|
Short Name: |
Mather Byles |
|
Full Name: |
Byles, Mather, 1706-1788 |
|
Birth Year: |
1706 |
|
Death Year: |
1788 |
Byles, Mather, D.D., born 1706, educated at Harvard, 1725, died 1788. He was an eminent Congregational Minister of Boston, and, for his time and place, an elegant scholar. He corresponded with, and was well thought of by the English wits and literati. His Toryism brought him into trouble at the Revolution, causing him, in his own words, to be “guarded, reguarded, and disregarded."
His Sermons wore published at various dates from 1729 to 1771, and his Poems in 1727, 1736, and 1744. Of the Appendix to Tate and Brady, published by S. Kneeland in 1760, he edited hymns 77 to 100 inclusive, of which hymns 78, 79, and 80 seem to be his own. Part of No. 78, beginning with st. vii., "When wild confusion wrecks the air," is a Judgment hymn, and has been included in Belknap's Selection, 1795, and later in the Plymouth Collection, 1855, No. 1111, the Baptist Praise Book, 1871, and others. His hymns are unknown to English collections. [Rev. F. M. Bird, M.A.]
-- John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)
Mather Byles (born 26 March 1706, Boston, Massachusetts – 5 July 1788), was an American clergyman active in British North America. Byles was descended, on his mother's side, from John Cotton and Richard Mather and was a grandson of Increase Mather and nephew of Cotton Mather. As a young man, he corresponded with Alexander Pope and Isaac Watts. At the outbreak of the American Revolution, Byles was outspoken in his advocacy of the royal cause, and after the British evacuation of Boston his connection with his church was dissolved. Byles died in Boston on 5 July 1788, aged 82.
Wikipedia Biography
My Starred Hymns
My FlexScores
My Hymnals
My Purchased Files
