the misery, the rage,' in which he was first stimulated, to an effect worthy his muse; and their bullying, as he says, far from deterring him from writing, made him but the more bent on falsifying their raven predictions, and determined' him to show them, croak as they would, it was not the last time they should hear from him.' He now, therefore, set to work in good earnest, and in the course of the following year produced the English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. Lord Byron, in our humble judgment, never composed lines to exceed, in strength and beauty, several that are found in this poem. We cannot multiply specimens, but select the best criticism of the day on Little, alias Moore's amorous poems, as expressing all a friendly moralist must often have felt inclined to say to his lordship afterwards. Grieved to condemn, the muse must still be just, Nor spare melodious advocates of lust. Pure is the flame which o'er her altar burns; From grosser incense with disgust she turns: Yet kind to youth, this expiation o'er, She bids thee mend thy line and sin no more.' And the apostrophe to Kirke White, alluding to his death being hastened by his devotion to study: So the struck eagle stretch'd upon the plain, No more through rolling clouds to soar again, Viewed his own feather on the fatal dart, Mr. Dallas gives us an anecdote or two of the passage of this poem through the press, which are worth preserving. The day on which he came of age lord Byron put it into the hands of that gentleman, in London, wishing him to get it published anonymously. It was then entitled the British Bards, and the author added 110 lines during the printing of it. Among other alterations he inserted the entire panegyric on Crabbe, whose name was at first altogether omitted; and the couplet respecting Congreve and Otway; changed a censure of Mr. Smythe to the highest praise, and a strong commendation originally bestowed on lord Carlisle's poetry into the elaborate condemnation of it which now stands in the poem. It was at first said, that among the peers, On one alone Apollo deigns to smile, Now his poetry is paralytic feeling;' and 'no muse will smile upon it.' The fact is, a violent family quarrel had taken place between the noble bards in the interim. This satire, according to Mr. Dallas, was offered to the most extensive publishing house of the day, Messrs. Longman's, and refused, on the ground of its asperity: rather, we should apprehend, on account of their wellknown connexion with the reviewers, so severely chastised. It is remarkable that the first number of that Review itself is also stated to have been thrown aside by another sapient publisher, then living in the Poultry, for a similar reason with that Mr. Dallas assigns. This satire made a deep impression on the public in favor of its author, who was soon known. Just previous to its publication he resolved upon taking his seat in the House of Peers, pro forma; and the two circumstances transpiring together, increased the general eclat which now attended his name. He had written, it seems, to his near relative, lord Carlisle, with the desire to procure his introduction to the House: but that nobleman, in a cold reply, merely informed him, technically, of the mode of proceeding: so that he was received in their lordship's anti-chamber by some of the official persons only; and advanced to the table of the House, as Mr. Dallas informs us, with evident mortification and subdued anger. Here, however, having taken the oaths, he was kindly greeted by the chancellor, who descended from his seat and offered him his hand. Lord Byron made a stiff bow, and gave his lordship the tips of his fingers,' says Mr. Dallas, in return.' If I had shaken hands heartily,' he afterwards said, he would have set me down for one of his partybut I will have nothing to do with any of them on either side: I have taken my seat, and now I will go abroad.' Unhappily, even at this period, lord Byron had indulged himself in a career of dissipation which seriously injured his fortune. He make. Don Juan describe, but too truly, his own case.- They are young, but know not youth: it is anticipated; The travellers passed by Lisbon and the Lord Byron always exhibited this kind of noble disinterestedness and courage: strange that the certain miseries he was preparing for himself and his companions for the future, should be the only enemies he was too cowardly to deal with now. Through the same channel, captain Medwin, we receive his lordship's account of one of the severest illnesses he ever had. It curiously illustrates the character of the Albanians. They,' he says, were devotedly attached to me, and watched me day and night. I am more indebted to a good constitution for having got over this attack than to the drugs of an ignorant Turk, who called himself a physician. He would have been glad to have disowned the name, and reVOL. IV. signed his profession too, if he could have escaped from the responsibility of attending me, for my Albanians came the grand seignior over him, and threatened that if I were not entirely recovered at a certain hour, on a certain day, they would take his life! They are not people to make idle threats, and would have carried them into execution, had any thing happened to me. You may imagine the fright the poor devil of a doctor was in, and I could not help smiling at the ludicrous way in which his fears showed themselves. I believe he was more pleased at my recovery, than either my faithful nurses or myself. I had no intention of dying at that time, but if I had died the same story would have been told of me that was related of colonel Shelbrooke, in America. On the very day my fever was at the highest, a friend of mine declared that he saw me in St. James's Street, and somebody put down my name in the book at the palace, as having enquired after the king's health." Lord Byron wrote home occasionally to his mother, during the whole of his absence from England, and gave these letters afterwards to Mr. Dallas, saying 'Some day or other they will be curiosities.' They formed a principal part of the letters which, at the instance of Lord Byron's executors, the court of chancery restrained Mr. Dallas from publishing. This circumstance we cannot but regret, while the mercenary views of Mr. Dallas are but too obvious. His lordship was in Albania at the height of the late Ali Pacha's prosperity, and was lodged at his palace. When introduced to that chief, the latter remarked that he had heard lord Byron's family was a great one, and should have known him to be a man of rank from the smallness of his ears, his curling hair, and his small white hands: that he begged to be considered as his father during his stay in Albania, and wished to be respectfully remembered to his mother. In going into a ship of war, provided for them by Ali, intending to sail for Patras, the travellers were very near being lost in a gale of wind. They were driven on the coast of Suli; and there experienced the most disinterested hospitality. After having been lodged and refreshed with his suite, consisting of his servant Fletcher, a Greek, two Athenians, a Greek priest, and Mr. Hobhouse, lord Byron offered the chief of the Suliote village money; but he refused any remuneration, and only asked for a written acknowledgment that he had treated the strangers well. I wish you to love me,' he said, 'not to pay me.' It was while his frigate was at anchor in the Dardanelles, that lord Byron swam from Sestos to Abydos: an exploit on which he much prided himself. He returned to England in July, 1811, having never heard but once from his man of business during his travels, and this was, it seems, to propose the sale of Newstead Abbey. Lord Byron, however, sent home Fletcher, with his determination not to do this; but rather to sacrifice his Rochdale or Yorkshire property. If Newstead remained, he said, he should come back to England, if not he never should. On his return he had so far cooled in his re3 B Adonis into the Mediterranean. It is now in ruins. BYNG (George), lord viscount Torrington, the son of John Byng, Esq., was born in 1663. At the age of fifteen he went a volunteer to sea with the king's warrant. His early engagement in this course of life gave him little opportunity of acquiring learning, but by his abilities and activity as a naval commander he furnished abundant matter for the pens of others. After being several times advanced, he was, in 1702. raised to the command of the Nassau, a third rate, and was at the taking and burning of the French fleet at Vigo; and in 1703 he was made rear-admiral of the red. In 1704 he served in the grand fleet sent to the Mediterranean under Sir Cloudesly Shovel; and commanded the squadron that attacked, cannonaded, and reduced Gibraltar. He was in the battle of Malaga, and was knighted by queen Anne for his gallant behaviour in that action. In 1705, within two months, he took twelve of the enemy's largest privateers, with the Thetis, a French man of war of forty-four guns; and also several merchant ships, most of them richly laden. The prisoners taken on board were 2070, and 334 guns. In 1718 he was made admiral and commander in chief of the fleet; and was sent with a squadron into the Mediterranean for the protection of Italy, against the Spaniards; who had surprised Sardinia, and landed an army in Sicily. In this expedition he despatched captain Walton in the Canterbury, with five more ships, in pursuit of six Spanish men of war, with galleys, fire-ships, bomb-vessels, and store-ships, who separated from the main fleet, and stood in for the Sicilian shore. The captain's laconic epistle on this occasion, showed that fighting was his talent as well as his admiral's, and not writing. 'Sir, We have taken and destroyed all the Spanish ships and vessels which were upon the coast, as per margin. Canterbury, off Syracuse, I am, &c. G. Walton.' From the account referred to, it appeared that he had taken four Spanish men of war, with a bomb-vessel and a ship laden with arms; and burned four with a fire-ship and bomb-vessel. By his advice and assistance, the Germans retook the city of Messina in 1719, and destroyed the ships that lay in the basin; which completed the ruin of the naval power of Spain. The Spaniards, being much distressed, offered to quit Sicily; but the admiral declared, that the troops should never be suffered to quit the island till the king of Spain had acceded to the quadruple alliance. After performing many signal services, in token of which he received from the emperor his own picture set round with very valuable diamonds, he was made rear-admiral of England and treasurer of the navy, one of the most honorable privy council, baron Byng of Southill in the county of Bedford, viscount Torrington, in Devonshire, and one of the knights companions of the Bath. George II. on his accession to the crown, placed him at the head of the navy, as first lord of the Admiralty; in which high station he died January the 15th, 1733, in the seventieth year of his age, and was buried at Southill in Bedfordshire, BYNG (John, Esq.), the unfortunate son of the former, was bred to the sea, and rose to the rank of admiral of the blue. He gave many proofs of courage; but was at last shot, upon a dubious sentence for neglect of duty, and to shield an incompetent ministry from popular indignation, in 1757. Shortly after his death, the following inscription was boldly placed by his family on his tomb, in the parish church of Southill: To the perpetual disgrace of The Honorable John Byng, Political Persecution, on March the 14th, in the year 1757: See GREAT BRITAIN. BYNNI, in ichthyology, a species of cyprinus, having thirteen rays in the dorsal fin, the third of which is thick and horny; tail linear, and bifid; cirri, four. It is a fish of a silvery color, and oblong oval form, very common in the Nile. BYROM (John), an ingenious poet of Manchester, born in 1791. His first poetical essay appeared in the Spectator. He was admitted a member of the Royal Society in 1724. On taking his degree of master of arts, he went to Montpelier, where he became doctor in physic, and imbibed an extravagant love for the mystic theology of Mallebranche and Bourignon, to which he afterwards added that of Behmen. But reducing himself to narrow circumstances, by a precipitate marriage, he supported his family by teaching a new method of writing shorthand, of his own invention; until an estate devolved to him by the death of an elder brother. He was a man of lively wit, of which he gave many humorous specimens. He died in 1763; and a collection of his Miscellaneous Poems was printed at Manchester, in 2 vols. 8vo. 1773. BYRON (John), commodore, and grandfather of the late lord Byron, was the second son of William, the fourth lord Byron. He was born at Newstead Abbey, in 1723, and, entering the navy early, held the rank of a midshipman in 1740, when Anson commanded an expedition against the Spaniards, in the South Seas. The vessel to which Byron belonged was wrecked on a desert island, from which, after enduring the greatest hardships, he reached Chiloe, and having been made prisoner by the Spaniards, did not return to England for five years. His narrative of his disasters has always been a popular book. In June, 1764, he again left England in command of an expedition fitted out to make discoveries in the South Sea; and, having circumnavigated the globe, returned home in May, 1766. Many ports and islands were explored in this voyage, which were afterwards visited by Bougainville and Cooke; and experiments were made to determine the accuracy of Harrison's time-keeper. Mr. Byron was subsequently made an admiral, and commanded in the West Indies during the American war. He died in 1768. |