text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 06.djvu/99

BOXALL, WILLIAM (1800–1879), portrait-painter, the son of an Oxfordshire exciseman, was born on 29 June 1800. He was educated at the grammar school at Abingdon, and entered the schools of the Royal Academy in 1819. In 1827 he went to Italy, and resided there for about two years. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1823 'Jupiter and Latona' and 'Portrait of Master Maberley,' and in the following year 'The Contention of Michael and Satan for the Body of Moses.' In 1831 appeared 'Lear and Cordelia,' which was engraved in Finden's 'Gallery.' Boxall painted the portraits of many literary and artistic celebrities, among them those of Allan Cunningham (1836), Walter Savage Landor (1851), David Cox (1857), and Copley Fielding; the last now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery. In 1859 he painted for Trinity House a portrait of the prince consort, wearing the robes of master of the corporation. He excelled in the portrayal of female beauty, and many of his works of that class were engraved in the publications of the day. He exhibited at the Royal Academy altogether eighty-six portraits. In 1851 he was elected an associate of the academy, and in 1863 a full academician. Two years afterwards, in 1865, he succeeded Sir Charles Eastlake in the directorship of the National Gallery, which post he held until 1874. In 1867 he received the honour of knighthood.

During Boxall's administration the picture by Rembrandt of 'Christ blessing Little Children,' known as the 'Suermondt Rembrandt,' was secured for the National Gallery; also 'The Entombment,' attributed to Michelangelo Buonarroti, the authenticity of which was the subject of some discussion in the 'Times' in September 1881. In 1874, when the Peel collection was offered to the nation, Boxall had already resigned his post in consequence of failing health, but his successor not having been appointed, Mr. Lowe (now Lord Sherbrooke), the chancellor of the exchequer, entrusted him with the negotiation, which he brought to a successful issue. He died on 6 Dec. 1879. One of his works, entitled 'Geraldine,' and representing a lady at her toilette, is in the National Gallery.

BOXER, EDWARD (1784–1855), rear-admiral, entered the navy in 1798, and after eight years' junior service, for the most part with Captain (afterwards Sir) Charles Brisbane, and for some short time in the Ocean, bearing Lord Collingwood's flag, was confirmed, 8 June 1807, as lieutenant of the Tigre with Captain Benjamin Hallo well (afterwards Carew), whom, on promotion to flag rank in October 1811, he followed to the Malta, and continued, with short intermissions, under Rear-admiral Hallowell's immediate command, until he was confirmed as commander on 1 March 1815. In 1822 he commanded the Sparrowhawk (18) on the Halifax station, and was posted out of her on 23 June 1823. From 1827 to 1830 he commanded the Hussar as flag-captain to Sir Charles Ogle at Halifax. In August 1837 he was appointed to the Pique, which he commanded on the North American and West Indian stations; and early in 1840 was sent to the Mediterranean, where he conducted the survey of the position afterwards occupied by the fleet off Acre, and took part in the bombardment and reduction of that place in November. For his services at that time he received the Turkish gold medal, and was made C.B. 18 Dec. 1840. In August 1843 he was appointed harbour-master at Quebec, and held that office till his promotion to flag-rank, 5 March 1853. In December 1854 he was appointed second in command in the Mediterranean, and undertook the special duties of superintendent at Balaklava, which the crowd of shipping, the narrow limits of the harbour, and the utter want of wharves or of roads had reduced to a state of disastrous confusion. This, and more especially the six-mile sea of mud between the harbour and the camp, gave rise to terrible suffering and loss, the blame for which was all laid on the head of the admiral-superintendent at Balaklava, so that even now Admiral Boxer's name is not uncommonly associated with the memory of that deadly Crimean winter. But in truth it ought to be remembered rather as that of the man who, at the cost of his life, remedied the evils which had given rise to such loss. He died of cholera on board the Jason, just outside the harbour, on 4 June 1855, and Lord Raglan in reporting his death


text:
Page:PhilipK.Hitti-SyriaAShortHistory.djvu/202

Rh which served as models for European craftsmen. Arras and other European centres began to imitate wares, rugs and fabrics of oriental manufacture. With cloth and metallic wares went dyestuffs and new colours such as lilac (laylak), carmine and crimson (qirmizi). Oriental work in pottery, gold, silver, enamel and stained glass was also imitated.

In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries maritime activity and international trade were stimulated to a degree un- attained since Roman days. The introduction of the com- pass, of which presumably the Moslems made the firfct practical use, was a great aid in navigation. Before the Moslems the Chinese had discovered the directive property of the magnetic needle. Among the Europeans Italian sailors were the earliest users of the compass. The en- hanced flow of trade created new demands, one of which was for ready cash on the part of pilgrim and Crusader. This demand helped to establish a money economy and increase the supply and circulation of currency. Banking firms were organized in the Italian city republics with branch offices in the Levant. The need was also felt for letters of credit. Gold coins with Arabic inscriptions were struck by the Latins. The first consuls reported in history were Genoese accredited to Acre in 1180. They presided over local Genoese courts, witnessed seal contracts, wills and deeds, identified new arrivals of their nationals, settled dis- putes and on the whole performed duties analogous to those of modern consuls in the Near East.

During the Crusades the periods of peace, it should be remembered, were of longer duration than the periods of war. Thus ample opportunity was provided for forging amicable bonds between Easterners and Westerners. Once the language barrier was removed the Frank must have discovered that after all the Moslem was not the idolater he was thought to be and that he shared in the Judaeo-Christian and Greco-Roman heritage of the European. We hear of many Crusaders who learned Arabic, but of no Arabs who Rh

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
Page:PhilipK.Hitti-SyriaAShortHistory.djvu/203

Rh spoke French or Latin. The tolerance, breadth of view and trend toward secularization which usually result from mingling of men of different faiths and cultures seem in this case to have accrued to the Western rather than to the Eastern society. On the social and economic level Christians and Moslems mixed freely, traded horses, dogs and falcons, ex- changed safe-conducts and even intermarried. A new progeny from native mothers arose and was designated Pullani. Many modern Lebanese and Palestinians have inherited blue eyes and fair hair, while certain Christian families have preserved traditions or names suggesting European origins.

In his memoirs Usamah ibn-Munqidh (1095-1188) gives the clearest first-hand picture of interfaith association. A friend of Saladin, Usamah defended his picturesque ancestral castle on the Orontes, Shayzar, against Assassins and Franks. Never did this castle fall into Crusading hands. He himself fraternized with Franks in time of peace. To him the comparatively free sex relations among the Franks, 'who are void of all zeal and jealousy 5, were simply shocking. Their methods of ordeal by water and duel were far inferior to the Moslem judicial procedure of the day. Especially crude by contrast was their system of medication. Two members of a Frankish family at al-Munaytirah were properly treated by a native Christian physician until a European was summoned. The latter laid the ailing leg of one of the patients on a block of wood and bade a knight chop it off with one stroke of the axe. He then shaved the head of the other patient, a woman, made a deep cruciform incision on it and rubbed the wound with salt — to drive off the devil. Both patients expired on the spot. The native physician, himself the narrator of the story, con- cludes with these words : 'Thereupon I asked them whether my services were needed any longer, and when they replied in the negative I returned home, having learned of their medicine what I knew not before.' Rh


text:
Page:PhilipK.Hitti-SyriaAShortHistory.djvu/204

Rh In general, the effects of the Crusades on Syria were disastrous. The cities had been destroyed and the ports dismantled; all was ruin and desolation. Dissident Moslem elements, comprising Shiites, Ismailites and Nusayris, who then reportedly outnumbered the Sunnites and had on varied occasions compromised their loyalty by aiding Franks, were now decimated. Their remnant sought refuge in central Lebanon and the Biqa. The Mamluk al-Ashraf exacted from the Druzes outward conformity to Sunnite Islam, but the conformity did not last long. Baybars forced the Nusayris to build mosques in their villages, but he could not force them to pray in them. Instead, they used the buildings as stables for their cattle and beasts of burden. In pursuit of the 'scorched earth' policy Mamluk sultans methodically ravaged Lebanon. Shiites of the Kisrawan region were replaced by Kurds and Turkomans; Maronites from the north pushed on later to fill the vacancy. The defence of Beirut against recurring sea incursions was en- trusted in 1 294 by the sultans to amirs of the Buhtur family, one of whose members left us the most detailed account of the period. Lebanon then became less oriented westward; it assumed the general aspect that it has maintained till modern times. In fact, all Syria had in it by then almost every element of civilization it possessed until the early nineteenth century, when a fresh wave of Western ideas and cultural elements began to break on its shore.

Native Christians suffered no less than schismatic Moslems. A measure of hostility was engendered between the Syrian Christians and their Moslem neighbours that was seldom attained before and that is not yet entirely abated. The active help given the Crusaders by the native Christians led to ruthless reprisals which rarely discriminated between active collaborators and their innocent co-religionists. In Lebanon the Maronites were accorded by the Latins all the ecclesiastical and civil rights that pertained to members of the Roman Catholic church, though actual union was not Rh


text:
Page:PhilipK.Hitti-SyriaAShortHistory.djvu/205

Rh effected until the eighteenth century. After Saladin's capture of Beirut (1191) thousands of Maronites migrated to Cyprus, where two thousand of their descendants still live, but those who stayed developed into what may be con- sidered the national church of Lebanon. This church still retains its Syriac liturgy and its non-celibate priesthood, despite its ties to Rome. The 1952 census gives the number of Maronites in Lebanon as 377,544, more than any other religious body in that republic. Recent Maronite emigrants have carried their rite into Italy, France, North and South America, Australia and other parts of the civilized world.

The Armenian and Jacobite communities in the crusad- ing period likewise entered into closer friendly relations than ever before with the Latins, but the rapprochement led to no union. Both of these churches, like the Coptic, are in- dependent descendants of the Monophysite rite. The triumph of the church of the Syrians over those of Armenia, Egypt and Ethiopia was another conspicuous achievement of Syrian society and culture. All three used their respective vernaculars in their liturgies and survived primarily as vehicles of national spirit reacting against foreign domina- tion. The Jacobite remnant in Syria and Lebanon, who prefer to be designated as Old Syrian, have a patriarchal seat at Horns. Those of them who in recent times joined the Roman Catholic Church form the Syrian Catholic church with its patriarchal seat in Lebanon. The Armenian Orthodox church has a similar Uniat offshoot.

The East Syrian church — called Nestorian by Roman Catholics as a stigma of heresy in contradistinction to those of its members who joined Rome as Uniats and became exclusively known as Chaldaeans — was not active in medieval Syria, as its patriarch had moved to Baghdad in 762 and its unparalleled missionary efforts had been directed eastward into Central Asia, India and China. Their cultured traces are still visible in the Syriac characters in which Mongol and Manchu were written and in the technique and Rh


text:
Page:PhilipK.Hitti-SyriaAShortHistory.djvu/206

Rh decoration of bookbinding in Turkestan. The East Syrian church was represented at the beginning of the first World War by 190,000 members domiciled in and around the edges of Kurdistan. Those who survived drifted into Iraq and Syria and were given the appellation Assyrian chiefly by Anglican missionaries.

The East and the West Syrian churches with their ramifications did not comprise all Syrian Christians. There remained a small body which succumbed under the impact of Greek theology from Antioch and Constantinople and accepted the decrees of the Council of Chalcedon (451). Thereby this community secured orthodoxy and not only escaped excommunication but obtained protection, even patronage, from the state church and the imperial city. By way of reproach their opponents centuries later nicknamed them Melkites, royalists. Melkite ranks must have been recruited mainly from city-dwellers and descendants of Greek colonists. Gradually Greek replaced Syriac as the language of ritual and the Syriac liturgy gave place to the Byzantine. In the Crusading period the Melkite com- munity suffered heavily. Their Syrian descendants main- tain one patriarchate in Damascus and another in Jerusalem and are now known as Greek Orthodox. In recent years, strangely enough, 'Melkite' has been exclusively employed to designate Christians drawn from the Orthodox church and attached to Rome. Their patriarch maintains a resid- ence in Egypt and another in Lebanon. At present they number about one-half of the Orthodox community, estimated at 230,000. The majority of the Greek Catholics and of the Greek Orthodox live in Syria rather than in Lebanon.

The spirit of holy war which animated the Mamluks in their counter-crusades seems, after its initial triumph, to have been canalized against Egyptian and Syrian Christians. Towards the end of his reign Qalawun issued edicts excluding his Christian subjects from governmental offices. In 1301 Rh


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 06.djvu/102

 now (1886) in the possession of Mr. John Rendall. There is an engraved portrait of him, 'drawn from the life, and engraved by F. K. Sherwin,' prefixed to the second edition of the 'Cathedral Music' (1788). The same portrait was prefixed to the 'Collection of Anthems,' published by Mrs. Boyce in 1790. A vignette of him, by Drayton, after R. Smirke (together with Blow, Arne, Purcell, and Croft), was published in the 'Historic Gallery,' September 1801.

Personally, Boyce was a most amiable and estimable man. Burney, twenty-four years after his death, wrote of him as follows: 'There was no professor whom I was ever acquainted with that I loved, honoured, and respected more,' and he seems to have been a universal favourite with all with whom he came in contact. Musically, he occupies a distinct position amongst his contemporaries. Like all the English composers of his day, it was his ill fortune to be overshadowed by the giant form of Handel, and yet, in spite of this, he managed to preserve an individuality of his own. He may best be described as the Arne. of English church music; for the same characteristics of grace and refinement are to be found in his music as in that of his contemporary, and, like Arne, he had a reserve of power which was all the more effective for not being too often brought into play.

 BOYD, ARCHIBALD (1803–1883), dean of Exeter, son of Archibald Boyd, treasurer of Derry, was born at Londonderry in 1803, and, after being educated at the diocesan college in that city, proceeded to Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated B.A. 1823, proceeded M.A. 1834, and B.D. and D.D. long after, in 1868. He officiated as curate and preacher in the cathedral of Derry 1827-42, and here he first distinguished himself as an able and powerful preacher, as a controversialist, and as an author. At that time the controversy between the presbyterians and the episcopalians of the north of Ireland was at its height. Boyd came to the defence of the church and preached a series of discourses in reply to attacks. These discourses attracted great attention, and were afterwards printed. In 1842 he was appointed perpetual curate of Christ Church, Cheltenham. With Francis Close, his fellow-worker here, he joined in a scheme for establishing additional Sunday schools, infant schools, and bible classes. For eight years after 1859 he was entrusted with the care of Paddington. On 11 Nov. 1867 he accepted the deanery of Exeter, and resigned, with his vicarage, an honorary canonry in Gloucester Cathedral, which he had held since 1857. Like Dean Close, he was a preaching and a working dean. He was a firm but moderate evangelical, and was a voluminous writer on the ecclesiastical questions of the day. His name is connected with the well-known Exeter reredos case. The dean and chapter erected in the cathedral, 1872-3, a stone reredos, on which were sculptured representations in bas-relief of the Ascension, the Transfiguration, and the Descent of the Holy Ghost, with some figures of angels. In accordance with a petition presented by William John Phillpotts, chancellor of the diocese, the bishop (Dr. Temple) on 7 Jan. 1874 declared the reredos to be contrary to law and ordered its removal. After much litigation touching the bishop's jurisdiction in the matter, the structure was declared not illegal by the judicial committee of the privy council on 25 Feb. 1875 (Law Reports, Admiralty and Ecclesiastical Reports, iv. 297-379 (1875);  Privy Council Appeals, vi. 435-67 (1875).

Whilst on the continent during the autumn of 1882 Dean Boyd met with an accident at Vienna, from the effects of which he never fully recovered. He died at the deanery, Exeter, on 11 July 1883, bequeathing nearly 40,000l. to various societies and institutions in the diocese of Exeter. He married Frances, daughter of Thomas Waller of Ospringe, and widow of the Rev. Robert Day Denny. She died on 6 Jan. 1877.

Boyd was the author of the following works:
 * 1) 'Sermons on the Church, or the Episcopacy, Liturgy, and Ceremonies of the Church of England,' 1838.
 * 2) 'Episcopacy, Ordination, Lay-eldership, and Liturgies,' 1839.
 * 3) 'Episcopacy and Presbytery,' 1841.
 * 4) 'England, Rome, and Oxford compared as to certain Doctrines,' 1846.
 * 5) 'The History of the Book of Common Prayer,' 1850.
 * 6) 'Turkey and the Turks,' 1853.
 * 7) 'Baptism and Baptismal Regeneration,' 1865.
 * 8) 'Confession, Absolution, and the Real Presence,' 1867. # 'The Book of Common Prayer,' 1869. He also printed many single sermons and minor publications.


text:
Page:PhilipK.Hitti-SyriaAShortHistory.djvu/207

Rh al-Nasir reactivated the old discriminatory laws requiring Christians and Jews to wear distinctive dress and refrain from horse and mule riding and padlocked many Christian churches. This wave of anti-Christian feeling is further reflected in the contemporaneous literature. Speeches, legal opinions and sermons inflamed popular antagonism. The writings of the Syrian theologian ibn-Taymiyah (1263- 1328) embody the reactionary spirit of the age. Born in Harran, ibn-Taymiyah flourished in Damascus, where he lifted his voice high in condemnation of saint worship, vows and pilgrimage to shrines. His principles were later adopted by the Wahhabis, who today dominate the religious and political life of Saudi Arabia.

Another type of literature flourished now which may be termed counter-propaganda. It extolled the virtues of Jerusalem, recommended pilgrimage to it and insisted that Muhammad had proclaimed prayer in its mosque a thousand times more meritorious than in any other, excepting, of course, the two of Mecca and Medina. Alongside this genre arose a form of historical romance extolling the exploits — real or imaginary — of some Moslem hero. Saladin, Baybars and Antarah became the heroes of such romances. Antarah was a pre-Islamic poet-warrior, but his romance, judged by its latest historical allusions, was con- ceived in Syria in the early twelfth century. Story-tellers in the cafes of Cairo, Beirut, Damascus and Baghdad drawing their tales from it and the romance of Baybars attract larger audiences than when reciting tales from the Arabian Nights.

An interesting by-product of the Crusades was the initia- tion of Christian missionary work among Moslems. Con- vinced, by the failure of these wars, of the futility of the military method in dealing with Moslems, thoughtful men began to advocate concentration on peaceful methods. Raymond Lull (d. 1315), a Catalan ecclesiastic, was the earliest European to emphasize oriental studies as an instru- Rh


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 06.djvu/103

 BOYD, BENJAMIN (1796–1851), Australian squatter, second son of Edward Boyd of Merton Hall, Wigtonshire, by his wife, Jane, eldest daughter of Benjamin Yule of Wheatfield, Midlothian, and brother of [q. v.], was born at Merton Hall about 1796, and, after being in business as a stockbroker in the city of London from 1824 to 1839, went out to Sydney in 1840-41 for the purpose of organising the various branches of the Royal Banking Company of Australia. Acting on behalf of this company, he purchased station property in the Monaro district, Riverina, Queensland, and elsewhere. At the first-named place he erected large stores and premises for boiling down his sheep into tallow. He at the same time speculated largely in whaling, and Twofold Bay became the rendezvous for his whaling ships. On the south head of the bay he put up a lighthouse for the purpose of directing vessels coming to his wharf. Another business which he carried on extensively was shipping cattle to Tasmania, New Zealand, and other markets. Boyd had also in view the making of Boyd Town, which he had founded, a place of commercial importance, by stealing a march on the government, who had made Eden the official township. He was the first, or amongst the first, to attempt to procure cheap labour in Australia by the employment of South Sea Islanders as shepherds, but the scheme proved abortive. Meantime the company grew dissatisfied with Boyd's management, and after a good deal of trouble Boyd agreed to retire and to resign all claims on the company on condition of receiving three of the whaling ships, his yacht, called the Wanderer, in which he had come from England, and two sections of land at Twofold Bay. His next enterprise was to embark with a digging party on board the Wanderer and to sail for California in 1850 at the time of the gold excitement there. He was unsuccessful in his search for gold, and was on his way back to Sydney in 1851 when his yacht touched at one of the islands in the Solomon group, known as [[w:Guadalcanal|Gandalcanar}}. There he went ashore with a black boy to have some shooting, and was never seen again. The affairs of the Royal Banking Company were ultimately wound up, when the shareholders had to make good a deficiency of 80,000l. Boyd also had large estates of his own, amounting to 381,000 acres, for which, in 1847, he paid an annual license of 80l. He was in his time the largest squatter in the Australian colonies. He never married.

 BOYD, HENRY (d. 1832), translator of Dante, was a native of Ireland, and was most probably educated at Dublin University. He published a translation of Dante's 'Inferno' in English verse, the first of its kind, with a specimen of the 'Orlando Furioso' of Ariosto, 1785. It was printed by subscription, and dedicated to the Earl of Bristol, bishop of Derry. The dedication is dated from Killeigh, near Tullamore, of which place presumably Boyd was incumbent. In 1796 he published 'Poems chiefly Dramatic and Lyric,' As early as 1791 the 'ingenious and unfortunate author' was seeking subscriptions for his original poems (, Lit. Illustrations, vii. 717). In 1802 he issued three volumes of an English verse translation of the whole 'Divina Commedia' of Dante, with preliminary essays, notes, and illustrations, which was dedicated to Viscount Charleville, whose chaplain the author is described to be in the title-page. In the dedication Boyd states that the terrors of the Irish rebellion, had driven him from the post of danger at Lord Charleville's side to seek a safe asylum in a 'remote angle of the province.' In 1805 he was seeking a publisher for his translation, of the 'Araucana' of Ercilla, a long poem, which 'was too great an undertaking for Edinburgh publishers,' and for which he vainly sought a purchaser in London (ibid. 120, 149). In 1805 he published the 'Penance of Hugo, a Vision,' translated from the Italian of Vincenzo Monti, with two additional cantos; and the 'Woodman's Tale,' a poem after the manner and metre of Spenser's 'Faery Queen.' The latter poem formed really the first of a collection of poems and odes. These poems were to have been published at Edinburgh, and Boyd seems to have acted badly in making an engagement with a London house to publish them after they had been announced there (ibid. 157). In the title-pages to both these works the author is described as vicar of Drumgath in Ireland; but in all biographical notices and in the obituary record of the 'Gentleman's Magazine' for September 1832, the date of his death, he is invariably described simply as vicar of Rathfriland and chaplain to the Earl of Charleville. Anderson, writing to Bishop Percy in 1806, says that he had received some squibs written by Boyd against Mone, and that the humour was coarse and indelicate (ibid. 171). In 1807 he issued the 'Triumphs of Petrarch,' translated, into


text:
Page:PhilipK.Hitti-SyriaAShortHistory.djvu/208

Rh of pacific campaign in which persuasion should replace violence. He himself studied Arabic from a slave and taught it. With Raymond, the Crusading spirit turned into a new channel: converting the Moslem rather than expelling or exterminating him. The Carmelite order, still active in the area, was founded in 1154 by a Crusader in that country and named after one of its mountains. Early in the thirteenth century two other monastic orders, the Franciscan and the Dominican, were founded and their representatives were stationed in many Syrian towns. In the last years of that century Beirut had a large Franciscan church. In 1219 the founder of the Franciscan order, St. Francis of Assisi, visited the Ayyubid court in Egypt and held a fruitless religious discussion with al-Kamil. A Dominican bishop, William of Tripoli, wrote in 1270 one of the most learned treatises in medieval times on the Moslems, bringing out points in which Islam and Christianity agree and advocating missionaries rather than soldiers to undertake the recovery of the Holy Land. Rh


text:
Page:PhilipK.Hitti-SyriaAShortHistory.djvu/162

Rh concile themselves to the loss of Syria's privileged position, nor to their exclusion from government offices. In the case of the Christians the situation was aggravated by unfair extortion and increased taxation. Al-Mansur's son and suc- cessor al-Mahdi (775-785) forced 5000 Tanukh Arabians around Aleppo to adopt Islam and had their churches demolished. After the brief reign of al-Mahdi's elder son al-Hadi, the caliphate passed to his younger son Harun al- Rashid (786-809), extolled in Moslem legend but a harsh master to Syrian Christians and Moslems alike.

In 782, while still a prince, Harun had led his forces as as far as Byzantium and exacted from the regent Irene a heavy tribute. As caliph he conducted from his favourite residence al-Raqqah in northern Syria a series of raids into the land of the Romans. Dissension between North Arabians (Qays) and South Arabians (Yaman) split Syria in his time, with official favour accorded to the Qaysites in the bitter strife. For two years the district of Damascus was the scene of relentless warfare, but in 795 Harun en- trusted a punitive expedition to a Barmakid general who completely disarmed both factions. The Barmakids, a Persian vizirial family exalted by al-Mansur, achieved such distinction and displayed such generosity in the use of their immense wealth that by 803 Harun was no longer able to tolerate their prestige; he annihilated them and con- fiscated their property.

Harun re-enacted some of the anti-Christian and anti- Jewish measures introduced by Umar II. In 807 he ordered all churches erected since the Moslem conquest demolished. He also decreed that members of tolerated sects should wear the prescribed garb. But evidently much of this legislation was not enforced. His death led to a struggle for the throne between his sons al-Amin (809-813) and al-Mamun (813- 833); the accompanying convulsions had repercussions in Syria. Syrian troops deserted wholesale, or followed an Umayyad pretender who held Horns and Damascus briefly. Rh


text:
Page:PhilipK.Hitti-SyriaAShortHistory.djvu/163

Rh But al-Mamun's victory was followed by a relatively peaceful reign. In Egypt the Copts, after expressing their individuality by several risings against their Moslem overlords, were them- selves converted to Islam.

In 829 al-Mamun visited Syria and made a fresh survey of its lands with a view to increasing the revenue from it. Four years later he visited Damascus to test the judges there and enforce his decree that any judge who did not subscribe to the Mutazilite view of the creation of the Koran could not hold office. Several of his predecessors had visited Syria on their way to the pilgrimage or to battle against the Byzan- tines. They were all kept fully informed by their governors and postmasters, who doubled as chiefs of secret police.

Another brother, al-Mutasim (833-842), succeeded al- Mamun and moved the capital to Samarra. It was he who, in 838, led a victorious expedition against Amorium, the last incursion into Anatolia before a long period of peace on Syria's northern border. Palestine was the scene of a major revolt during his reign. In 840 a Yemenite Arab who always wore a veil in public raised the white Umayyad banner and attracted a large but undisciplined following among the peasants. A thousand Abbasid troops readily took him captive and dispersed his men.

The quiet which prevailed under al-Mutasim's son al- Wathiq was shattered under his brother al-Mutawakkil (847- 861). In 850 and 854 he revived the discriminatory legisla- tion against members of tolerated sects and supplemented it by new features which were the most stringent ever issued against the minorities. Christians and Jews were enjoined to affix wooden images of devils to their houses, level their graves even with the ground, wear outer garments of yellow and ride only on mules and asses with wooden saddles marked by two pomegranate-like balls on the cantle. Violent outbreaks took place in Damascus (854) and Horns (855), with both Christians and Moslems participating. The people of Damascus killed their Abbasid governor and were Rh


text:
Page:PhilipK.Hitti-SyriaAShortHistory.djvu/164

Rh subsequently put to the sword for three consecutive days by a Turkish general sent by the caliph at the head of a band of seven thousand horse and three thousand foot, who also plundered the whole city. The Homs revolt was likewise repressed after vigorous resistance. The leaders were decapitated or flogged to death and then crucified at the city gate ; all churches, with the exception of one which was added to the great mosque, were demolished; all Christians banished from the tumultuous city.

Incredible as it may seem, in 858 al-Mutawakkil trans- ferred the caliphal residence to Damascus, possibly to escape the arrogant domination of his praetorian guard, consisting mostly of turbulent, undisciplined Turks, originally mer- cenaries and slaves taken into the service by his predecessor. The humid climate of the city, its violent wind and abundant fleas drove the capricious caliph out in thirty-eight days.

Thus far Syria seems to have maintained its general Christian character, but now the situation began perceptibly to change. It may be assumed that after al-Mutawakki's enactments many Christian families in Syria emigrated or accepted Islam. The converts were actuated mainly by the desire to escape the humiliating disabilities and tribute and to acquire social prestige or political influence. The theo- logical conquest thus followed the military by over two centuries. No Moslem could embrace Christianity or Judaism without risking his life.

The slowest and last victory — after the political and the religious — was the linguistic. Here the subject peoples of Syria and other lands offered the greatest measure of resistance. They showed themselves more ready to give up political and even religious loyalties than linguistic ones. Literary Arabic won its victory before the spoken did. Syrian scholars under caliphal patronage began to compose in Arabic long before Syrian peasants adopted the new tongue. The oldest dated Christian manuscript in Arabic that has come down to us was composed by abu-Qurrah Rh


text:
Page:PhilipK.Hitti-SyriaAShortHistory.djvu/165

Rh (d. 820) and copied in 877. By the early thirteenth century, toward the end of the Abbasid era, the victory of Arabic as the medium of everyday communication was virtually com- plete. Linguistic islands remained, occupied by non- Moslems: Jacobites, Nestorians and Maronites. In Lebanon the native Syriac lingered until the late seventeenth century, and indeed is still spoken in three villages in Anti-Lebanon and still used in the Maronite and other liturgies of the Syrian churches.

In general, however, the entire Semitic world was Arabicized under the Abbasids. Aram, as the native name for Syria, was replaced by al-Sham, c the left', because it lay to the left of the Kabah in Mecca, in contrast to Yemen, which lay to its right. For the first time the consciousness of unity engendered by the use of a common tongue and — with important exceptions, especially in Lebanon — the profession of a common faith prevailed. Syriac did not dis- appear without leaving an indelible imprint on Syrian Arabic in morphology, phonetics and vocabulary. It is primarily this imprint that distinguishes the Syrian-Lebanese dialect from those of neighbouring lands.

More than any other one people the Syriac-speaking Christians contributed to that general awakening and intel- lectual renaissance centred in Abbasid Baghdad which is considered the chief glory of classical Islam. Between 750 and 850 the Arab world was the scene of one of the most spectacular and momentous movements in the history of thought. The movement was marked by translations into Arabic from Persian, Greek and Syriac. The Arabian Moslem brought with him no art, science or philosophy and hardly any literature; but he demonstrated keen intel- lectual curiosity, a voracious appetite for learning and a variety of latent talents. In the Fertile Crescent he fell heir to Hellenistic science and lore, unquestionably the most precious intellectual treasure then extant. Within a few decades after Baghdad was founded (762), the Arabic- Rh


text:
Page:PhilipK.Hitti-SyriaAShortHistory.djvu/166

Rh reading public found at its disposal the major philosophical works of Aristotle and the Neo-Platonic commentators, the chief medical writings of Hippocrates and Galen, the main mathematical compositions of Euclid and the geographical masterpiece of Ptolemy. In all this the Syriac-speakers were the mediators. The Arabians knew no Greek, but the Syrians had been in touch with Greek for over a millennium. For two centuries before the appearance of Islam, Syrian scholars had been translating Greek works into Syriac. The same people who had opened the treasures of Greek science and philosophy to the Persians now busied them- selves in making them available to all who could read Arabic.

All branches of learning shared in this activity. The clergy translated Aristotelian logic and Neo-Platonic philo- sophy for their bearing on theological controversies, as before the Moslem conquest they had put the Septuagint and the Gospels into Syriac at Edessa. Besides philosophy and theology, medicine and astronomy, viewed from the astro- logical standpoint, attracted Syrian attention. Many of the distinguished professors at the Jundi-Shapur academy of medicine and philosophy were Christians using Syriac as a medium of instruction. The dean of the academy, Jurjis ibn-Bakhtishu, was summoned by al-Mansur in 765 to give medical advice ; he became the founder of a family of physicians which for six or seven generations almost monopo- lized the entire court medical practice.

A Christian named Yuhanna ibn-Masawayh supposedly translated for al-Rashid several manuscripts, mainly medical, which the caliph had brought back from raids into Asia Minor. Yuhanna's pupil Hunayn ibn-Ishaq (809-873) stands out as one of the foremost translators of the age. He translated most of the works of Aristotle and Galen into Syriac, which his son and nephew then rendered into Arabic. Hunayn is also said to have translated Hippocrates' medical treatises and Plato's Republic. The Syrians were indifferent to Greek poetry and drama and so were the Arabians. Rh


text:
Page:PhilipK.Hitti-SyriaAShortHistory.djvu/167

Rh Translations of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey by a Maronite astrologer did not survive.

Not only Christian but pagan Syrians made a major contribution to Arab intellectual life. These were the star- worshippers of Harran, incorrectly called Sabians. They had interested themselves in astronomy and allied sciences from time immemorial. As lovers of Hellenistic science they stood on a par with their Christian compatriots. Out- standing among their scholars was Thabit ibn-Qurrah (d. 901). He and his disciples are credited with translating the bulk of Greek astronomical and mathematical works, including those of Ptolemy and Archimedes.

Clearly the bulk of Syriac literature consisted of transla- tions and commentaries and was lacking in originality and creativeness. Only in the field of ascetic mysticism did they produce, both before the Moslem conquest and in Abbasid times, original contributions, strikingly parallel to Sufi material A Jacobite bishop of Aleppo, abu-al-Faraj (Bar Hebraeus, son of the Jew, 1226-1286), distinguished himself as a theological and historical writer in both Syriac and Arabic.

The finest talent of Moslem Syria of this period expressed itself through the medium of poetical composition. Two of its sons, abu-Tammam and al-Buhturi, achieved the dis- tinction of becoming court poets to Abbasid caliphs. Abu- Tammam (about 804-850) was born in Hawran of a Christian father but embraced Islam and travelled widely before settling in Baghdad. He accompanied al-Mutasim in his raid on Amorium and wrote an ode to celebrate the victory. His claim to glory rests not only on his original compositions but also on his compilation — while snow- bound in a house with an excellent library — of al-Hamasah, a valuable anthology of the masterpieces of Arabic poetry from pre-Islamic days to his own time. Al-Buhturi (about 820-897) admired abu-Tammam and followed in his steps. In Baghdad he became the laureate of al-Mutawakkil and Rh


text:
Page:Triangles of life, and other stories.djvu/152

 thousand miles, and for a year); here in England they cannot trust, not the workman, but the respectable middle class, better class, well-to-do class, independent class, or whatever you like to call them. And why? Because of the curse of England—the ghastly struggle to "keep up appearances"—because, if the tradesman is not sharp, Mrs. So-and-so will very likely spend the money that So-and-so owes him on a stylish, useless piece of furniture, which she must have or burst, because Mrs. Somebodyelse has just bought one like it.

The houses and villas round here are very much like what you'd see at Mosman, North Sydney, or any other well-to-do Australian suburb. I can see little difference between the street I'm living in and the street I lived in in North Sydney. But outside we have fields and hedges in the place of bare fences, brown paddocks, and dreary, monotonous, endless scrubs, as round about Come-by-Chance. This is a pretty place, and a healthy place, and a bright place all summer, and the well-to-do people ought to be happy; but I believe that they are the most miserable people on the face of God's earth. It's all on account of the struggle to keep up the appearance of being twice as well off as they are.

We'll suppose that the "better class people" are tradesmen's families, mechanics, and others, who have risen in the world. We'll lump those known as "well-to-do" and "independent" people together—we'd call 'em all the middle classes in Australia, but "middle class" is only a vulgar term used by ignorant colonial democracy and bloated aristocrats. I don't know


text:
Author:Henry Boyd

Works

 * (tr.) Dante's Divina Commedia (3 vols. 1802)

title: Author:Henry Boyd


text:
Page:Triangles of life, and other stories.djvu/153

 about the aristocrats of this village; they are driven up to the station at the last moment in dog-carts or carriages, and ushered into a first-class carriage with as much celerity and sympathetic respect as if they were royal families, and that's about all you see of them.

About a hundred of the City men, who have their families down here, go up to London every morning and come home at night. They travel third-class, and there is much of a muchness between them. They don't talk —perhaps they can't. Ten men can travel for two hours in a train without one saying a word to another. If you try to talk to them, they read a paper. This is English reserve, or English boorishness, or English suspicion, or English ignorance—whatever you like to call it. If you try to talk to them, they treat you as if you were a swindler trying to get them to take shares in a rotten concern.

I can't say whether middle and upper class Englishmen are reserved because they are shy, or because, as Dooley says, they have nothing to say. Come to think of it, I think that Dooley is right. Englishmen know nothing beyond their own little selfish and paltry little commercial world, and they have the intelligence to know that they know nothing, therefore they keep their mouths shut. Maybe it is unconscious instinct which makes them do this. And perhaps it's an instinctive knowledge of their own world-ignorance which goads them to hector people who are in a lower station of life, and whom they suppose to be more ignorant than they are themselves, and so keep up some


text:
Page:Triangles of life, and other stories.djvu/154

 of intellectual superiority. Possibly Englishmen are silent because, when they are not thinking money, they are either brooding over the fact that the world thinks them boorish, or keeping up their reputation for being reserved. However, there are plenty of exceptions in London—though I don't know how they got there.

Englishmen—younger sons or sons of families who have spent their money to keep up appearances—ne'er-do-wells—anyway, Englishmen who came out to Australia and drift into the Bush (provided they are not old men), soon lose their reserve, and become grand fellows humorous, sympathetic and open-handed—the best we have.

Our street is furnished partly on the time-payment system, and partly (and furtively) second-hand; so the furniture is either gimcrack or full of white ants. It is fashionable or genteel and uncomfortable, and most of it useless—plain comfortable furniture would cost less than half the price. The villa ladies are wearing out their lives (and souls, if they have any) in the ghastly struggle to "keep up appearances." They talk of nothing but their servants. They never work themselves—only worry, whine, and lie, and grow more selfish every day—consequently they are frequently ill. They treat their servants like dogs—often stint and half-starve the girl who has to do the work, and therefore really needs the best, and most food, because every penny that can be "saved out of the servant" is needed to "keep up appearances." Consequently it is hard to get servants here—the girls prefer to


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Boyd, Henry


text:
Page:Triangles of life, and other stories.djvu/155

 go into factories. One lady I know, a big, strong, childless, discontented woman, recently dismissed her servant because said servant refused to address her as "Mistress"  and her husband as  "Master", instead of Mrs. Blank and Mr. Blank. Then the lady had to do her housework for three days, when she broke down; she has had the doctor ever since.

The servants, as far as my experience goes, are honest, healthy-minded, and rather more intelligent than their mistresses. I have talked to some of them! Yes, actually placed myself on a level with common servants. I suppose it's about the lowest-down thing I could do in this village. But it seems quite right and fashionable to talk about servants, to lie about them, and scandalize them behind their backs over four o'clock teas.

I've been introduced to the broad-minded intelligence of this village. There is an artist acquaintance of mine here—a black and white artist, cursed, as usual, with an idea that he can paint. He has no children, and makes a comfortable income, but his wife says that they must keep up appearances; so whenever they get a cheque the best part of it has to go for rubbish in the furnishing line. But that's neither here nor there. The other day he gave a private view of his pictures, and invited me to meet some intelligent "well-to-do" or independent people, who he said were broad-minded and unaffected—very "nice people" indeed. He said I'd be sure to like them; so I went. The visitors were a married couple, tall and thin; the husband wore a frock-coat and was very


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol II (1901).djvu/168

 year, taking the name of Sister Francis Raphael. In 1853 all the novices were transferred to the new convent of Stone, Staffordshire, which since that time has been the mother house of the whole congregation. There she pronounced the solemn vows on 8 Dec. 1856. She was prioress of Stone from 1872 till 1831, and mother provincial of the order from 25 Nov. 1881 till 11 April 1894. She died in the convent at Stone on 29 April 1894.

Miss Drane was well known as an authoress both in prose and verse. Her works are : 1. 'The Morality of Tractariauism : a Letter from one of the People to one of the Clergy' (anonymous), London, 1850. 2. 'Catholic Legends and Stories,' 1855. 3. 'The Life of St. Dominic, with a Sketch of the Dominican Order,' London, 1857, 8vo; reprinted 1867; translated into French by the Abbe A. H. Chirat (Tournai), and into German by Monsignor Matthias Count Spee (Düsseldorf), 1890. 4. 'The Knights of S. John: with the Battle of Lepanto and Siege of Vienna,' London, 1858, 8vo; reprinted 1881; translated into German by Baron von Wangenheim, Aix-la-Chapelle, 1888. 5. 'The Three Chancellors, or Sketches of the Lives of William of Wykeham, William of Waynflete, and Sir Thomas More,' London, 1859, 8vo. 6. 'Memoir of Sister Mary Philomena Berkeley, Religious of the Third Order of S. Dominic,' 1860, printed for private circulation. 7. 'Historical Tales,' 1862. 8. 'Tales and Traditions,' 1862. 9. 'A History of England for Family Use,' London, 1864, 8vo; 5th edit. 1881; 6th edit. 1887, written up to the jubilee of Queen Victoria. 10. 'Christian Schools and Scholars, or Sketches of Education from the Christian Era to the Council of Trent,' London, 1867, 8vo; 2nd edit. 1881. 11. 'Biographical Memoir of the Hon. Henry E. Dormer,' London, 1868. 12. 'The Inner Life of Pere Lacordaire,' London [1868], 8vo; reprinted 1878 and 1892; a translation from the French of Père Chocarne. 13. 'Life of Mother Margaret Hallahan,' London, 1869, 8vo; translated into German (Mainz, 1874) and into French by Sister Dominique du Rosaire de Graverol (Tournai, 1875). 14. 'Songs in the Night, and other Poems' (anonymous), London, 1876 and 1887, 8vo. 15. 'The New Utopia,' a tale published in the 'Irish Monthly, 1876, and reprinted by the Catholic Truth Society, London, 1898, 8vo. 16. 'The History of St. Catherine of Siena and her Companions. . . . Compiled from original sources,' London, 1880, 8vo; 2nd edit., 2 vols., London [1887], 8vo; 3rd edit., 2 vols., London, 1899, 8vo; translated into German by Baron von Wangenheim (Dülmen, 1884), and into French by the Abbe Cardon (Paris, 1893). 17. 'Lady Glastonbury's Boudoir, or the History of Two Weeks' (anonymous), London, 1883, 8vo. 18. 'Uriel, or the Chapel of the Angels,' London, 1884, 8vo. 19. 'Aroer: the Story of a Vocation,' a novel, London, 1888, 8vo. 20. 'Dalmeny Brothers,' written for the 'Lamp,' 1890. 21. 'The History of S. Dominic, Founder of the Friar Preachers,' London, 1891, 8vo; translated into French by the Abbe Cardon (Paris, 1893), into Italian by Emilia Stocchi (in the 'Rosario'). 22. 'Catholic Readers,' 5 vols., London, 1891. 23. 'The Autobiography of Archbishop Ullathorne, edited with Notes,' London, 1891. 24. 'Letters of Archbishop Ullathorne, edited with Notes,' London, 1892. 25. 'The Imagination: its Nature, Uses, and Abuses,' privately printed 1893, and reprinted in the 'Month.' This was written for the literary department of the World's Congress Auxiliary, Chicago. 26. 'The Spirit of the Dominican Order, illustrated from the Lives of its Saints,' London and Leamington, 1896, 8vo.

 DREW, FREDERICK (1836–1891), geologist, born at Southampton on 11 Aug. 1836, was youngest son of John Drew [q. v.], astronomer, by Clara, daughter of Nicholas Peter Phené, solicitor, of Melksham, Wiltshire. He entered the Royal School of Mines in 1853, passed through it withdistinction, and joined the geological survey in 1855. He was employed for seven years in the south-east of England, and did much for the geology of the weald, especially in tracing out and describing the subdivisions of the Hastings sands. He contributed papers to the 'Journal' of the Geological Society in 1861 and 1864, and he wrote a memoir describing the Romney marsh district. His notes were used by William Topley in his 'Geology of the Weald' (Memoirs of the Geological Survey, 1875).

In 1862 he entered the service of the Maharajah of Kashmir, with whom he remained ten years. He was at first engaged in looking for minerals, was then charged with the management of the forest department, and was finally governor of the province of Ladakh. He acquired an intimate knowledge of the country and the people, and after his return to England he wrote 'The Jummoo and Kashmir Territories: a


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 06.djvu/105

 was admitted a pensioner of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, on 24 July 1799, and matriculated on 17 Dec. of the following year. He left the university without taking a degree. He had a good memory, and once made a curious calculation that he could repeat 3,280 'lines' of Greek prose and 4,770 lines of Greek verse. In 1833 he appears to have resided some time at Bath. During the last twenty years of his life he was blind. He married a lady of Jewish family, and by her had one daughter, Henrietta, married to Mr. Henry Hayes. He lived chiefly at Hampstead, and died at Kentish Town on 10 May 1848. While blind he taught Greek to Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who was much attached to him. One of her poems, the 'Wine of Cyprus,' is dedicated to Boyd. She also wrote a sonnet on his blindness and another on his death. His published works are:
 * 1) 'Luceria, a Tragedy,' 1806.
 * 2) 'Select Passages from the Works of St. Chrysostom, St. Gregory Nazianzen, &c., translated,' 1810.
 * 3) 'Select Poems of Synesius, translated,' with original poems, 1814.
 * 4) 'Thoughts on the Atoning Sacrifice,' 1817.
 * 5) 'Agamemnon of Æschylus,' translated, 1823.
 * 6) 'An Essay on the Greek Article,' included in Clarke's 'Commentary on the Epistle to the Ephesians,' second edition, 1835.
 * 7) 'The Catholic Faith,' a sermon of St. Basil, translated, 1825.
 * 8) 'Thoughts on an illustrious Exile,' 1825.
 * 9) 'Tributes to the Dead,' translation from St. Gregory Nazianzen, 1826.
 * 10) 'A Malvern Tale, and other Poems,' 1827.
 * 11) 'The Fathers not Papists, with Select Passages and Tributes to the Dead,' 1834.

 BOYD, JAMES, LL.D. (1795–1856), schoolmaster and author, the son of a glover, was born at Paisley on 24 Dec. 1795. After receiving his early education partly in Paisley and partly in Glasgow, he entered Glasgow University, where he gained some of the highest honours in the humanity, Greek, and philosophical classes. After taking his degrees of B.A. and M.A., he devoted himself for two years to the study of medicine, but abandoned this pursuit; entered the divinity hall of the university of Glasgow, and was licensed to preach the gospel by the presbytery of Dumbarton in May 1822. Towards the close of that year he removed to Edinburgh, where for three years he maintained himself by private tuition. In 1825 he was unanimously chosen house governor in George Heriot's Hospital, Edinburgh. The university of Glasgow conferred on him the honorary degree of doctor of laws.

Boyd became classical master in the high school of Edinburgh 19 Aug. 1829. The largely attended classes which he always had decisively proved the public estimate of his merits. For many years before his death he held the office of secretary to the Edinburgh Society of Teachers. He died at his house, George Square, Edinburgh, on 18 Aug. 1856, having nearly completed an incumbency of twenty-seven years in the high school. He was interred at New Calton, Edinburgh, on 21 Aug. The affectionate respect which all his pupils entertained towards Boyd is evinced by the number of clubs formed in his honour by his classes. In the Crimea, during the Russian war, two 'Boyd clubs' were formed by British officers in acknowledgment of their common relation to him as their preceptor. Within two months after his death a medal, to be named the Boyd medal, and to be annually presented to the 'dux' of the class in the high school taught by Boyd's successor, was subscribed for at a meeting held in Edinburgh by his friends and pupils. He married on 24 Dec. 1829 Jane Reid, eldest daughter of John Easton, merchant, Edinburgh, by whom he was the father of nine children.

Boyd's literary talents were confined to the editing of classical and other school books. They include: 'Roman Antiquities,' by A. Adams, 1834, which was reprinted fifteen times during the editor's lifetime; 'Q. Horatii Flacci Poemata,' by C. Anthon, 1835, which passed through three editions; 'Archæologia Græca,' by J. Potter, Bishop of Oxford, 1837; 'Sallustii Opera,' by C. Anthon, 1839; 'Select Orations of Cicero,' by C. Anthon, 1842; 'A Greek Reader,' by C. Anthon, 1844; 'A Summary of the Principal Evidences of the Christian Religion,' by B. Porteus, Bishop of London, 1850; and 'The First Greek Reader,' by Frederic Jacobs, 1851.

 BOYD, MARK (1805?–1879), author, born in Surrey near the Thames, was the younger son of Edward Boyd of Merton Hall, Newton Stuart, Wigtonshire, a merchant and brother of [q. v.] He mainly spent his childhood on the Scotch estate, which was near the river Cree. He afterwards pursued in London an active


text:
Author:Hugh Stuart Boyd

Works

 * 'Luceria, a Tragedy,' 1806.
 * 'Select Passages from the Works of St. Chrysostom, St. Gregory Nazianzen, &c., translated,' 1810.
 * 'Select Poems of Synesius, translated,' with original poems, 1814.
 * 'Thoughts on the Atoning Sacrifice,' 1817.
 * 'Agamemnon of Æschylus,' translated, 1823.
 * 'An Essay on the Greek Article,' included in Clarke's 'Commentary on the Epistle to the Ephesians,' second edition, 1835.
 * 'The Catholic Faith,' a sermon of St. Basil, translated, 1825.
 * 'Thoughts on an illustrious Exile,' 1825.
 * 'Tributes to the Dead,' translation from St. Gregory Nazianzen, 1826.
 * 'A Malvern Tale, and other Poems,' 1827.
 * 'The Fathers not Papists, with Select Passages and Tributes to the Dead,' 1834.

title: Author:Hugh Stuart Boyd


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol II (1901).djvu/169

 Geographical Account' (London, 1875, 8vo). It was provided with excellent maps, showing not only the physical features, but the distribution of races, languages, and faiths. A translation by Baron Ernouf was published at Paris in 1877; and in the same year Drew published a more popular account under the title 'The Northern Barrier of India.'

He had been elected a fellow of the Geological Society in 1858, and served on the council from 1874 to 1876. In 1875 he was appointed one of the science masters at Eton, and he remained there till his death on 28 Oct. 1891. He married Sara Constance, daughter of Alfred Waylen, one of the first settlers in West Australia, and he left two sons and two daughters. Sir Archibald Geikie has made mention of 'his gentleness, helpfulness, and entire unselfishness, and his quiet enthusiasm for that domain of natural science to which he had given the labours of his life.'

 DRUID, THE, pseudonym. [See, 1822–1870.]  DRUMMOND, HENRY (1851–1897), theological writer, born at Park Place, Stirling, on 17 Aug. 1851, was the second son of Henry Drummond (d. January 1888) by his wife Jane (Blackwood) of Kilmarnock, and grandson of William Drummond, a land surveyor, and afterwards a nurseryman at Coneypark, near Stirling. His father, who became head of the firm of William Drummond & Sons, seedsmen of Stirling and Dublin, was a strict disciplinarian, a powerful speaker, and a pillar of the Free North church; his uncle, Peter Drummond, was the founder of the Agricultural Museum in Stirling and of the Stirling Tract Enterprise. He was educated at Stirling High School (1856–63), and at Morison's, Crieff, before matriculating in 1866 at Edinburgh University, where he took classics under Sellar and English under Professor Masson, but he left the university without a degree. In 1868 he started a manuscript magazine, 'The Philomathic,' in which he expatiated upon animal magnetism and other topics. In 1870 he entered the divinity course of the Free church at New College, Edinburgh. In the summer of 1873 he spent a semester at Tübingen. In the autumn of the same year he was drawn into the evangelical revival initiated by Dwight L. Moody and Ira D. Sankey. From April 1874 to July 1875 he followed up the work of the evangelists in the cities of Ireland and England, and he laboured by their side in London. The bulk of his work was in the preparation and delivery of addresses. He grew to be very expert in the management of huge meetings, while in Moody's 'inquiry room' he had experience of all sorts and conditions of men.

The discourses in the volume called 'The Ideal Life' (published posthumously in 1897) were prepared about this time, as were all his widely known published addresses, 'The Greatest Thing in the World' and 'Seek ye first the Kingdom of God.' In spite of many invitations to conduct missions, and a pressing appeal for aid from Moody at Philadelphia, Drummond returned to New College, Edinburgh, in the autumn of 1875. Two years later he was appointed lecturer in natural science at the Free Church College, Glasgow. In 1879 he went to America with Professor (Sir) Archibald Geikie upon a geological expedition to the Rocky Mountains. After a flying visit to Moody at Cleveland, he returned to his Glasgow lecturing and to work in the Possilparts Workman's Mission, Glasgow, which he abandoned only in 1882 in order to assist Moody as an evangelist upon the occasion of his second visit to Britain.

In 1883 he published the book which contributed so largely to his contemporary fame, 'Natural Law in the Spiritual World.' In this he contended that the scientific principle of continuity extended from the physical universe to the spiritual world. The thesis was based upon a series of brilliant figures of speech rather than upon a chain of reasoning, and the fallacies in Drummond's argument were pointed out with clearness and acumen by Professor Denney and others. The book, however, proved amazingly successful; its popularity, due in the first instance to the beauty of the writing, was strengthened by a most enthusiastic review in the 'Spectator,' and within five years of the date of publication some seventy thousand copies were sold.

Within a few days of the publication he set out on a visit to the southern equatorial region of Africa. His commission was to make a scientific, and especially geological, exploration of the Lake Nyasa and Tanganyika district for the African Lakes Corporation. He sailed in June 1883 and went by way of Zanzibar and Mozambique. He brought back a valuable report on the great region which the corporation were administering, and he also kept a full journal, from which he extracted the materials for his admirably written sketch of 'Tropical Africa'


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 06.djvu/106

 business career, and became London director of a Scotch insurance society, and a lively promoter of the colonisation of Australia and New Zealand, and of other useful public undertakings. He travelled much in Europe. He published an account in the 'London and Shetland Journal' of a journey in the Orkney Isles in 1839. On 23 Dec. 1848 he married Emma Anne, the widow of 'Romeo' Coates, who had been run over and killed in the previous February. In 1864 Boyd published a pamphlet on Australian matters; in 1871 his 'Reminiscences of Fifty Years,' and in 1875 his 'Social Gleanings,' dedicating the first to the Australian colonists, and the last (from Oatlands, Walton-on-Thames) to Dean Ramsay. He died in London on 12 Sept. 1879, aged 74.

 BOYD, MARK ALEXANDER (1563–1601), Latin scholar, born in Galloway on 13 Jan. 1563, was a son of Robert Boyd of Penkill Castle, Ayrshire. His father was the eldest son of Adam Boyd, brother of Robert, restored to the title of Lord Boyd in 1536. Boyd is said to have been baptised Mark, and to have himself added the name Alexander. He had a brother "William. His education began under his uncle, James Boyd, of Trochrig, consecrated archbishop of Glasgow at the end of 1573. Proceeding to Glasgow College, of which Andrew Melville was principal, he proved insubordinate, and is said to have beaten the professors, burned his books, and forsworn all study. Going to court he fought a duel. He was advised to follow the profession of arms in the Low Countries, but instead of this he went to France in 1581 . After losing his money at play, he resumed his studies at Paris under Jacques d'Amboise, Jean Passerat, famed for the beauty of his Latin and French verse, and Gilbert Génébrard. Génébrard was professor of Hebrew, but Boyd confesses his ignorance of that language. He then began to study civil law at Orleans, and pursued the same study at Bourges, under Jacques Cujas, with whom he ingratiated himself by some verses in the style of Ennius, a favourite with that great jurist. Driven from Bourges by the plague, he went to Lyons, and thence to Italy, where he found an admiring friend in Cornelius Varus, who calls himself a Milanese (Boyd in a manuscript poem calls him a Florentine). Returning to France in 1587, he joined a troop of horse from Auvergne, under a Greek leader, and drew his sword for Henri III. A shot in the ankle sent him back to law studies, this time at Toulouse, where he projected a system of international law. From Toulouse he visited Spain, but soon returned on account of his health. When Toulouse fell into the hands of the leaguers in 1588, Boyd, with a view to joining the king's party, betook himself to Dumaise, on the Garonne. Not liking the look of things here, he was for going on, but his boy warned him of a trap set for his life, into which a guide was to lead him. After hiding for two days among the bushes, he went back to the leaguers, and was imprisoned at Toulouse. As soon as he got his liberty he hastened by night to Bordeaux. His letters allow us to trace his wanderings to Fontenai, Bourges, Cahors, &c. He laments that he was no deep drinker, or he would have pushed on more confidently (Epp. p. 159). He went to Rochelle, being robbed and nearly murdered on the way. Rochelle not suiting him, he found for some time a country retreat on the borders of Poitou. From France he repaired to the Low Countries, printing his volume of poems and letters at Antwerp in 1592. From first to last there is a good deal of eccentricity about Boyd, but his accomplishments as a writer of Latin verse are undoubted, though it must be left for his friend Varus to set him above Buchanan. Another admirer calls him 'Naso redivivus.' His own verdict is that there were few good poets of old, and hardly any in his own time; the Greek poets rank first, in this order: Theocritus, Orpheus, Musæus, Homer; the Hebrew poets (judging from translations) fall decidedly below the Latin, of whom Virgil is chief. Boyd conversed in Greek, and is said to have made a translation of Cæsar in the style of Herodotus. On his way back to Scotland in 1595, after fourteen years' absence, he heard of the death of his brother William, who, as we learn from Boyd's verses, had been in Piedmont, and for whom he expresses a great affection. Having once more gone abroad as tutor to the Earl of Cassilis, he finished his career in his native land, dying of slow fever at Penkill on 10 April 1601. He was buried in the church of Dailly. His publication above referred to is M. Alexandri Bodii Epistolæ Heroides, et Hymni. Ad lacobum sextum Regem. Addita est ejusdem Literularum prima curia,' Antv. 1592, small 8vo (there are fifteen 'epistolse,' the first two of which are imitated in French by P. C. D. [Pietro Florio Dantoneto]; the 'hymni,' dedicated in Greek elegiacs to James VI, are sixteen Latin odes, nearly all on some special flower, and each connected with the name of a friend or patron; there is also a Greek


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 06.djvu/107

 ode to Orpheus; a few epigrams in the author's honour are added; then come the prose letters. The poetical portion of the book is included in Arthur Johnston's ' Deliciæ Poetarum Scotorum,' Amst. 1637, 12mo. Johnston prints the title as 'Epistolæ Heroidum'). Boyd is said to have published also a defence of Cardinal Bembo and the ancient eloquence, addressed to Lipsius. He left prose and verse manuscripts, now in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh; among them are, 'In Institutiones Imperatoris Comments,' 1591; 'L'Estat du Royaume d'Escosse à present;' 'Politicus, ad Joannem Metellanum cancellarium Scotiæ' (Sir John Maitland, or Matlane, died 3 Oct. 1595).

 BOYD, ROBERT, (d. 1469?), Scotch statesman, eldest son of Sir Thomas Boyd of Kilmarnock, was created a peer of parliament by James II by the title of Lord Boyd, and took his seat on 18 July 1454. In 1460 he was appointed one of the regents during the minority of the young king, James III. In 1464 (11 April) he was joined with the Bishop of Glasgow, the Abbot of Holyrood, his brother, Sir Alexander Boyd of Duncole, and three others, in a commission to negotiate a truce with Edward IV. In 1466 he obtained the appointment of his brother, Sir Alexander, as instructor to the young king in knightly exercises, and conspired with him to obtain entire control of the affairs of the kingdom. To this end they, in defiance of the protests of Lord Kennedy, one of their co-regents, took possession of the person of the king, and carried him from Linlithgow to Edinburgh, where, in a parliament summoned (9 Oct.), a public expression of approval of their conduct was obtained from the king, and an act was passed constituting Boyd sole governor of the realm. He now governed autocratically, but he appears by no means to have abused his power. On the contrary, some of the measures which he introduced must have been eminently salutary. Commendams were abolished, and religious foundations which had deviated from their original purposes were reformed. He also passed enactments designed to promote the interests of the mercantile and shipping community, prohibiting the freighting of ships without a charter-party by subjects of the king, whether within the realm or without it, and also fostering the importation and discouraging the exportation of bullion. He negotiated a marriage between the king and Margaret, the only daughter of Christian, king of Norway, thereby obtaining the cession of Orkney (8 Sept, 1468) and the formal release of the annual tribute of 100 marks, which was still nominally payable to the king of Norway, in the church of St. Magnus, Kirkwall, though it had long ceased to be paid. In 1467 he obtained for himself the office of great chamberlain for life, while his eldest son, Thomas (by Mariota, daughter of Sir Robert Maxwell of Calderwood) was created Earl of Arran and Baron of Kilmarnock, and married to the king's elder sister, the Lady Mary. This last step was more than the jealousy of the Scotch nobles could endure, and they determined to strike a blow at the supremacy of the Boyds. Accordingly, in November 1469, Lord Robert and his brother were arraigned before the parliament on a charge of treason based on their conduct of three years previously in laying hands on the person of the king. They were found guilty and sentenced to death (22 Nov.) Boyd, however, anticipating the issue of the trial, fled to Alnwick in Northumberland, where he soon afterwards died. His brother was detained in Scotland by illness, and lost his head on the Castle Hill.

His eldest son,, was sent to Denmark to bring over the king's destined bride, returned while the trial was in progress, and, being warned by his wife of the condition of affairs, landed the princess, but did not himself set foot on shore. He is said by the older historians of Scotland to have sailed back to Denmark accompanied by his wife, and thence to have travelled by way of Germany into France, there to have sought service with the Duke of Burgundy, and dying prematurely at Antwerp to have been splendidly buried there by the duke. In an undated letter of John Paston to Sir John Paston he is referred to in terms of the highest eulogy as 'the most courteous, gentlest, wisest, kindest, most companionable, freest, largest, most bounteous knight,' and as 'one of the lightest, deliverst, best spoken, fairest archer, devoutest, most perfect, and truest to his lady of all the knights that ever' the writer 'was acquainted with.' Fenn conjectures that the letter was written either in 1470 or 1472; but the expression 'my lord the Earl of Arran which hath married the king's sister of Scotland,' coupled with the absence of any reference to the sudden precipitation of the family from supreme power


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1901 supplement/Drew, Frederick


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1901 supplement/Druid, The


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Boyd, Mark Alexander


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 06.djvu/108

 to a position of dependence, for the estates not only of Lord Robert and his brother, but of the Earl of Arran, were forfeited in 1469, would seem to argue an earlier date. Whatever the true date may be, he was then in London lodging at the George in Lombard Street, his wife apparently with him. The date of his death is uncertain. In 1474 his widow married James, lord Hamilton, whose son was in August 1503 created Earl of Arran. Lord Robert's second son, Alexander, was restored to a portion of the Kilmarnock estates in 1492, but without the title of Lord Boyd. Alexander's eldest son, Robert, created Lord Boyd in 1536, is called third lord.

 BOYD, ROBERT, fourth (d. 1590), son of Robert the third lord, is mentioned by Herries (Hist. of the Reign of Mary Queen of Scots, 10) as defeating the Earl of Glencairn at Glasgow in 1544, thereby rendering material aid to the regent, the Earl of Arran, in quelling the insurrection of Lennox. Two years later (19 Dec. 1546) we find him present at a meeting of the privy council at St. Andrews. On the outbreak of the civil war between the lords of the congregation and the queen regent he took part with the former, being present with them at Perth in May 1559. He signed the letter addressed by the lords to Sir William Cecil (19 July) explaining their policy, and another of the same date to Elizabeth asking for support. He also took part in the negotiations with the queen regent for a compromise, which were entirely without result. Apparently at this time Boyd's zeal in the cause of the congregation was growing lukewarm, for Balnaves, accounting to Sir James Crofts for the way in which he had applied the English subsidy, writes under date 4 Nov. 1559: 'And I delivered to the Earl of Glencairn and Lord Boyd 500 crowns, which was the best bestowed money that ever I bestowed, either of that or any other; the which if I had not done our whole enterprise it hath been stayed, both in joining with the duke (Chatelherault) and coming to Edinburgh, for certain particular causes that were betwixt the said lords and the duke, which were set down by that means by me so secret that it is not known to many.'

In February 1559-60 he was one of the signatories of the treaty of Berwick, by which Elizabeth engaged 'with all convenient speed to send into Scotland a convenient aid of men of warr,' for the purpose of driving out the French, and in the following April joined the English army at Prestonpans. On the 27th of that month he signed the contract in defence of the liberty of the 'evangel of Christ,' by which the lords of the congregation sought to encourage and confirm one another in the good work. He was present, on 7 May, at the unsuccessful attempt made by the English army to carry Leith by escalade, and on the 10th signed the document by which the treaty of Berwick was confirmed. On 27 Jan. 1560-1 he subscribed the 'Book of Discipline of the Kirk,' and at Ayr, on 3 Sept. 1562, he signed a bond to 'maintain and assist the preaching of the evangel.' Shortly after the marriage of Darnley (28 July 1564) the lords, despairing of prevailing on the queen to abolish 'the idolatrous mass,' and incensed by some acts of a rather high-handed character done by her, surprised Edinburgh during her temporary absence, but hastily abandoned the city on hearing that she was returning. Upon this Boyd, with Argyle, Murray, Glencairn, and others, was summoned to appear at the next meeting of parliament, which was fixed for 3 Feb. 1565, to answer for their conduct on pain of being denounced rebels and put to the horn. Parliament, however, did not meet in February, and before its next session, which began on 14 April 1567, Boyd's political attitude had undergone a complete change. If any credit is to be given to the so-called dying declaration of Bothwell, Boyd, according to that version of it which is found in Keith's 'History of Scotland' (App. 144), was privy to the murder of Darnley. His name, however, is not mentioned in the copy, or rather abstract, preserved in the Cottonian Library (Titus, c. vii. fol. 396), nor is the fragment Cal. D. ii. fol. 519 in the same collection; the original was in all probability a forgery. Though a member of the packed jury which acquitted Bothwell of the deed (April 1567), he, after Bothwell's marriage to Mary, joined a confederacy of nobles who bound themselves to protect the young prince against the sinister designs with which Bothwell was credited. Afterwards, however, he united himself with the faction which by a solemn 'league and covenant' engaged to take part with Bothwell 'against his privy or public calumniators,' 'with their bodies, heritage, and goods.'

Boyd was now made one of the permanent members of the privy council (17 May), and


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 06.djvu/109

 soon became as decided and energetic a partisan of the queen as he had formerly been of the congregation. In June he attempted to hold Edinburgh for the queen, in conjunction with Huntly, the archbishop of St. Andrews, and the commendator of Kilwinning. The citizens, however, refused to defend the place, and it almost immediately fell into the hands of the other faction. In August we find him, with Argyll, Livingston, and the commendator of Kilwinning, in negotiation with Murray for the release of the queen from captivity. In 1568, after her escape from Lochleven (2 May), he joined her forces at Hamilton, and was present at the battle of Langside (13 May). After the battle he retired to his castle of Kilmarnock, which, however, he was soon compelled to surrender to the council. In September he was appointed one of the bishop of Ross's colleagues for the conference to be held at York. After the conclusion of the negotiations he accompanied the bishop to London, and was admitted to audience of the queen at Hampton Court (24 Oct.) On 6 Jan. 1568-9 Mary made him one of her council. He was employed by her in her intrigues with the Duke of Norfolk, and was entrusted by the latter with a diamond to deliver to the queen at Coventry as a pledge of his affection and fidelity. In a letter to the duke, apparently written in December 1569, she says: 'I took from my lord Boyd the diamond, which I shall keep unseen about my neck till I give it again to the owner of it and me both.' In June 1569 he was despatched to Scotland with authority from Mary to treat with the regent, and a written mandate to institute proceedings for a divorce from Bothwell. Chalmers (Life of Mary, p. 331, published in 1818) asserts that Bothwell's consent to the divorce had been obtained before the commencement of the correspondence with Norfolk, and that the document signifying it 'remained among the family papers of Lord Boyd to the present century.' The papers referred to are presumably identical with those which on the attainder of [q. v.], were placed in the custody of the public officials of the town of Kilmarnock, where they remained until 1837, when a selection from them, comprising all such as were of any historical value, was edited for the Abbotsford Club, and constitutes the first portion of the 'Abbotsford Miscellany.' No such document, however, as Chalmers refers to is there to be found, though a draft of the formal authority to apply for the divorce is among the papers. Boyd had an interview with Murray in July at Elgin, and on the 30th the question of the divorce was submitted to the council at Perth, when it was decided by a large majority that nothing further should be done in the matter. After reporting the failure of his mission to the queen, Boyd appears to have remained in England for some months, during which the record of his life is very scanty. He seems to have stood very high in the estimation of his mistress. In one of her letters (5 Jan. 1568-9) she designates him 'our traist cousigne and counsallour,' and writing to Cecil, under date 11 Feb. 1569-70, she expresses a desire to retain him with the bishop of Ross permanently about her person. At this time, however, he was again in Scotland actively engaged in hatching a plot for a general rising, and much suspected of complicity in the murder of Murray (22 Jan. 1569-70). The following year he was commissioned by Mary to establish in that country 'a lieutenant, ane or twa,' in her name. In the brief insurrection of the summer he was taken prisoner by Lennox at Paisley, but escaped to Edinburgh, and thence went to Stirling in August, and on the 12th, with Argyll, Cassilis, and Eglinton, affixed his seal to a treaty of secession and amity executed on the part of the regent by Morton and Mar. This defection is ascribed by the unknown author of the 'History of King James the Sext' to the 'great promises' of Lennox, but the reason given by Mary is probably nearer the mark. She writes to De la Motte Fénelon, under date 28 June 1571, that she is advised that Argyll, Athole, and Boyd, 'comme désespérés d'aucune aide,' 'commencent à se retirer et regarder qui aura du meilleur.' On 5 Sept. we find Boyd mentioned as a consenting party to the election of Mar to the regency; on the 7th he was made a member of the privy council. He visited Knox on his deathbed (17 Nov.), but except that he said, 'I know, sir, I have offended in many things, and am indeed come to crave your pardon,' what passed on either side is unknown. He was included in the act of indemnity passed 26 Jan. 1571-2, and subscribed the articles of pacification drawn up at Perth on 23 Feb. 1572-3, by one of which he was appointed one of the judges for the trial of claims for restitution of goods arising out of acts of violence committed during the civil war. On 24 Oct. 1573 he was appointed extraordinary lord of session by Morton, of whom from this time forward he was a firm adherent. Relying on the favour of Morton, he signalised his elevation to the bench by ejecting (November 1573) Sir John Stewart from the office of baillie of the regality of Glasgow, held under a grant from the late king, and engrossing the


text:
User:White Phoenix~enwikisource

= About Me = I am a researcher of many things. The internet has become an invaluable resource to me. The things that I am interested in are generally other cultures, heroes (legendary, mythic, folk and fictitious), home cooking, natural science, the supernatural (goes along with the heroes), and history (likewise). I am also a frustrated PC game designer and a certified programmer. . . in BASIC for DOS. Although, I have also learned an ancient game programming system called Adventure Game Tools (AGT) that is used to create interactive fiction games.

I am an administrator for Pokémon Dungeon Forums (formerly Gengar and Haunter’s Pokémon Forums). This sounds more impressive than it really is. Currently, we have one web site administrator/owner, five administrators, no moderators, one active regular member and twenty-two search robots. The owner has been away for awhile. We are trying to get him up-to-date on the Pokémon franchise.

Currently I am developing some team builder tools for all generations and venues of Pokémon and a catalog of the Oz series, Trot series and Queen Zixi of Ix all written by L. Frank Baum.

I am six months younger than the man who wrote the finished version of Adventure in Colossal Cave, Don Woods.

= Links to My Personal Sites and Favorite Research Facilities =

Personal Sites
My web site

My other web site

Facebook page

Sites Where I Am an Active Member
Pokémon Dungeon Forums

Research Sites
Bulbapedia

Dark Shadows Wiki

The Tardis: Doctor Who Wiki

Doomtown History and Resources

Doomtown on the Duck

Harry Potter Lexicon

Harry Potter Wiki

Interactive Fiction Archive

International Super Heroes

Internet Movie Database

Legendary Pokémon

Memory Alpha: Star Trek Wiki

MetroLyrics

Mythology Wiki

Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe

Pokémon Elite 2000

Pokémon Wiki

Project Gutenberg

Project Pokémon Wiki

Psypoke

Serebii (Pokémon)

Smogon University

Truth or Fiction

TV Tunes

Ultimate Pokémon Center

Unofficial Who’s Who in the DC Universe

Veekun (Pokémon)

Wiki Answers Q&A Community

Wikipedia

Wikis from Wikia

Wiktionary

Wizard of Oz Wiki

Wonderful Wizard of Oz Website

Translation Tools
All Words

Applied Language

English to Japanese Romaji to English Dictionary

English to Urdu

Free Online English to Latin Translators

Google Translate (basic translation)

Romaji to Kanji

Talenknobbel V2.0: Beta testing (language identifier in beta stage)

Words: English to Latin

White Phoenix (talk) 12:50, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

title: User:White Phoenix~enwikisource


text:
Author:Paul George Konody

Works

 * The Art of Walter Crane
 * Velasquez, Life and Work
 * "Another 'Mona Lisa' Found in London?" (1914)
 * The Art of Arthur Streeton (1919)

Contributions to the Encyclopaedia Britannica

 * (in part)
 * (in part)
 * (in part)
 * (in part)
 * (in part)
 * (in part)
 * (in part)
 * (in part)
 * (in part)
 * (in part)
 * (in part)
 * (in part)
 * (in part)
 * (in part)
 * (in part)
 * (in part)

title: Author:Paul George Konody


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 06.djvu/116

 he published a poem on General Lesly's victory at Newburn, which is marked by the utmost extravagance and absurdity of language and of metaphor. In 1640 he published 'Four Letters of Comforts for the deaths of Earle of Haddington and of Lord Boyd.' The 'Psalms of David in Meeter,' with metrical versions of the songs of the Old and New Testament, was published in 1648. The manuscript writings of Boyd, preserved in Glasgow University, are very voluminous, and some extracts have been published as curiosities. The chief portions are the 'Four Evangels' in verse, and a collection of poetical stories, taken chiefly from Bible history, which he calls 'Zion's Flowers,' and which, having been commonly called 'Boyd's Bible,' gave currency to the idea that he had translated the whole Bible. The stories are often absurd enough in style and treatment, but the general notion of their absurdities has been exaggerated from the fact that they were abundantly parodied by those whose object was to caricature the presbyterian style which Boyd represented. He seems to have been inclined to oppose the policy of the royalist party even in earlier days; for though he wrote a Latin ode on the coronation of Charles I at Holyrood in 1633, his dedication of the 'Battell of the Soul' to the king contained what must have been taken as a reflection on the want of strict Sabbatarianism in the episcopal church. In later years he became a staunch covenanter, but did not relish the triumph of Cromwell. In 1650 he preached before Cromwell in the cathedral, and, as we are told, 'railed at him to his face.' Thurloe, Cromwell's secretary, would have called him to account, but Cromwell took means to pay him back more effectually in kind by inviting him to dine and then treating him to three hours of prayers. After that, we are told, Boyd found himself on better terms with the Protector. Reflecting many of the oddities and absurdities of style which were characteristic of his time, Boyd seems nevertheless to have been a man of considerable energy and shrewdness, and to have won a fair amount of contemporary popularity as an author.

 BOYDELL, JOHN (1719–1804), engraver, print publisher, and lord mayor, was born at Dorrington in Shropshire on 19 Jan. 1719. His father, Josiah, was a land surveyor, and his mother's maiden name was Milnes. His grandfather was the Rev. J. Boydell, D.D., vicar of Ashbourne and rector of Mapleton in Derbyshire. Boydell was brought up to his father's profession, but when about one-and-twenty he appears to have abandoned it in favour of art. He walked up to London, became a student in the St. Martin's Lane academy, and apprenticed himself to W. H. Toms, the engraver. The year of his apprenticeship is stated by himself to have been 1741, but in another place he says that he bound himself apprentice when 'within a few months of twenty-one years of age.' It is said that he was moved to do this by his admiration of a print by Toms, after Badeslade, of Hawarden Castle, but we have his own statement engraved upon his first print that he 'never saw an engraved copper-plate before he came on trial.' This first print, which was begun immediately on being bound apprentice, is a copy of an engraving by Le Bas after Teniers. He soon began to publish on his own account small landscapes, which he produced in sets of six and sold for sixpence. One of these was known as his 'Bridgebook' because there was a bridge in each view. As there were few print-shops at that time in London, he induced the sellers of toys to expose them in their windows, and his most successful shop was at the sign of the Cricket-bat in Duke's Court, St. Martin's Lane. Twelve of these small landscape plates are included in the collection of his engravings which he published in 1790, and the earliest date to be found on any of them is 1744. In the next year he appears to have commenced the publication, at the price of one shilling each, of larger views about London, Oxford, and other places in England and Wales, drawn and engraved by himself. This practice he continued with success for about ten years, by which time he had amassed a small capital. This was the foundation of his fortune. In the copy of the Collection of 1790 in the British Museum, which was presented by him to Miss Banks (daughter of the sculptor), is preserved an autograph note, in which he calls it 'The only book that had the honour of making a Lord Mayor of London.' In the 'advertisement' or preface to the volume he speaks of his master Toms as one 'who had himself never risen to any degree of perfection,' and adds, 'indeed at that period there was no engraver of any eminence in this country.' Of his own engravings he speaks with proper humility, for beyond a certain neatness of execution they have little merit. 'The engraver has now collected them,' he wrote, 'more to show the improvement of art in this country, since


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 06.djvu/117

 the period of their publication, than from any idea of their own merits.'

Though not altogether relinquishing the burin till about 1767, he had long before this commenced his career as a printseller and a publisher of the works of other engravers. After serving six years with Toms, he purchased the remainder of his term of apprenticeship, and the success of his prints, especially of a volume of views in England and Wales, published in 1751, enabled him to set up in business on his own account. The first engraving of great importance produced under his encouragement was Woollett's plate after Wilson's 'Niobe,' published in 1761. This was also (with the exception of Hogarth's prints) the first important engraving by a British engraver after a British painter. J. T. Smith, in his account of Woollett appended to 'Nollekens and his Times,' recounts the history of this plate as told him by Boydell. 'When I got a little forward in the world,' said Boydell, 'I took a whole shop, for at my commencement I kept only half a one. In the course of one year I imported numerous impressions of Vernet's celebrated "Storm," so admirably engraved by Lerpinière; for which I was obliged to pay in hard cash, as the French took none of our prints in return. Upon Mr. Woollett's expressing himself highly delighted with this print of the "Storm," I was induced, knowing his ability as an engraver, to ask him if he thought he could produce a print of the same size, which I could send over, so that in future I could avoid payment in money, and prove to the French nation that an Englishman could produce a print of equal merit; upon which he immediately declared that he should much like to try.'

The result was the print of 'Niobe,' for which Boydell agreed to pay 100l., 'an unheard of price, being considerably more than I had given for any copperplate.' He had, however, to advance the engraver more than this before the plate was finished. Very few proofs were struck off, and 5s. only was charged for the prints; but the work brought Boydell 2,000l. It was followed by the 'Phaeton,' also engraved by Woollett, after Wilson, and published by Boydell in 1763. These prints had a large sale on the continent, with which an enormous trade in English engravings was soon established. Boydell's enterprise increased with his capital, and he continued to employ the latter in encouraging English talent. In the list of engravers employed by him are the names of Woollett, M'Ardell, Hall, Earlom, Sharpe, Heath, J. Smith, Val. Green, and other Englishmen, and a large proportion of the prints he published were, from the first, after Wilson, West, Reynolds, and other English painters. His foreign trade spread the fame of English engravers and English painters abroad for the first time. The receipts from some of the plates, especially the engravings by Woollett after West's 'Death of General Wolfe,' and 'Battle of La Hogue,' were enormous. In 1790 he stated the receipts from the former amounted to 15,000l. Both were copied by the best engravers in Paris and Vienna.

In 1790 he was elected lord mayor of London, having been elected alderman for the ward of Cheap in 1782, and served sheriff in 1785. During his career as a print publisher the course of the foreign trade in prints was turned from an import to an export one. It was stated by the Earl of Suffolk in the House of Lords that the revenue coming into this country from this branch of art at one time exceeded 200,000l. per annum. Having amassed a large fortune, Boydell in 1786 embarked upon the most important enterprise of his life, viz. the publication, by subscription, of a series of prints illustrative of Shakespeare, after pictures painted expressly for the work by English artists. For this purpose he gave commissions to all the most celebrated painters of this country for pictures, and built a gallery in Pall Mall for their exhibition. The execution of this project extended over several years. In 1789 the Shakespeare Gallery contained thirty-four pictures, in 1791 sixty-five, in 1802 one hundred and sixty-two, of which eighty-four were of large size. The total number of works executed was 170, three of which were pieces of sculpture, and the artists employed were thirty-three painters and two sculptors, Thomas Banks and the Hon. Mrs. Damer. It appears from the preface to the catalogue of 1789, and from other recorded statements of Boydell, that he wished to do for English painting what he had done for English engraving, to make it respected by foreigners, and there is independent evidence of the generous spirit in which he conducted the enterprise. Northcote, in a letter addressed to Mrs. Carey, 3 Oct. 1821, says: 'My picture of "The Death of Wat Tyler" was painted in the year 1786 for my friend and patron Alderman Boydell, who did more for the advancement of the arts in England than the whole mass of nobility put together. He paid me more nobly than any other person has done; and his memory I shall ever hold in reverence.'

Boydell's 'Shakespeare' was published in 1802, but the French revolution had stopped his foreign trade, and placed him in such