

574 



BO A DICE A BOCCACCIO. 



rivers, which, likt. the Orinoco, &c.. annually inundate 

 vast tracts of country, these sequins li\e securely 

 among the trees with which the MM! N covered, and 

 are capable of enduring very prut ram d hunger, with- 

 out much apparent suffering or diininuliun of \ iour. 

 Noxious as such districts 'an- to human life, they 

 teem with a gigantic and luxuriant vegetation, and 

 are the favourite, haunts of numerous animals, preyed 

 upon, and, to a certain degree, restricted in their in- 

 crease, by the boa. AS their prey come within their 

 reach, they require no deadly apparatus of poison to 

 produce their destruction, since nature lias endowed 

 them with muscular strength surpassing that of utmost 

 every other creature, in proportion to their size. Once 

 fairly involved in the crushing folds of the constrictor, 

 the strength of the strongest man would not prove of 

 the slightest avail ; indeed, from the ease with which 

 larger and more powerfal creatures are put to death 

 by these serpents, it is evident that any number of 

 unarmed men would act very unwisely to provoke a 

 combat with enemies endowed with powers of such 

 dreadful energy. 



BOAIMCF.A ; queen of the Ir.eni, in Britain, during 

 the reign of Nero. Having been treated in the most 

 ignominious manner by the Romans, she headed a 

 general insurrection of the Britons, attacked the Ro- 

 man settlements, reduced London to ashes, and put 

 to the sword all strangers, to the number of 70,000. 

 Suetonius, Uie Roman general, defeated her in a de- 

 cisive battle, and B., rather than fall into the hands 

 of her enemies, put an end to her own life by poison. 

 This conflict took place A. D. 61. 



BOAT ; properly, a vessel propelled by oars. In a 

 more extensive sense, the word is applied to other 

 small vessels, which differ in construction and name, 

 according to the services in which they are employed. 

 Thus they are light or strong, sharp or flat-bottomed, 

 open or decked, &c., according as they are intended 

 for swiftness or burden, deep or shallow water, &c. 

 The barge is a long, light, narrow boat, employed in 

 harbours, but unfit for sea. The long-boat is the 

 largest boat belonging to a ship, generally furnished 

 with sails, and is employed for cruising short distances, 

 bringing heavy articles on board, &c. The launch 

 is more flat-bottomed than the long-boat, which it has 

 generally superseded. The pinnace resembles a 

 barge, but is smaller. The cutters of a ship are 

 broader and deeper than the barge or pinnace, and 

 are employed in carrying light articles, passengers, 

 K-c. on board. Yaiclt are used for similar purposes, 

 and are smaller than cutters. A gig is a long, narrow 

 boat, used for expedition, and rowed with six or eight 

 oars. The jolly-boat is smaller than a yawl, and is 

 used for going on shore. A merchantrship seldom 

 has more tlian two boats, a long-boat and a yawl. 

 A wherry is a light, sharp boat, used in a river or 

 harbour, for transporting passengers. A punt is a 

 flat-bottomed boat, chiefly used for one person to go 

 on shore from small vessels. A skiff"is a small boat, 

 like a yawl, used for passing rivers. A Moses is a 

 flat-bottomed boat, used in the West Indies for car- 

 rying hogsheads from the shore to ships in the roads. 

 A felucca is a large passage-boat, used in the Me- 

 diterranean, with from ten to sixteen banks of oars. 

 Scow is an American word, signifying a large, flat- 

 Lottomed, heavy boat, about thirty feet long, and 

 twelve wide. In some parts of the United States, it 

 is called a gondola. See Canoe, Galley, &c. 



BOCCACCIO, Giovanni, whose name alone, as Mazzu- 

 chelli justly says, is equivalent to a thousand encomi- 

 ums, was the son of a Florentine merchant His 

 family came, originally, from Certaldo, a village in 

 Tuscany; whence he gives himself the appellation 

 da Certaldo.- He was the offspring of an illicit con- 

 nexion which his father formed, while on a visit of 



jusiness, at Paris, and was born in that city, 13 i 3. 

 He early removed to Florence, where he began his 

 itudies, and even in childhood, discovered a decided 

 ondness for poetry. In his tenth year, his lather put 

 under the care of a merchant, to be educated in 

 lis business. With him he returned to Paris, and 

 remained there six years, without acquiring any fond- 

 less for his profession. Ills residence of eight yean 

 at Naples was equally ineffectual to this purpose. 

 nstead of attending to trade, he formed the closest 

 ntimacy with several learned men of Florence and 

 Naples, who had been drawn thither by that patron 

 f the arts, king Robert. There is nothing to pro\e 

 hat he shared in the favour of the prince-; but In- 

 njoyed the particular affection of a natural daughter 

 of his, for whom he composed many pieces, in pro-.- 

 and verse, and to whom he often pays homage under 

 .he name of Fiammetta. Placed in fortunate circum- 

 stances, with a lively and cheerful disposition, of ;i 

 soft and pleasing address, the favoured lover of i; 

 king's daughter, he regarded with more aversion than 

 ever the station for which he had been intended. 

 I'he fondness of the princess for poetry ; his own 

 ntimacy with scientific and literary men; the tomb 

 of Virgil, near Naples, which he used to visit in his 

 walks; the presence of Petrarch, who was received 

 with the highest distinction at the court of Naples, 

 ind who went from that city to Rome, to be crowned 

 with the poetic laurel ; Uie intimacy which had arisen 

 jetween the two poets ; all operated powerfully on 

 B., to strengthen and fix his natural inclination for 

 Doetry and literature. After living two years at 

 Florence with hi& father, he returned to Naples, where 

 he was very graciously received by the queen Joanna. 

 It is thought that it was no less to gratify the young 

 queen, than his Fiammetta, that he wrote his Deca- 

 meron, which has raised him to the rank of the first 

 Italian prose-writer. On the death of his father, be- 

 coming master of his own inclinations, he settled at 

 Florence, where his first work was a description ot 

 the plague, which forms the opening of the Decame- 

 ron. He afterwards wrote the life of Dante. He 

 was chosen to inform Petrarch, at Padua, of his recall 

 from exile, and the restoration of the property be- 

 longing to his father, who had died during his ab- 

 sence. The friendship of these two men of genius 

 continued for life. When B., some years after, had 

 exhausted his fortune in the purchase of costly books, 

 and in expensive pleasures, he found in Petrarch the 

 most generous assistance : the wise counsels of his 

 friend were now as beneficial to his morals as they 

 had been to his writings-; in fact, to him he was in- 

 debted for the change which took place in his cha- 

 racter. A dying Carthusian had persuaded him to 

 renounce all the pleasures of the. world : Petrarch 

 softened his determination, and brought him back to 

 that proper medium which marks the truly wise man. 

 New troubles in Florence induced him to retire to 

 Certaldo, where he owned a small estate. There he 

 prosecuted his labours in tranquillity. He now com- 

 posed several historical works in Latin. Among 

 these is the first modern work which contains, in a 

 collected form, the mythological notices, which are 

 scattered in the writings of the ancients. He was 

 well versed in Greek, and had, at his own expense, 

 brought Leontius Pilatus of Thessalonica from Venice 

 to Florence, and maintained him three years at his 

 house, in order to learn Greek of him, and to have 

 his assistance in explaining the poems of Homer, 

 and translating them into Latin. He was the first 

 who procured copies of the Iliad and Odyssey from 

 Greece, at his own expense, and spared neither cost 

 nor trouble to obtain good Greek and Latin manu. 

 scripts. At the same time, he used all his influence 

 to excite his contemporaries to learn the Greek Ian- 



