1069 



BYRON, JOHN. 



BYZANTINE HISTORIANS. 



1070 



and after a narrow escape from a Turkish frigate landed at Drago- 

 mestri, a wretched seaport of the Greeks on the coast of Acarnania. 

 In sailing from this point to Missolonghi he was near suffering ship- 

 wreck, and by an act of imprudence sowed the seeds of the malady 

 that soon terminated his existence. On the 3rd of January, during a 

 rough and cold night, he leaped into the sea, and swam a lon< way : 

 two or three days after he complained of a severe pain in all his bones, 

 which continued more or less to the time of his death. He reached 

 Missolonghi on the 10th of January 1824, where he found everything 

 in a most perplexing and almost hopeless state of anarchy and confu- 

 sion. He set to work with spirit and application, and again showed a 

 great aptitude for the despatch of public business. The weather was 

 detestable and the place unhealthy. At the beginning of February he 

 got wet through; on the evening of the 15th he was seized with a 

 dreadful convulsive fit, and was for some time speechless and senseless. 

 Soon after this paroxysm, while stretched on his bed faint with over- 

 bleeding, a crowd of mutinous Suliotes whom he had engaged to fight 

 for their country burst into his apartment brandishing their arms, 

 and furiously demanding their pay. Sick and nerve-shaken as ho was, 

 Byron is said to have displayed great calmness and courage on this 

 occasion, and his manner soon inspired the mutineers with respect and 

 awe. At the end of January he had received a regular commission 

 from the Greek government, and was appointed to the command of an 

 expedition that was to besiege Lepauto, then in the hands of the 

 Turks. The difficulties and obstructions encountered by his lordship 

 in preparing and providing for this siege were perplexing and irritating 

 in the extreme, and altogether too much for a man whose health was 

 evidently undermined. Still however he would not listen to those 

 who advised him to retire. "I will stick by the cause," said he, "as 

 long ii- a cause exists." 



On the 9th of April he again got wet through, and returned to 

 Misso ':ghi in a state of violent perspiration. Fever and violent 

 rheumatic pains ensued. On the following day he took a ride among 

 the olive woods, but complained of shudderings, and had no appetite. 

 On the evening of the llth he was much worse, and by the 14th he 

 was evidently in danger. For several days he obstinately refused to let 

 his medical attendants bleed him, and when he gave his consent the 

 bleeding was too late. Inflammation fell upon his brain, and he expired 

 at six o'clock on the afternoon of the 19th of April 1824, being only 

 thirty -six yeara and three months old. The bitter grief of his followers 

 and attendants of all nations was a proof of his frequent kindness of 

 heart, and his goodness as a master. 



As a poet of description and passion Lord Byron will always occupy 

 a high place among English poets, though the absolute supremacy 

 which so many of his contemporaries gave him as his right has already 

 passed away. The least successful of Byron's productions, notwith- 

 standing the admirable passages in which they abound, are his 

 tragedies : the work which gives us the highest notion of his genius, 

 power, and versatility is his ' Don Juan.' The Don is at times free 

 and almost obscene, and the whole tendency of the poem may be 

 considered immoral ; but there are, scattered throughout it, the most 

 exquisite pieces of writing and feeling, inimitable blendings of wit, 

 humour, raillery, and pathos, and by far the finest verses Byron ever 

 wrote. He may be said to have created this manner ; for the Bernesco 

 style of the Italians, to which it has been compared, is not like it. 



(Thomas Moore, Letters and Journal of Lord Byron, with Notices of 

 hit Life; Gait, Life of Lord Byron; Dallas, Memoir; Lady Blessington, 

 Conversations with Lord Byron; &c.) 



BYRON, JOHN, second son of William Lord Byron, by his third 

 wife Frances, second daughter of William Lord Berkeley of Stretton, 

 was born Nov. 8, 1723. He was engaged as midshipman on board 

 the Wager, the store-ship which accompanied Lord Alison's squadron 

 in ita voyage round the world, commenced in September 1740. On 

 the 15th of May the Wager, having before parted company with the 

 remainder of the squadron in consequence of her bad sailing, struck 

 on a sunken rock about 47 S. lat. on the western coast of America. 

 She soon afterwards bilged, and grounded between two small islands 

 about a musket-shot from the shore. Her captain, who had suc- 

 ceeded to the command during the voyage in consequence of the 

 death of his superior officer, appears to have rendered himself hateful 

 to the ship's company by imperious and tyrannical conduct ; and tho 

 crew, on the other hand, were mutinous and insubordinate. The 

 mariners landed upon a wild shore, which afterwards proved to be 

 part of an uninhabited island, and the wretchedness of which may 

 be inferred from the name which the sailors gave it, ' Mount Misery.' 



After several months' residence, part of the crew embarked in the 

 cutter and long-boat to attempt the passage of the Straits of Magel- 

 haens, and a homeward return by Brazil. The cutter was lost, but 

 the long-boat, after undergoing incredible hardships and sailing more 

 than 1000 leagues, arrived at the Portuguese settlements in Brazil. 

 Byron and his companions, after enduring tho utmost extremity of 

 famine, bad weather, cold, fatigue, hunger, sickness, and general 

 destitution, were relieved by a Chanos Indian cacique, who conveyed 

 them to the island of Chiloe, after thirteen months had expired since 

 the loss of the Wager. The narrative which Byron published on his 

 return to England in 1745 is among the most interesting accounts of 

 nautical adventures with which we are acquainted. Byron afterwards 

 served with distinction in 1758 during the war against France; in 1760 



he performed a brilliant service in destroying a French squadron in 

 Chaleur Bay, and on the return of peace in 1764 he was despatched 

 on a voyage of discovery to the South Sea, in command of the ships 

 Dolphin and Tamar. He may be considered as one of the ablest 

 precursors of Captain Cook, in the preliminary volume to whose 

 voyages, collected by Hawkesworth, Byron's journal occupies the first 

 place. 



He was afterwards, in 1769, appointed governor of Newfoundland. 

 In 1778 he commanded the fleet destined to observe the movements 

 of M. d'Estaigne in the West Indies, but the French admiral 

 profiting by his great superiority in numbers (27 ships of the line to 

 21), eluded every attempt to bring him to close engagement. 

 During this expedition Byron received the highest promotion which 

 he attained, that of Vice-Admiral of the White. In 1748 he married 

 Sarah, daughter of John Trevauion, Esq., of Cartrays, in the county 

 of Cornwall, by whom he had two sons and seven daughters. 

 Commodore Byron, as he is usually styled, died in London on April 10, 

 1786, in the enjoyment of a high and merited reputation for courage 

 and professional skill. 



BYZANTINE HISTORIANS is the name given to a series of Greek 

 historians and writers who lived under the Eastern or Byzantine empire 

 between the 6th and the 15th centuries. They may be divided into 

 two classes : 1 . The historians properly so called, whose collected 

 works constitute a complete history of the Byzantine empire from 

 the time of Constantino the Great to the taking of Constantinople by 

 the Turks; 2. The general .chroniclers who have attempted to give a 

 chronography of the world from the oldest times. The historians 

 are : 1. Joannes Zonaras of Constantinople, first an officer of the 

 imperial court, and afterwards a monk of Mount Athos, who died 

 about 1118, and wrote the ' Annals of the World,' iu 18 books. In 

 the first part of his work he belongs to the class of general chroniclers 

 or compilers, but from the time of Constantine he treats more par- 

 ticularly of the history of the Eastern empire, which he brings down 

 to the death of Alexius I. Comnenus in 1118. 2. Nicetas Acominatus 

 of Chonse or Colossse, in Phrygia, who filled several high offices in the 

 court of Isaac Angelus, and who died at Nicsea in 1216. His ' History 

 of the Byzantine Emperors,' in 21 books, begins with 1118 and ends 

 with 1206. 3. Nicephorus Gregoras of Heraclea enjoyed the favour of 

 Andronicus Palseologus the elder of the Palamites ; but owing to the 

 controversy, he was confined in a convent by the patriarch in 1351, 

 where he died. He wrote a Byzantine, or, as he styles it, a ' Roman 

 History,' in 38 books, of which the first 24 only have been printed, 

 containing the history of the Byzantine empire from 1204 to 1331. 

 The 14 remaining in manuscripts bring the history down to 1359. 

 4. Laonicus (Nicolas) Chalcondylas of Athens wrote a 'History of the 

 Turks and of the Downfall of the Greek Empire,' in 10 books, to the 

 year 1462. An anonymous writer has continued the history of the 

 Turks down to 1565. These four writers form by themselves aii 

 entire history of the Byzantine empire from the time of Constantine 

 to the Turkish conquest. The following writers have treated of 

 detached periods of the same history, or have written the lives of par- 

 ticular emperors. 5. Procopius of Csesarea in Palestine, the most 

 celebrated of the Byzantine writers, wrote the ' History of his own 

 Time,' in 8 books, to the year 545. He also wrote a 'Secret History ' 

 (Anecdota) of the reign of Justinian down to the year 553, which, as 

 to the manner in which he speaks of that emperor and of his court, 

 contrasts singularly with the panegyrical tone of his former work. 



6. Agathias of Myriua in yEolis, a poet as well as historian of the 6th 

 century, is well known for his Anthology and his Daphniaca, or ama- 

 tory verse. He studied first at Alexandria, whence he removed to 

 Constantinople in 554, being then about eighteen years of age, and 

 applied to the study of the law, in which he became eminent. Ho 

 was surnamed Scholasticus, a word which then meant an advocate. 

 He wrote a history in 5 books of the years 553-59 of Justinian's 

 reign, which forms a sequel to Procopius. He died about 582. Aga- 

 thias is one of the most trustworthy Byzantine historians inferior to 

 Procopius in talent and information, but superior to him in honesty. 



7. Menander of Constantinople, surnamed Protector, continued the 

 history of Agathias to the year 582. Hollander's history is lost, but 

 fragmerts of it are found in the works of Constantine Porphyro- 

 gennetus, which relate to the history of the Huns, the Avari, and 

 other northern and eastern races, and also to the negociations and 

 missions between Justinian and Chosroes. All that remains of Menan- 

 der has been published by Bekker and Niebuhr, Bonn, 1829. 



8. Joannes of Epiphania wrote a history of the Persian war under 

 the emperor Mauricius, of which the only manuscript known is in the 

 Heidelberg collection. 9. Theophylactus Simocatta lived in the first 

 part of the 7th century, and wrote a history in 8 books, from 582 till 

 the death of Mauricius in 602. 10. Joannes, a monk of Jerusalem, in 

 the 8th century, wrote a brief history of the Iconoclasts, which was 

 published by Combdfis for the ' Corpus Historiso Byzantinie,' together 

 with an anonymous work against Constantine IV., probably written by 

 the same monk. 11. Theodosius, a monk of Syracuse, in the 9th 

 century, has left a narrative of the taking of Syracuse by the 

 Spanish Arabs. It was published for the first time by Hase, with 

 the 'History of Leo Diaconus,' Paris, 1819. 12. Constantinus VI. 

 Pophyrogennetus wrote the life of his grandfather, Basilius the Mace- 

 donian, from 867 to 886. He also wrote several other works which 



