PYE, HENRY JAMES (1745-1813), English poet laureate, was born in London on the 2oth of February 1745, and educated at Magdalen College, Oxford. His father, a Berkshire landowner, died in 1766, leaving him a legacy of debt amounting to £50,000, and the burning of his home at Great Faringdon further increased his difficulties. In 1784 he was elected M.P. fo r Berkshire. He was obliged to sell the paternal estate, and, retiring from Parliament in 1790, became a police magistrate for Westminster. Although he had no command of language and was destitute of poetic feeling, his ambition was to obtain recognition as a poet, and he published many volumes of verse. Of all he wrote his prose Summary of the Duties of a Juslice of the Peace out of Sessions (1808) is most worthy of record. He was made poet laureate in 1790, perhaps as a reward for his faithful support of Pitt in the House of Commons. The appointment was looked on as ridiculous, and his birthday odes were a continual source of contempt. His most elaborate poem was an epic, Alfred (1801). He was the first poet laureate to receive a fixed salary of £ 27 instead of the historic tierce of Canary wine. He died at Pinner, Middlesex, on the 1 1th of August 1813.