BOECE-BCEOTIA. 



577 



place the types of several Oriental alphabets, which 

 had fallen into disorder. The infant don Ferdinand, 

 about 1766, had, with a view of diffusing know- 

 ledge, established a printing-house in Parma, after 

 the model of those in Paris, Madrid, and Turin. 

 B. was placed at the head of this establishment, 

 which he made the first of the kind in Europe, and 

 gained the reputation of having tar surpassed all the 

 splendid and beautiful productions of his predecessors 

 in the art. The beauty of his type, ink, and paper, as 

 well as the whole management of the technical part of 

 the work, leaves nothing for us to wish ; but tiie intrin- 

 sic value of his editions is seldom equal to their out- 

 ward splendour. His Homer is a truly admirable and 

 magnificent work ; indeed, his Greek letters are the 

 most perfect imitations that have been attempted, in 

 modern times, of Greek manuscript. His splendid 

 editions of Greek, Latin, Italian, and French classics 

 are highly prized. He died at Padua, November 

 29, 1813. 



BOECE, Anicius. See Boethius. 



BOECE, Hector, a Scottish historian, was born at 

 Dundee about the year 1465. He studied at Aber- 

 deen, and afterwards at Paris, where, in 1497, lie 

 became professor of philosophy in the college of 

 Montacute. In 1500, he was elected principal of the 

 college of Aberdeen, which was just then founded by 

 bishop Elphinstone. On the death of the bishop, in 

 1514, he resolved to give to the world an account of 

 his life, in composing which he was led to write the 

 history of the lives of the whole of the bishops of 

 Aberdeen. This laborious undertaking he completed 

 in Latin, after the custom of the age, and gave to 

 the world in the year 1522. It was printed at Paris 

 by Badius Ascensius. 



His next work was a history of Scotland, from the 

 earliest accounts. To this he was probably stimu- 

 lated by the example of John Mair or Major, a tutor 

 of the Sorbonne, and principal of the college of St 

 Salvadore at St Andrews, whose history of Scotland, 

 in six books, was published at Paris in the year 1521. 

 The Scotichronicon had been originally written by 

 John Fordun, a canon of Aberdeen, and continued by 

 Walter Bower to the death of James I., nearly a cen- 

 tury previous to this, as liad also the metrical Chro- 

 nykil of Scotland, by Andrew Winton, prior of 

 Lochleven. Boece was a man of high talent, and 

 one of the best Latin scholars which his country lias 

 at any period produced ; but he was credulous in a high 

 degree, and has given his authority, such as it was, 

 to many fables, if he did not himself absolutely invent 

 them. 



His history was published at Paris in 1526, in a 

 folio volume, under the title of " Scotorum Historiae, 

 a prima gentis origine, cum aliarum et rerum et gen- 

 tium illustratione non vulgari." This edition, which 

 was printed by Badius, contains seventeen books. A 

 second was printed at Lausanne, and published at 

 Paris in 1574, about forty years after the death of 

 Boece. In this, were added the eighteenth and part 

 of a nineteenth book, written by himself; and a con- 

 tinuation of the history to the end of the reign of 

 James III., by Ferrarius, a learned Piedmontese, who 

 came to Scotland in 1 528, in the train of Robert Reid, 

 abbot of Kinloss, and afterwards bishop of Orkney. 



Soon after the publication of his history (1527), 

 James V. bestowed upon Boece a pension of 50 

 Scots yearly, which was to be paid until the king 

 should promote him to a benefice of a hundred merks 

 Scots of yearly value. As the payment appears for 

 the last time in the treasurer's books for 1534, it is 

 probable that about that time the king carried into 

 effect his intention of exchanging the pension for a 

 benefice. The benefice so given was the rectory of 

 Fyvie in Aberdeenshire, which he held at his death, 



in 1536, as appears from the record of the presenta- 

 tion of his successor. 



BOEHBIE, or BOEHM, Jacob ; one of the most re- 

 nowned mystics of modem times; born in 1575, at 

 Altseidenberg, a village in Upper Lusatia, near Gor- 

 litz ; was the son of poor peasants ; remained to his 

 tenth year without instruction, and employed in tend- 

 ing cattle. The beautiful and sublime objects of na- 

 ture kindled his imagination, and inspired him with a 

 profound piety. Raised by contemplation above his 

 circumstances, and undisturbed by exterior influences, 

 a strong sense of the spiritual, particularly of the 

 mysterious, was awakened in him, and he saw in all 

 the workings of nature upon his mind a revelation of 

 God, and even imagined himself favoured by divine 

 inspirations. The education which he received at 

 school, though very imperfect, consisting only of 

 writing, spelling, and reading the Bible, supplied new 

 food for the excited mind of the boy. He became 

 afterwards a shoemaker ; and this sedentary life 

 seems to have strengthened his contemplative habits. 

 He was much interested in the disputes which pre- 

 vailed on the subject of Cryptocalvinism in Saxony ; 

 though he never took a personal part in sectarian 

 controversies, and knew no higher delight than -to 

 elevate himself, undisturbed, to the contemplation of 

 the infinite. B. withdrew himself more and more 

 from the world. If we take into view his retirement, 

 his piety, his rich and lively imagination, his imper- 

 fect education, his philosophical desire for truth, 

 together with his abundance of ideas, and his delu- 

 sion in considering many of those ideas as immediate 

 communications of the Deity, we have the sources of 

 his doctrine and his works. His writings are very 

 unequal, but always display a profound feeling, and 

 must be judged with indulgence for the causes just 

 mentioned. In 1594, B. became a master shoemaker 

 in Gorlitz, married, and continued a shoemaker dur- 

 ing his life. Several visions and raptures, that is, 

 moments of strong enthusiasm, led him to take the 

 pen. His first work appeared in 1616, and was 

 called Aurora. It contains his revelations on God, 

 man, and nature. This gave rise to a prosecution 

 against him ; but he was acquitted, and called upon, 

 from all sides, to continue writing. He did not, how- 

 ever, resume his pen until 1619. One of his most 

 important works is, Description of the three Princi- 

 ples of the Divine Being. His works contain pro- 

 found and lofty ideas, mingled with many absurd and 

 confused notions. He died, after several prosecu- 

 tions and acquittals, in 1624. Abraham von Frank- 

 enberg (who died in 1652), his biographer and admirer, 

 has also published and explained his writings. The 

 first collection of them was made in Holland, in 1675, 

 by Henry Betke ; a more complete one, in 1682, by 

 Gichtel (10 vols., Amsterdam) ; from whom the fol- 

 lowers of B., a relifiious sect highly valued for their 

 silent, virtuous, and benevolent life, have received 

 the name Gichtelians. Another edition appeared in 

 Amsterdam, in 1730, under the title Theologia reve- 

 lata, 2 vols., 4to ; the most complete, in 6 vols. In 

 England, also, B.'s writings have found many ad- 

 mirers. William Law published an English transla- 

 tion of them, 2 vols., 4to. A sect, taking their name 

 from B., was likewise formed in England, and, in 

 1697, Jane Leade, an enthusiastic admirer of his, es^ 

 tablished a particular society for the explanation of 

 his writings, under the name of the Phitadelphists. 

 It is said that such a society still exists. John Por- 

 dage, an English physician, is also well known as a 

 commentator on Boehme. 



BCEOTIA ; a country of ancient Greece, bounded N. 

 by Phocis and the country of the Opuntian Locrians ; 

 E. by the Euripus, or strait of Eubcea ; S. by Attica 

 and Megaris; and W. by the Alcyonian sea and 



