John Byrom

John Byrom (or John Byrom of Kersal or John Byrom of Manchester) FRS (29 February 1692 - 26 September 1763) was an English poet and hymnist, and the inventor of a revolutionary system of shorthand.

John Byrom (1692-1763). Engraving by Francis William Topham (1808-1877), after Doring Rasbotham (1730-1791). Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

John Byrom
Born	February 29 1692(1692-Template:MONTHNUMBER-29) Manchester, England
Died	September 26 1763(1763-Template:MONTHNUMBER-26) (aged 71) Manchester, England
Occupation	Poet, inventor of shorthand system
Nationality	English
Education	King's School, Chester; Merchant Taylors' School, London; Trinity College, Cambridge
Alma mater	Trinity College, Cambridge
Notable work(s)	Anglican hymn Christians Awake, salute the happy morn Poem My spirit longeth for Thee

Life

Overview

Byrom was born at Kersal Cell, near Manchester, on 29 February 1692, the younger son of a prosperous merchant. He was educated at Merchant Taylors school, and at Trinity College, Cambridge, of which he became a fellow in 1714. His earliest poem, "Colin to Phoebe," a pastoral, appeared in the Spectator, No. 603. After leaving the university Byrom went abroad, ostensibly to study medicine, but he never practiced and possibly his errand was really political, for he was an adherent of the Pretender. On his return to London he married his cousin in 1721, and to support himself taught a new method of shorthand of his own invention, till he succeeded (1740) to his father’s estate on the death of his elder brother. His diary gives interesting portraits and letters of the many great men of his time whom he knew intimately. He died on 26 September 1763. A collection of his poems was published in 1773, and he is included in Alexander Chalmer’s English Poets. His system of shorthand was not published until after his death.

Family, youth, education

Byrom was born 29 February 1691-2 at Kersall Cell, Broughton, near Manchester. He was the 2nd son and 7th of the 9 children of Edward Byrom, by his wife Sarah Allen. The Byroms of Manchester were a younger branch of the Byroms of Salford, themselves a younger branch of the Byroms of Byrom. The Byroms of Manchester had been prosperous merchants and linen drapers. John Byrom's father, Edward, was son of another Edward (1627-1668), and had a younger brother, Joseph, whose daughter, Elizabeth, was thus John's cousin, and afterwards became his wife (see pedigrees appended to Byrom's Remains).

John's name is in the register of Merchant Taylors' School in March 1707. He was entered at Trinity College, Cambridge, on 6 July 1708, and was elected scholar in May 1709; earned a B.A. in 1712 and an M.A. in 1715; and was elected fellow of his college at Michaelmas 1714. He had many scruples as to taking the oath of abjuration.

n 1716 Bvrom traveled abroad and studied medicine for a time at Montpelier. He was afterwards called "doctor" by his friends, but never took the degree. He declined a proposal to practice at Manchester, and his journey may possibly have had rather a political than a professional purpose. He showed strong Jacobite leanings through life.

He returned to London in 1718, and on 14 February 1721 married his cousin, with the consent of her parents, though the contrary has been alleged as an explanation of his subsequent poverty. His father had died in 1711, and the estates had gone to his elder brother, Edward.

Shorthand

Byrom now resolved to increase his income by teaching shorthand. He had invented a new system at Cambridge, in concert, it is said, with Thomas Sharp, a college contemporary, son of the archbishop of York. He issued proposals for publishing his system, dat«d 27 May 1723. During many years he made visits to London, where he often stayed for months, and occasionally to Cambridge, in order to give lessons in his art. His pupils paid 5 guineas and took an oath of secresy. Byrom was soon challenged to a trial of skill by a rival teacher named Weston, whom he treated with good-humored ridicule. His pupils formed a kind of society; they called him grand master, and upon opening ms "sessions" he delivered addresses upon the history and utility of shorthand. His occupation brought him many distinguished acquaintances.

He had printed new proposals for publishing his system by subscription (dated 1 November 1739). Difficulties arose, and he obtained an act of parliament, passed on 5 May 1742, giving him the sole right both of publishing and teaching the system for 21 years. A list of persons testifying to its merits is appended to the proposals, and includes the Duke of Queensberry, Bishop Hoadly and his son, Hartley, R. Smith, the Cambridge astronomer, and other university authorities. The third Duke of Devonshire, Lord Delawarr, Horace Walpole, Gibbon (the historian's father), and, it is said, Lord Chesterfield, were also among his pupils.

Byrom's system of shorthand was not printed until 4 years after his death, when it was explained in a volume illustrated with 13 copper-plates, and entitled The Universal English Shorthand; or the way of writing English in the most easy, concise, regular, and beautiful manner, applicable to any other language, but particularly adjusted to our own, Manchester, 1767, 2nd edition 1796. The method is in appearance among the most elegant ever devised, but it cannot be written with sufficient rapidity, and consequently it was never much used by professional stenographers. Still its publication marks an era in the history of shorthand, and there can be no doubt that the more widely diffused system published by Samuel Taylor in 1786 was suggested by and based upon that of Byrom. Thomas Molineux of Macclesfield issued several elegantly printed manuals of instruction in Byrom's system between 1796 and 1824, but the best exposition of the method is to be found in the Practical Introduction to the Science of Shorthand, by William Gawtress, Leeds, 1819, 3rd edition London, 1830.

Career

On 17 March 1724 he became a fellow of the Royal Society, and contributed 2 papers upon shorthand to the Philosophical Transactions (No. 488). In June 1727 he had a sharp dispute at the society with Sir Hans Sloane. Byrom seems to have opposed an address to the king, and was accused of Jacobitism. He unsuccessfully supported Jurin against Sloane in the election of the president on 30 November 1727.

Byrom's diary, with many letters (published by the Chetham Society), are full of lively accounts of meetings with distinguished contemporaries during these years. He was close with Bentley and his family; with Bishop Hoadley's son, whose father he occasionialy met; he reports interesting conversations with Bishop Butler and Samuel Clarke; David Hartley was a pupil and a very warm friend; he saw something of Wesley; and took a great interest in all the religious speculations of the time. He meets Whiston, the Arian; the deist Collins; the heretical Elwal; and discusses Chubb and Woolston. His own leaning was towards mysticism. He is said to have become acquainted with the writings of Malebranche and Antoinette Bourignon in France.

A lively poem of his describes his buying a portrait of Malebranche (9 March 1727), whom he calls "the greatest divine that e'er lived upon earth." In this he sympathized with William Law, whom he went went to see at Putney, 4 March 1729, in consequence apparently of having bought the Serious Call, then just published. Law was at this time tutor to Gibbon's father, whom he accompanied to Cambridge, where Byrom met him again. Byrom became an ardent disciple of Law, whom he calls his master. When Law became a student of Behmen, Byrom followed, with a modest confession of partial comprehension, He versified several passages of Law's writings, hoping that his verse would cling to the prose "like ivy to an oak," and when Law settled at King's Cliffe, Byrom visited him in his retirement. He corresponded with Law's disciple. Dr. Cheyne, and defended his master against Warburton's brutality. Warburton, who tells Hurd (2 Jan. 1752) that Byrom is "not malevolent but mad," treated his new antagonist with unusual courtesy (see letters in Remains, ii. 522-39).

Byrom's uncle and father-in-law, Joseph, died in 1733, leaving his property to a son, Edward, on whose death, in 1760, it came to John Byrom's family. The death of his own elder and unmarried brother, Edward (12 May 1740), put him in possession of the family estates, and relieved him from the necessity of teaching shorthand.

At Manchester, Byrom was known as a warm supporter of the high church and Jacobite party. He acted as agent in a successful opposition to a bill for establishing a workhouse in Manchester in the early months of 1731. The objection was that the proposed board of guardians was so constituted as to give a majority to whigs and dissenters. Byrom was in Manchester during the Pretender's entry in 1745. His daughter's journal shows that, in spite of his strong Jacobite sympathies, he avoided committing himself. A strong party feeling distracted the town for some years afterwards. Jacobites were insulted at public assemblies, and Byrom, with his friend Dr. Deacon, contributed various essays and epigrams to the Chester Courant, which were collected in a small volume, called Manchester Vindicated (Chester, 1749), and form a curious illustration of the time.

The correspondence of later years is chiefly theological. Byrom died, after a lingering illness, on 26 Sept. 1763. A fine of 5l. was levied on his estate because he was not buried in woollen. He is buried in the Jesus Chapel of Manchester Cathedral.

Writing

Poems

While at college Byrom contributed 2 papers on dreams to the Spectator (Nos. 586, 593, and perhaps 597), and a playful pastoral, called "Colin and Phoebe" (No. 605, 6 October 1714). Joan Bentley, then only 11 years old, daughter of the master, and afterwards mother of playwright Richard Cumberland, is said to have been his Phoebe. The poem was very popular.

Byrom's poems were collected and published at Manchester in 1773. They were republished with a life and notes in 1814. To the last is prefixed a portrait, showing a man of great height and a strongly marked face. The poems are also (with some exceptions) given in Chalmers's English Poets.

Byrom had an astonishing facility in rhyming. He can be forcible, but frequently adopts a comic metre oddly inappropriate to his purpose. Some of his poems are discussions on points of classical or theological criticism (e.g. against Conyers Middleton's reply to Sherlock), and scarcely better than clever doggerel. 1 poem is an argument to prove that St. George was really Gregory the Great. Pegge, who is challenged in the poem, replied to Byrom and Pettingall in the 5th volume of the Archæologia. Others are versifications of Behmen, Rusbrochius, and Law (e.g. the "Enthusiasm" is from Law's Appeal, p. 30 et seq. and the "Pond" from the same writer's Serious Call,’ chap. xi.), and there are a few hymns.

Some occasional poems in which his good-humored sprightliness finds a natural expression have been deservedly admired, especially "Colin to Phœbe" (see above); the "Three Black Crows;" "Figg and Sutton" (printed in the 6th volume of Dodsley's collection and turned to account in Thackeray's Virginians, chap. xxxvii.; the "Centaur Fabulous" upon Warburton's Divine Legation; and the epilogue to Hurlothrumbo. Samuel Johnson, the author of this play, was a favorite object of Byrom's playful satire.

Epigrams

He is also remembered for his epigrams; above all, for his coinage of the phrase Tweedledum and Tweedledee, in an epigram on a dispute about the merits of two composers, George Frederick Handel and Giovanni Bononcini):

Some say, that Signor Bononcini,
Compared to Handel's a mere ninny;
Others aver, to him, that Handel
Is scarcely fit to hold a candle.
Strange! that such high dispute should be
'Twixt Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

Some epigrams are still familiar, "Handel and Bononcini", often erroneously given to Swift; "Bone and Skin," which refers to the mills belonging to the Manchester grammar school, and the well-known

God bless the king, God bless our faith's defender,
God bless—no harm in blessing—the Pretender;
But who pretender is, and who is king,
God bless us all! that's quite another thing.

Critical introduction

by William Ernest Henley

Byrom's is a figure rather curious than notable, rather amiable than striking. He had many turns and accomplishments, and many holds upon life. He loved learning, for instance, and had scholarship enough to write with point upon scholarly subjects. Again, it is certain that he was a man who could love; for he gave over medicine and the chance of medical honours merely to follow up and win the lady he was wooing to wife. Then, as became Weston’s successful rival, the teacher who had improved upon Weston’s own system, and had Hoadley and Chesterfield for his pupils, he was keenly interested in stenography, and not only lectured on it to his classes (his lectures, by the way, are said to have been full of matter and of wit), but read papers about it before the Royal Society. Also, he was curiously versed in theology and philosophical divinity; he held advanced opinions on the dogmas of predestination and imputed righteousness; he is known for a disciple of William Law, a student of Malebranche and Madame Bourignon, a follower of Jacob Boehmen, for whose sake he learned German, and some of whose discourse he was at the pains of running into English verse. And above all was he addicted to letters and the practice of what he was pleased to think poetry. Add to this, that he was a good and cheerful talker, whose piety was not always pun-proof (‘Hic jacet Doctor Byfield, volatilis olim, tandem fixus’), but who was capable on occasion of right and genuine epigram, and the picture is complete. As revealed in it, Byrom is the very type and incarnation of the ingenious amateur.

Verse was his organ; he wrote it more easily and delightedly than prose. From his schooldays onwards, when, as he declares, a line of metre was more to him than a dozen themes, down to the last hours of his life,

‘Him, numbers flowing in a measured time,
Him, sweetest grace of English verse, the rhyme,
Choice epithet and smooth descriptive line,
Conspiring all to finish one design,
Smit with delight’—

and as that delight usually took on palpable shape, it appears to us expressed in more epistles, songs, pastorals, hymns, essays, satires and epigrams, than nowadays one cares to consider.

Nothing came amiss to Byrom in the way of subject. He was interested in everything, and said his say about everything; and that say was always in metre. It was alike in metre that he sang the praises of Joanna Bentley, the Phoebe of his first pastoral, and did battle with Comberbatch in the good cause of Rhyme against Blank Verse; alike in metre that he recorded the gaieties of Tunbridge and the dangers of the Epping stage, the grisly glories of the heroic Figg — ‘so fierce and sedate’ — and the solemn charm of Eastertide and the Nativity. It was in metre that he confuted Middleton, differed from Hervey, emended Horace and Homer, discoursed on the nature of Pentecost, expounded William Law, and explained the Mystical Cobbler. It was in metre that he anatomised beaux and astrologers, made fables and apologies and epigrams, criticised verses and theologies, spoke breaking-up addresses, painted the free and happy workman, and set forth the kindred mysteries of poesy and shorthand. He prattled incessantly, and always in numbers. Not otherwise than in a copy of verses could he define the nature and characteristics of enthusiasm; not otherwise could he submit to the Royal Society his theory that George the Cappadocian had somehow been foisted into the place of Gregory the Roman as England’s patron saint. To respect him it is really necessary to remember that he wrote chiefly for his own amusement and his friends’, and published but a little of the much that he produced.

It is evident that he had read Prior, though not to the best advantage; it is evident, too, that he had read not only Pope, but the metaphysical poets as well; and the poem of "Careless Content," here given, is so good an imitation that it has been supposed to be a genuine Elizabethan production. His chief quality is one of ease and fluency; in combination with a certain cheerful briskness of thought and the amiable good sense that is the most striking element in his intellectual composition, it is to be found here and there in all he did. Unhappily for him and for us, it appears to have been as hard for him to correct as it was easy to write. Too often do his verses sound emptily to modern ear —

‘The art of English poetry, I find,

At present, Jenkins, occupies your mind’—

too often do they set modern fingers itching to shape and improve them. It follows that he is seen to most advantage when, upon compulsion of his stanza, he is at his briefest and most careful. It is not without reason, therefore, that he is generally known but as the author of the sly and amiable quatrain of benediction alike on King and Pretender. That is the man’s highest point as an artist; it is at once his happiest and most complete utterance; and the body of his verse will be searched in vain for such another proof of merit and accomplishment.

Recognition

Byrom was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1724.

Byrom's papers, though preserved for some time after his death, were mysteriously destroyed in the 19th century. A few surviving items have suggested that he may have belonged to an early proto-masonic society, similar to the Gentleman's Club of Spalding, and pursued occult interests. His library of books and manuscripts was donated to Chetham's Library by his descendant Eleanora Atherton in 1870.

The Wellington Inn is now a major tourist attraction, and Byrom's birth is commemorated by a plaque in the bar area.

Publications

Poetry

• Miscellaneous Poems. Manchester, UK: Joseph Harrop, 1773.
• The Poems of John Byrom (edited by Sir Adolphus William Ward). Manchester, UK: printed for the Chetham Society, 1894.

Non-fiction

• An Epistle to a Gentleman of the Temple. London: W. Innys & J. Richardson, 1752.
• The Universal English Short-hand; or, The way of writing English, in the most easy, concise, regular, and beautiful manner. Manchester, UK: Joseph Harrop, 1767.

Journals

• The Private Journal and Literary Remains (edited by Sir John Parkinson). (2 volumes), Manchester UK: printed for the Chetham Society, 1857.
• Selection from the Journal and Papers (edited by Henri Antoine Talon). London: Rockliff, 1950.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

See also

• List of British poets

References

• The Queen's Chameleon: Life of John Byrom - A Study in Conflicting Loyalties Joy Hancox (Jonathan Cape)
• Manchester Streets and Manchester Men T.Swindells (1910)
• Julian, John (June, 1907). A Dictionary of Hymnology. London: John Murray. p. 199. 
• Bailey, Albert Edward (1950). The Gospel in Hymns. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. pp. 112–114. 
•  Stephen, Leslie (1886) Stephen, Leslie ed. Dictionary of National Biography 8 London: Smith, Elder, pp. 129=131  . Wikisource, Web, Mar. 9, 2020.

External links

Poems

• John Byrom at the Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive ("Extempore Verses upon a Trial of Skill between the two great Masters of Defence, Messieurs FIGG and SUTTON.")
• Byrom in The English Poets: An anthology: "The Nimmers," "Careless Content," "On the Origin of Evil," Epigrams
• "A Poetical Version of a Letter from Facob Behmen"
• John Byrom at PoemHunter (24 poems)
• John Byrom at Poetry Nook (33 poems)

Books

• Google books: Miscellaneous Poems by John Byrom
• John Byrom at Amazon.com
• The John Byrom Collection, Chetham's Library

About

• John Byrom in the Encyclopædia Britannica
• Profile at The Cyber Hymnal
• Byrom, John in the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, the Dictionary of National Biography (edited by Leslie Stephen & Sidney Lee). London: Smith, Elder, 1885-1900. Original article is at: Byrom, John