Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 03.djvu/50

 Bales pen in Europe, and engaged Bales to produce slips for him which were duly engraved and published. In 1595 occured the trial of skill between Bales and a rival penman, Daniel Johnson, his neighbour, living in 'Paules Churchyarde, near the Bishops Palace.' He who wrote best, and whose chosen scholar wrote best, was to receive a golden pen of the value of 20l. The contest, being postponed from St. Bartholomew's day (24 Aug.), commenced on Monday, Michaelmas day, between seven and eight in the morning, at 'the Black Fryers, within the Conduit Yard, next to the Pipe Office,' before five judges and a concourse of about a hundred people. It ended in Bales's triumph; he had the pen 'brought to his house by foure of the judges and delivered unto him absolutelie as his owne;' and though Johnson disputed his victory, printing an appeal, which he pasted on posts all over the city, declaring that Bales had only obtained possession of the prize by asking permission to show it to his wife who was ill, and by declaring 'a fardle of untruths,' Bales demolished his objections, clause by clause, in 'The Originall Cause' (Harl. MS. 675 supra), written 1 Jan. 1596-7. Thenceforth he used a golden pen as a sign, and remained master of the field. In 1597 appeared a second edition of 'The Writing Schoolemaster,' with a longer list of Oxford friends setting forth Bales's talents in commendatory verses, English and Latin. In 1598, office not being yet found for him, 'Mr. Wyseman solycyted the Earle of Essex to have a clarke's place in the courte for hym; as I take yt, to be clarke to her majestie, of her highness bills to be signed' (Sufferings of John Danyell, MS.: from the Fleet, 1602). In 1599 John Danyell, having found some of the Earl of Essex's letters to the countess, employed Bales to copy them, assuring him it was at the countess's desire. Bales suspected the truth of this, and asked 'Why doe you cause mee to wryte one letter soe often, and so lyke a hand you cannot reade?' He threatened, too, if he found anything treasonable, to lay an information against Danyell, and Danyell refusing to lend him and his friend Ferriman 20l., a declaration of the whole was made by them to the countess, and delivered to her, 2 April 1600. In 1601, on 8 Feb., the earl himself was arraigned; Bales met Danyell on the way to Westminster Hall to be present at the trial, and informed him of this declaration; in 1602, Danyell being tried in the Star Chamber on a charge of causing these letters to be forged, Bales gave evidence there against him.

It is not known when and where Bales died. Davies in his 'Scourge of Folly,' p. 134, nicknames him Clophonian, alludes to the sign at his house of a hand and golden pen, and speaks of him as going from place to place for the last half-year, from which it is known that be was alive in 1610, the date of the poem, and it is conjectured that he was poor and in disgrace. But no other mention of him has been found, and it is not known whether the Peter Bales, M.A., prebend at St. Mary Woolnoth, 1643, and publishing one or two sermons, was of his family or not.

A petition to be taken into 'honourable service' is still extant in his hand (Lansdowne MSS. vol. cxix. art. 102). In this Bales styles himself 'cypherary.' From a petition presented to the House of Lords (20 Jan. 1640-1) by his son John Bales, we learn that Peter Bales was at one time tutor to Prince Henry.

A copy of 'The Writing Schoolemaster' is at the Bodleian, and another at Lambeth Palace. There is not one at the British Museum. In the text, Bales lays down such rules as 'For comforting of the sight, it is verie good to cover the desks with greene' (cap. iv.), and it 'is good at first, for more assurance in good writing, to write betweene two lines' (cap. vii.).

 BALFE, MICHAEL WILLIAM (1808–1870), musical composer, the third child of William Balfe, was born at 10 Pitt Street, Dublin, 15 May 1808. His father came of a family which had numbered among its members several professional musicians; his mother's maiden name was Kate Ryan. Balfe's first musical instruction was received from his father, who was himself no mean performer on the violin. Under his guidance the boy made such rapid progress that it soon became necessary to place him under a more advanced master. His education was accordingly entrusted to William O'Rourke, though he seems also to have received help in his studies from Alexander Lee, James Barton and a bandmaster named Meadows. At this early period of his life Balfe already distinguished himself both as executant and composer, his first public appearance having been made as a violinist at a concert given on 20 June 1817, while a polacca from his pen was performed, under the direction of his friend Meadows, before he was seven years old. On O'Rourke's leaving Dublin, Balfe studied with James Barton for two years; at the end of that time, just as he was beginning his professional career as a