Mather Byles

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)