Page:1902 Encyclopædia Britannica - Volume 26 - AUS-CHI.pdf/539

 B Y R O N — C A B A T U A N 489 Michael Walton; in 1634 Rachel Hook had married (2) He soon ceased to make any pretence of legal study, and Edward Biggs; (5) Mary, married (1) Henry Hawksworth, joined a provincial company as an actor. In this line he by whom she had four sons, William, Henry, George, never made any real success; and, though he continued to and John; (2) Thomas Falconbridge. Anne Byrd, act for years, chiefly in his own plays, he had neither who is mentioned in the proceedings Shelley v. Byrd originality nor charm. Meanwhile he wrote assiduously, (Exchequer Decrees, 7 James I., series ii. vol. vii. fol. and few men have produced so many pieces of so diverse 294 and 328), was probably a fourth daughter who died a nature. His first successes were in burlesque; but young. in 1865 he joined Miss Marie Wilton (afterwards Lady Besides the works already mentioned Byrd was the Bancroft) in the management of the Prince of Wales’s composer of three masses, for three, four, and five voices Theatre, near Tottenham Court Road. Here several of respectively, which seem to have been published with some his pieces, comedies, and extravaganzas were produced privacy about 1588. There exists a second edition (also with success; but, upon his severing the partnership two undated) of the four-part mass ; all three have recently years later, and starting management on his own account appeared in modern editions, and increase Byrd’s claim to in the provinces, he was financially unfortunate. The rank as the greatest English composer of his age. In addi- commercial success of his life was secured with “ Our Boys," tion to his published works, a large amount still remains in which was played at the Vaudeville from January 1875 MS., comprising nearly every kind of composition. The till April 1879-—an unprecedented “run.” “The Upper Fitzwilliam Virginal Book contains a long series of in- Crust,” another of his successes, gave a congenial opporteresting pieces for the virginal, and more still remains tunity to Mr J. L. Toole for one of his inimitably broad unpublished in Lady Neville’s Virginal Book and other con- character-sketches. During the last few years of his life temporary collections. His industry was enormous, and Byron was in frail health; he died in Clapham, 11th April though his work is unequal and the licenses he allowed can 1884. H. J. Byron was the author of some of the most hardly be defended on strict grounds, his Latin church popular stage pieces of his day. Yet his extravaganzas music and his instrumental compositions entitle him to have no wit but that of violence; his rhyming couplets high rank among his contemporaries. As a madrigalist he are without polish, and decorated only by forced and often was inferior to Morley, Wilbye, and Gibbons, though even pointless puns. His sentiment had T. W. Robertson’s in this branch of his art he often displays great charm insipidity without its freshness, and restored an element of and individuality. (w. b. s.*) vulgarity which his predecessor had laboured to eradicate from theatrical tradition. He could draw a “Cockney” Byron, Henry James (1834-1884), English character with some fidelity, but his dramatis personae playwright, son of Henry Byron, at one time British consul were usually mere puppets for the utterance of his jests. at Port-au-Prince, was born in Manchester in January 1834. In his social relations Byron had many friends, among He entered the Middle Temple as a student in 1858, whom he was justly popular for geniality and imperwith the intention of devoting his time to play-writing. turbable good temper.

Caballero, Fernan (1796-1877), the pseudonym by which the Spanish novelist Cecilia Francisca Josefa Bold de Faber y Larrea is known. Born at Merges in Switzerland on 24th December 1796, she was the daughter of Johan Nikolas Bold von Faber, a Hamburg merchant, who lived long in Spain, married a native of Cadiz, and is creditably known to students of Spanish literature as the editor of the Floresta de rimas antiguas castellanas and the Teatro espahol anterior d Lope de Vega. Educated in Hamburg, she visited Spain in 1815, and, unfortunately for herself, in 1816 married Antonio Planells y Bardaxi, an infantry captain of bad character. In the following year Planells was killed in action, and in 1822 the young widow married Francisco Ruiz del Arco, Marques de Arco Hermoso, an officer in one of the Spanish household regiments. Upon the death of Arco Hermoso in 1835, the Marquesa found herself in straitened circumstances, and in less than two years she married Antonio Arron de Ayala, a man considerably her junior. Arron was appointed consul in Australia, engaged in business enterprises and made money; but unfortunate speculations drove him to commit suicide in 1854. Five years earlier the name of Fern&n Caballero (taken from a village in La Mancha) became famous in Spain as the author of La Gaviota. f he writer had already published in German an anonymous romance, Sola (1831), and it is alleged that the earliest draft of La Gaviota was written in French. This novel first appeared as the feuilleton of El Heraldo (1849), and was received with marked favour. Ochoa, a prominent critic of the day, ratified the popular judgment, and hopefully proclaimed the writer to be a rival of Scott. No other Spanish book of the 19th century has obtained such instant and universal recognition. It was translated into most

European languages, and, though it scarcely seems to deserve the intense enthusiasm which it excited, it is the best of its author’s works, with the possible exception of La Familia de Alvareda. Less successful attempts are Lady Virginia and Glemencia; but the short stories entitled Cuadros de Costumbres are interesting in matter and form, and Una en otra and Elia 6 la Espaha treinta ahos ha are excellent specimens of picturesque narration. It would be difficult to maintain that Fernffn Caballero was a great literary artist or even a remarkable novelist, but it is certain that she was a born teller of stories and that she has a graceful, delicate style very suitable to her purpose. She came into Spain at a most happy moment, before the new order had perceptibly disturbed the old, and she brought to bear not alone a fine natural gift of observation, but a freshness of vision, undulled by long familiarity. She combined the advantages of being both a foreigner and a native. In later publications she insisted too emphatically upon the moral lesson, and lost much of her primitive simplicity and charm; but even here we may believe her own positive statement that, though she occasionally idealized circumstances, she was conscientious in choosing for her themes subjects which had occurred in her own long and varied experience. Hence she may be regarded as a pioneer in the realistic field, and this historical fact adds to her positive importance. For many years she was the most popular of Spanish writers, and the sensation caused by her death at Seville on 7th April 1877 proved that her naive truthfulness still attracted readers who were interested in records of national customs and manners. (j. f.-k.) Cabatuan, a town in the east of Panay, one of S. II. — 62