BOSTON', THOMAS. 



B03\VORTH, JOSEPH, D.D., K.K.S. 



lit 



but at the same time it ii the only compendium which in lik'-ly to be 

 useful to the student, lioesut was not likely to be either intention- 

 ally unjiut or compUisant : Delambre remarks that his impartial 

 intentions would necessarily be a conssquenoe of that ' roideur de 

 caractoro ' which dUtinguUhaa him. 



Boeaut was originally intended for the church, and was indeed an 

 abW, wbioii title he bore until the abolition of clerical distinctions. 

 Be died January 14, 1814. The preceding account i< entirely (as to 

 beta) from Delambre's ' Eloge ' in the Memoirs of the Institute ' for 

 181 S. 



BOSTON, THOMAS, n Scottish divine, rery popular with a largo 

 clan of religious thinkers, was born in the Tillage of Dunce, in Ber- 

 wickshire, on the 7th of March 1676. He received the rudiments of 

 bis education at his native place, and afterwards attended the Uni- 

 versity of Edinburgh. His relations were poor, and his education 

 appears to have been conducted in the face of impedimenta from pecu- 

 niary difficulties. After acting for some time as a private teacher, he 

 obtained a licence as a probationer on the 16th of June 1607. llii 

 first efforts to obtain an ecclesiastical benefice, though thus subse- 

 quent to the establishment of the Presbyterian polity by the Revolu- 

 tion, appear to have been baffled by the objections entertained towards 

 his anti-patronage and ultra-Presbyterian principles. He was ordained, 

 on the 21st of September 1699, minister of the pariah of Simprin, 

 near his native place. In 1707 he was 'translated,' as it is termed, 

 to the extensive but thinly peopled pastoral parish of Kttrick. He 

 was a member of the General Assembly of 1703. While thU assembly 

 was in the midst of discussions on matters not likely to be acceptable 

 to the court, it was dissolved by the commissioner, and the moderator, 

 who, according to the theoretical principles of that ecclesiastical body, 

 is the conductor of its routine, sanctioned the act by concluding the 

 proceedings. Boston and others strongly protested against this com- 

 promise of clerical independence. He was opposed to the oath of 

 abjuration, and in general to all measures which created restrictions 

 on the independent movements of the ecclesiastical body to which he 

 belonged. He joined those who supported the doctrinas of 'The 

 Marrow of Modern Divinity/ in the controversy in the Scottish 

 Church on that work. He died on the 20th of May 1732. 



Boston was a very voluminous writer, and his works are eminently 

 popular in Scotland, and among the Presbyterians of England. His 

 well-known ' Fourfold State,' which was first printed in 1720, had a 

 curioux literary fate. It hod been so far reconstructed by a person 

 whom he had engaged to correct the press, that the author, scarcely 

 recognising his own work, repudiated the book till he issued a genuine 

 edition. The title of this book in full is, 'Human Nature in its 

 Id State : of Primitive Integrity subsisting in the Parents of 

 Mankind in Paradise; Entire Depravation subsisting in the Unre- 

 geoerate; Begun Recovery subsisting in the Regenerate; and Con- 

 summate Huppiocu or Misery subsisting in all Mankind in the Future 

 State.' In 1776 there was published 'Memoirs of the Life, Time, 

 and Writings of Thomas Boston, divided into Twelve Periods, written 

 by Himself and addressed to his Children;' a work containing quite 

 as ample an account of this writer as the majority of readers will wish 



to i -< 



BOSWELL, JAMES, wai born at Edinburgh, October 29, 1740. 

 His father was Alexander Boiwell, }'.\., of Auchinleck (pronounced 

 Affleck), in Ayrshire, who being in 1754 made a lord of session, 

 awumed the title of Lord Auchinleok. HU mother wan Euphemia 

 Kr-kine, great-grand -daughter of John, the twenty-third earl of Mar, 

 who was lord high treasurer of Scotland from 1615 to 1630. After 

 having studied law at the universities of Edinburgh and Qlanuow, 

 Boswell visited London for the first time in 1760, and mnde many 

 acquaintances both in the fashionable world and among the literary 

 mm of the day. In 1762 he made, as far as is known, bis first essay 

 in authorship by contributing some verses to a misoellany which 

 appeared that year at Edinburgh, under toe title of ' A Collection of 

 Original Poems, by Scotch Gentlemen.' In 1763 he published a 

 small volume of ' Letter* ' which bad passed between himself and the 

 honourable Andrew Erskine (the brother of Thorn**, the sixth earl 

 of Kellie, the eminent musical performer and composer). ThU is a 

 very characteristic volume, sufficiently prognosticating, by its style of 

 frank exposure and good-natured self-complacency, the most remark- 

 able Dualities of the author's subsequent productions. With his 

 father s oooswt be determined to make the tour of the continent 

 before being called to the bar ; and accordingly he set out early in 

 1703. Wtile pausing through Ixmdon he was introduced to Dr. 

 Johnson, on the 16th of May in that year, in the back shop of Mr. 

 Thomas Davies, the bookseller, in Kuswll street, Covont Garden. He 

 proceeded in tti* first instance to Utrecht, where he spent the winter 

 in attending the law nlaidsi at the university. After visiting various 



K* oes in Uie Netherlands, he continued his route, in company with 

 frisod the E*ri Marischal, through Germany, Switzerland, and 

 Italy. With his passion for making the acquaintance of remarkable 

 person", be had, while in the neighbourhood of Geneva, visited both 

 Hwisstau and Voltaire; and be now crossed over to Corsica, and 

 introduced himself by means of a letter from Roumau to ' 

 Paoli, then in the height of his celebrity a* the leader of his country- 

 men in their resistance to the Genoese. Returning home by the way 

 of Park in 1766, be pawed a* advocate in July of that year. He 



soon after published a pamphlet, which was considered creditable to 

 his abilities, entitled 'The Essence of the Douglas Cause,' being a 

 defence of the claim of Mr. Archibald DougUa (afterwards Lord 

 Douglas), to bo considered as the nephew of the last Duke of Douglas, 

 and as such to succeed to his property, against the counter-* '. 

 the Hamilton family, who disputed his alleged birth. 

 thus signalled the commencement of his professional cour- 

 bnsineas at the bar was from the first but a secondary object. He 

 had come back from his travels so full of the Corsican chief, that he 

 was speedily known by tho nickname of Paoli Boswell. In 17 

 published at Glasgow 'An Account of Corsica, with Memoir* of 

 General Paoli;' which was followed the next year by a !:' 

 volume which he printed at London, under tho title of ' 1 

 Essays in favour of the brave Corsicans. by several hands.' 



In November 1769, he married his cousin, Miss Margaret Mont- 

 gomery of Luinshmv. About the same time his intimacy witli his 

 literary friends in London, and especially with Dr. Johnson, was drawn 

 closer by another visit to the metropolis In 1773 h^aoconii 

 Johnson on his journey to the Western Inland* of Scotland. In 1774 

 he sent to the press another professional tract, being a ' Report of the 

 Decision of the Court of Session upon the question f Literary 

 Property, in the cause John Hinton, Hook ! on, against 



Alexander Donaldson and other", Edinburgh.' It i* a mere rep irt of 

 the judgments delivered by tho Lords of Session in tins cmae, in 

 which he had been engaged as counsel. In 1 ," - .. on his father's death, 

 he succeeded to the family estate, and soon after removing to I. 

 entered himself at tho English bar. In 1784 he published a pamphlet 

 in support of the new ministry of Mr. Pitt, under the title of 'A 

 Letter to the People of Scotland on the present State of the Nation.' 

 HU great friend Johnson died towards the end of this year ; . 

 17S5 he published the first and not the least remarkable sample of hU 

 Johnsoniano, in a ' Journal of tho Tour to the Hebrides.' It appeared 

 ut Edinburgh in an octavo volume. The same year he pul 

 another 'Letter to the People of Scotland, respecting the alarming 

 attempt to infringe the Articles of the Union, and introduce a most 

 pernicious innovation, by diminishing the number of the Lords of 

 Session.' Becoming now ambitious to make a figure in the political 

 world, he mode various unsuccessful attempts to obtain a era*. i:i 

 parliament. At the general election in 17 U he stood for the county 

 of Ayr, but was defeated nfteran expensive contott. Before tho close 

 of the same year appeared in two volumes quarto the work which has 

 made hU name universally known, his ' Life of Johnson.' The sen-a- 

 tion excited by this extraordinary production was very great; and if 

 it be an evidence of superior talent to do anything whatever butter 

 than it has ever been done before, tho work undoubtedly dcser . 

 the immediate success it mot with, and also the celebrity it lias ever 

 since enjoyed ; for whatever may be thought of the character of either 

 the intellectual or the moral qualities which its composition demanded, 

 it cannot be disputed that the same qualities bad never before been 

 half so skilfully or felicitously exerted. Nor has any work of the 

 same kind since appeared that can for a moment be compared with 

 Boswell's. The best editions of this celebrated work are that in 1 

 vols. duodecimo, edited by Mr. Croker, and a careful print 



of the same edition in a single volume royal octavo. Both these 

 edition* contain Boswell's 'Journal of the Tour to the Hebrides,' and 

 also many other pieces relating to Johnson never before incor 

 with the present books. Boswell U wild to have contributed a series 

 of papers, entitled the ' Hypochondriac,' to the first .-ixty-two nn 

 of the ' London Magazine ' (from 1777 to 1782), \\hich an- nai 

 of very little merit; and a series of his ' Epistolary Corre-p 

 and Conversations with many eminent Persons,' appeared in two 

 volumes quarto in 1791, and again in three volumes octavo in 1793. 

 He was preparing a second edition of his ' Life of Johnson ' at the 

 time of bU death, May 19th, 1795. He left two sous and three 

 daughters. 



BOSWORTH, JOSEPH, D.D., K.R.S., F.S.A., &c., was born in 

 Derbyshire at the close of tho year 1788, and was idue.ited at the 

 Reptou Grammar School, under tlie care of the Rev. Dr. Sleath. He 

 first graduated at Aberdeen as M.A., and subsequent i 

 LL.D. in the same university. Ho applied hironelf diligently to the 

 study of science and literature ; mathematics in parti ,-ul:u- engaging 

 his early attention, with its application to navigation an 

 But his great object being to become a clergyman of the Cliurch of 

 England, be at an early ago taught himself Hebrew re iding the 

 language, with its cognate dialects, Chaldee, Syrioo, and Arable. In 

 1815 he was appointed curate of Bonny anil Kuddington, near Not- 

 tingham. Though engaged in active parochial dutie , and regarding 

 divinity as his profession, he found time to devote to literature, and 

 to write papers for literary and scientific institutions. He was how- 

 ever always watchful that the clerical character should not merge 

 into that of the mere literary man ; and that in this ho succeeded was 

 shewn by the regret expressed by the people of hU charge on his 

 leaving Kuddington, which took the substantial form of a handsome 

 piece of plate. Besides graduating oa M. A. and Dr. Phil, at I. 

 he took the degree of 111), at Trinity College, Cambrid 

 and D.D. in 1339; also D.D. ad eundcm at Oxford in 1S47. While 

 Vicar of Horwood Purva, Bucks, from 1817 to 1S2'.', ho pul 

 several pamphlets on the poor-laws. In the early part of bis iuctim- 



