John Byrom Biography and List of Works

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

English poet, hymnist and inventor of a system of shorthand, student of religious mysticism. Byrom's light-hearted and good-natured character is apparent in his journals.

Byrom was born near Manchester. He was educated at Chester, and later went to the Marchant Taylors' School. Byrom studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, under the reign of Richard Bentley (1662-1742), who ruled with such despotic power that his mastership was a succession of quarrels and scandals. However, Byrom defended Bentley, whose daughter he may have addressed in, 'A Pastoral ', published in the Spectator in 1714. He became a fellow while at Cambridge and at the University of Montpellier in France, without taking a degree.

While in Cambridge Byrom invented his own system of shorthand, and became its teacher. From 1724 Byrom was a fellow of The Royal Society. His varied acquaintances included the physician David Hartley, the Wesleys, devout Christians, J. Butler, writer of Fifteen Sermons, and William Law (1686-1761), of whom Byrom left accounts in his PRIVATE JOURNALS AND LITERARY REMAINS, published in 1854-57. It is an important source of information on Law, a very religious writer, whose guide to the practice of Christian faith, A Serious Call, deeply influenced Samuel Johnson.

Byrom's MISCELLANEOUS POEMS (1773) include some curious versifications of Law's poem, and the well-known hymn 'Christians, awake! Salute the happy morn,' for which Byrom is best remembered. In the epigram on King and Pretender, Byrom shows his Jacobite sympathies. The ambiguously loyal toast begins 'God bless the King! I mean the Faith's Defender...' Byrom also wrote religious verse and a pastoral (1714), he had many varied linguistic, literary, religious, and scientific interests, and was attracted to the mysticism of writers like Jacob Boehme and Malebranche. In 1742 Byrom copyrighted his 'tycygraphy' system, but his book UNIVERSAL ENGLISH SHORTHAND SYSTEM did not appear during his lifetime. He died in London on September 26, 1763.

"God bless the King, I mean the Faith's Defender;
God bless - no harm in blessing - the Pretender;
But who Pretender is, or who is King,
God bless us all - that's quite another thing."
(from Miscellaneous Poems, 1773)

For further reading: The Queen's Chameleon: The Life of John Byrom by Joy Hancox (1994); The Byrom collection by Joy Hancox (1992); The Edges of Augustanism; the Aesthetics of Spirituality in Thomas Ken, John Byrom, and William Law by John Hoyles (1972).

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS, (1773)
THE PRIVATE JOURNAL AND LITERARY REMAINS OF JOHN BYROM, (1854)
PRAYER: THE PASSION OF LOVE, (1981)