BRA 



,-589 



BRA 



bed in his interesting poem, entitled, Tlic Recantation. 

 Perhaps the return oi tlit.sc better feelings may he 

 ascribed, in a great mi isinv, to ;\ second matrimunuil 

 connection, which he formed after returning from 

 Reading, with a woman of low condition, but re- 

 spectable for her prudence and virtue. Under her 

 care, his character and circumstances were just be- 

 ginning to improve, when he died in the 51st year 

 of his age, in such poverty as to be buried at the ex- 

 pence of the parish. We have been led into this de- 

 tailed account of the life of Boyse, not so much from 

 his claim to our estimation as a poet, aa from the 

 striking lesson which his history affords, that no 

 powers of genius will save the victim of indolence and 

 imprudence from merited indigence and disgrace. 

 " The relation," to use the language of Dr Johnson 

 on a similar occasion, " will not be wholly without its 

 use, if it remind those who, in confidence of superior 

 capacities or attainments, disregard the common 

 maxima of life; that nothing can supply the want of 

 prudence ; and that negligence and irregularity, long 

 continued, will make knowledge useless, art ridicu- 

 lous, and genius contemptible." 



The poems which Boyse wrote for magazines and 

 other periodical works, are extremely numerous ; but 

 from the haste in which most of them were produ- 

 ced, are scarcely worth collecting. His principal 

 poems are " The Deity," " The Vision of Patience," 

 " Ode to Mr William Cuming," " An imitation of 

 Horace and Lydia," " An Epistle to Henry Brooke, 

 Esq.," " A Recantation," and " Albion's Tri- 

 umph." All of these, except Recantation, and Al- 

 bion's Triumph, are to be found in Dr Anderson's 

 Collection of the Poets of Great Britain. Nor were 

 the genius or acquisition of Boyse confined to poetry 

 alone. He had likewise a taste for painting, music, 

 and heraldry, with the latter of which he was well 

 acquainted. Had the talents which he naturally 

 possessed, instead of being shrouded in indolence, or 

 prostituted to vices, been employed according to the 

 dictates of reason and virtue, he might have risen to 

 eminence and respectability, and have escaped the al- 

 most unparalleled miseries which marked every period 

 of- his literary career. () 



BRABANT, formerly a duchy, and one of the 

 provinces of the Catholic Netherlands, now forming 

 three departments of the French empire ; is bound- 

 ed on the north by Holland and Guelderland, on the 

 east by Guelderland and Liege, on the south by Na- 

 mur and Hainault, and by Flandersand Zealandon the 

 west. It was originally divided into four quarters, viz. 

 Louvain, Brussels, Antwerp, and Bois-le-Duc. Its 

 circumference is estimated at SO French miles, and it 

 contains 28 walled towns, with about 700 villages. 

 It is watered by several considerable rivers, and tri- 

 butary streams, the principal of which are the Meuse, 

 the .Scheldt, the Dyle, the Demes, the Nethe, and 

 the Aa. The Demes, aft.T receiving the waters of 

 the Ghete, the Dyle, the Senne, and the Nethe, 

 takes the name of Rupel, and discharges itself into 

 the Scheldt. It has also two canals, one near Brus- 

 sels, which reaches from the Senne to the village of 

 Wille'urorck, near which it communicates with the 

 Rupel ; and the other joins the Rupel with the city 

 of Louvain. 



Brabant has always held the pre-eminence among 

 the provinces of the Low Countries. It was anciently 

 the seat of government, and the residence of the so- 

 vereign ; and when the general assembly of the states 

 was convoked, the first place and voice belonged to the 

 deputies of Brabant. This province wns the original 

 residence of the family of Charlemagne, and was first 

 erected into a duchy by that monarch in the begin- 

 ning of the 9th century. It continued to be govern- 

 ed, as a separate state, by princes of his family until 

 lOOj, when it devolved to Lambert II. Count of 

 Louvain, by his marriage with Gerberge, the sister 

 and heiress of Otto, the last Duke of Brabant. Af- 

 ter remaining three centuries in the house of Lou- 

 vain, it descended by the female line to the dukes of 

 Burgundy, and when united to the other possession! 

 of these princes, formed one of the richest domains 

 in Europe. Under the government of Philip the 

 Good, Brabant soon rose to opulence and distinction : 

 and had it not been drained of its wealth by the am- 

 bitious designs of Charles the Bold and his successors, 

 in their wars against Switzerland and France, it 

 might have continued, for a long time, the most opu- 

 lent country of Christendom. Its fairs were crowd- 

 ed with merchants from every nation, and its manu- 

 factures of woollen and linen cloths were in great de- 

 mand over all Europe. The shout of the Braban- 

 ders in the day of battle, gave to their sovereign the 

 title of the rich Dtde ; and Philip de Commines 

 likened the prosperity of this country to the plenty 

 of the land of promise. About the end of the fif- 

 teenth century, the sovereignty of Brabant, with the 

 other provinces of the Netherlands, was transferred 

 to the house of Austria, by the marriage of Mary of 

 Burgundy with the Archduke Maximilian. But 

 neither its privileges nor prosperity were affected by 

 the change. The same love of liberty and spirit of 

 industry actuated its inhabitants ; and it continued 

 to equal, if not surpass its ancient grandeur under 

 the Dukes of Burgundy. Antwerp had become the 

 great magazine of the northern nations. The Scheldt 

 was covered with numerous fleets, that kept their 

 course to this celebrated port ; and, according to 

 Guiccardini, a writer of that age, Antwerp, where 

 all languages were spoken, seemed to be the comrrxin 

 city of all nations. But upon the abdication of Charles 

 V., when Brabant came into the possession of Philip 

 II., its disasters and fall commenced. After havii:,.- 

 deluged it with blood, and despoiled it of those pri- 

 vileges which so many princes had respected, he re- 

 duced it to the most degraded state, by civil and reli- 

 gious despotism. Under his successors, commerce 

 and the arts rapidly declined. Ita deserted cities 

 shewed only, in their wide extent, the remains of 

 their former prosperity ; and the people, dispirited 

 by oppression, scarcely retained the semblance of their 

 ancient greatness. The numerous branches of the 

 Scheldt were seized by Holland, \vho now, triumph- 

 ant in war, extorted this humiliating concession 

 from the weakness of Spain ; that Antwerp, whose 

 competition she dreaded, should hold no communica- 

 tion with i he ocean by the navigation of that river. 

 The commerce of this city, languishing before, was now 

 extinguished. ITi.-r exchange was forsaken, her ware- 

 houses were empty ; and the Scheldt wafted no ves- 



Brabant. 



