a morsel of food had entered his lips. The parents lay still in a perfect stupor; they had never heard the bursting open of the door, and felt nothing of the embraces of their agitated friend. Their wasted eyes were directed towards the boy; and the tenderest expressions of pity were in the look with which they had last beheld him, and still saw him dying. Their friend hastened to take measures for their recovery; but could not succeed without difficulty. They thought themselves already far from the troubles of life, and were terrified at being suddenly brought back to them. Void of sense and reflection, they submitted to the attempts that were made to recall them to life. At length a thought occurred to their friend, which happily succeeded. He took the child from their arms, and thus roused the last spark of paternal and maternal tenderness. He gave the child to eat; who, with one hand held his bread, and with the other alternately shook his father and mother. It seemed at once to rekindle the love of life in their hearts, on perceiving that the child had left the bed and their embraces. Nature did her office. Their friend procured them strengthening broths, which he put to their lips with the utmost caution, and did not leave them till every symptom of restored life was fully visible.

This transaction made much noise in Paris, and at length reached the ears of the marchioness de Pompadour. Boissi's deplorable situation moved her. She immediately sent him a hundred louis-d'ors, and soon after procured him the profitable place of editor of the Mercure de France, with a pension for his wife and child, if they outlived him. -His Œuvres de Theatre" are in 9 vols. 8vo. His Italian comedy, in which path he is the author of numerous pieces, has not the merit of the above. His early satires, of which he had written many, being remembered, prevented his admission into the French academy till he was sixty years of age, though he was well entitled to that honour, by his labours and talents, twenty years sooner. He died April, 1658, complaining in his last moments, that his misery was not shortened by an earlier death, or his felicity extended by longevity.'

BOIVIN (FRANCIS DE), baron of Villars, bailif of Gex, in which office he was living in 1618, maitre d'hotel to

Dict. Hist.-D'Alembert's Hist. of the Members of the French Academy.— Chaufepie.-History of the Marchioness de Pompadour, Part III. Lond. 12mo, VOL. VI.

1760.

C

queen dowager Louisa of France, was also secretary to the marechal de Brissac, and accompanied him into Piémont under Henry II. We have by him, "L'Histoire des Guerres de Piémont, depuis 1550 jusqu'en 1561;" Paris, 1607, 4to, and 8vo. This historian is neither elegant nor accurate in general; but he may be consulted with safety on the exploits that passed under his own observation. Boivin died very old, but at what time is not known. His History, continued by Cl. Malinger, appeared in 1630, 2 vols. 8vo. 1

BOIVIN (JOHN), professor of Greek in the royal college of Paris, was born at Montreuil l'Argilé, in Upper Normandy. Being sent for to Paris by his elder brother, young Boivin soon made great progress in literature, in the languages, and especially in the knowledge of the Greek. He died October 29, 1726, aged 64, member of the French academy, and of that of belles lettres, and keeper of the king's library. He profited by this literary treasure, by drawing from it a variety of information, and to a great extent. In his private character he was of gentle manners, and truly amiable. He wrote, 1. "The Apology for Homer, and the Shield of Achilles, in 12mo. 2. Translation of the Batrachomyomachia of Homer into French verse, under his name Latinised into Biberimero. 3. The Edipus of Sophocles, and the Birds of Aristophanes, translated into French, in 12mo. 4. Pieces of Greek poetry. 5. The edition of the "Mathematici veteres," 1693, in folio. 6. A Latin life of Claude le Peletier, in 4to, written in a style rather too inflated. 7. A translation of the Byzantine history of Nicephorus Gregoras, correct, elegant, and enriched with a curious face, and notes replete with erudition.

2

pre

BOIVIN (LOUIS), brother to the preceding, a distinguished scholar and pensionary of the academy of belles lettres, was born at Montreuil l'Argilé, and educated, first under the Jesuits at Rouen, and afterwards at Paris, where he settled. His acquirements in literature were various and extensive; but his temper, according to his own account, was intractable and unsocial, enterprising, vain, and versatile. He was employed by several eminent magistrates as the associate and director of their private studies; but the litigiousness of his disposition involved him in

great trouble and expence. He published some learned dissertations on historical subjects, in the "Memoirs of the Academy of Belles Lettres," and made great progress towards a new edition of Josephus. He died in 1724, aged

75 years.

1

BOLD (JOHN), a pious and useful clergyman of Leices tershire, was born at Leicester in 1679, and at the age of fifteen had made such progress in letters as to be matriculated at St. John's college, Cambridge. Having taken the degree of B. A. in 1698, he retired to Hinckley in Leices tershire, where he engaged in teaching a small endowed school, and retained that employment until 1732, at the humble salary of 10l. per annum. At the usual age, he was admitted into holy orders to serve the curacy of Stoney Stanton near Hinckley. It appears from the parish regis ter, that he commenced his parochial duties in May 1702; and the care of the parish was confided to him, his rector then residing on another benefice. His stipend was only 30%. a year, as the living was a small one, being then in the open-field state. Nor does it appear that he had made any saving in money from the profits of his school-all the property he seems to have brought with him to his curacy was, his chamber furniture, and a library, more valuable for being select than extensive. When Mr. Bold was examined for orders, his diocesan (Dr. James Gardiner, bishop of Lincoln) was so much pleased with his proficiency in sacred learning, that he had determined to make Mr. Bold his domestic chaplain: but the good bishop's death soon after closed his prospect of preferment as soon as it was opened in that quarter; and Mr. Bold framed his plan of life and studies upon a system of rigid economy and strict attention to his professional duties, which never varied during the fifty years he passed afterwards on his curacy. Remote from polished and literary society, which he was calculated both to enjoy and to adorn, he diligently performed the duties of an able and orthodox divine; a good writer; an excellent preacher, and an attentive parish priest. He appears, from the early age of 24 years, to have formed his plan of making himself a living sacrifice for the benefit of his flock; and to have declined preferment (which was afterward offered to him) with a view of making his example and doctrine the more

1 Moreri,-Dict. Hist.

striking and effective, by his permanent residence and labours in one and the same place. He appears to have begun his ecclesiastical labours in a spirit of self-denial, humility, charity, and piety. He had talents that might have rendered him conspicuous any where, and an impressive and correct delivery. His life was severe (so far as respected himself); his studies incessant; his spiritual labours for the church and his flock, ever invariably the same. His salary, we have already mentioned, was only 30l. a year, which was never increased, and of which he paid at first 87. then 127. and lastly 167. a year, for his board. It needs scarcely be said that the most rigid œconomy was requisite, and practised, to enable him to subsist; much more to save out of this pittance for beneficent purposes. Yet he continued to give away annually, 57.; and saved 51. more with a view to more permanent charities upon the rest he lived. His daily fare consisted of water-gruel for his breakfast; a plate from the farmer's table, with whom he boarded, supplied his dinner; after dinner, one half pint of ale, of his own brewing, was his only luxury; he took no tea, and his supper was upon milk-pottage. With this slender fare his frame was supported under the labour of his various parochial duties. In the winter, he read and wrote by the farmer's fire-side; in the summer, in his own room. At Midsummer, he borrowed a horse for a day or two, to pay short visits beyond a walking distance. He visited all his parishioners, exhorting, reproving, consoling, instructing them.

The last six years of his life he was unable to officiate publicly; and was obliged to obtain assistance from the Rev. Charles Cooper, a clergyman who resided in the parish on a small patrimonial property, with whom he divided his salary, making up the deficiency from his savings. Mr. Bold's previous saving of 51. annually, for the preceding four or five and forty years (and that always put out to interest) enabled him to procure this assistance, and to continue his little charities, as well as to support himself, though the price of boarding was just doubled upon him from his first entrance on the cure, from 87. to 167. a year. But, from the annual saving even of so small a sum as 51. with accumulating interest during that term, he not only procured assistance for the last years of his life, but actually left by his will securities for the payment of bequests to the amount of between two and three hundred

pounds of which 1007. was bequeathed to some of his nearest relations; 100l. to the farmer's family in which he died, to requite their attendance in his latter end, and with which a son of the family was enabled to set up in a little farm; and 40l. more he directed to be placed out at interest, of which interest one half is paid at Christmas to the poorer inhabitants who attend at church; and the other, for a sermon once a year, in Lent, "on the duty of the people to attend to the instructions of the minister whom the bishop of the diocese should set over them."

This very singular and exemplary clergyman, whose character it is impossible to contemplate without admiration, died Oct. 29, 1751. He wrote for the use of his parishioners the following practical tracts: 1. “The sin and danger of neglecting the Public Service of the Church," 1745, 8vo, one of the books distributed by the Society for promoting Christian knowledge. 2. "Religion the most delightful employment, &c." 3. "The duty of worthily communicating.

BOLEN, or BOLEYN (ANNE), second wife of king Henry VIII. was born in 1507. She was daughter of sir Thomas Bolen, afterwards earl of Wiltshire and Ormonde, by Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Howard, duke of Norfolk. When she was but seven years of age, she was carried over to France with the king's sister Mary, who was married to Lewis XII. And though, upon the French king's death, the queen dowager returned to England, yet Anne Bolen was so highly esteemed at the court of France, that Claude, the wife of Francis I. retained her in her service for some years; and after her death in 1524, the duchess of Alenzon, the king's sister, kept her in her court during her stay in that kingdom. It is probable, that she returned from thence with her father, from his embassy in 1527; and was soon preferred to the place of maid of honour to the queen. She continued without the least imputation upon her character, till her unfortunate fall gave occasion to some malicious writers to defame her in all the parts of it. Upon her coming to the English court, the lord Percy, eldest son of the earl of Northumberland, being then a domestic of cardinal Wolsey, made his addresses to her, and proceeded so far, as to engage himself to marry her; and her consent shews, that she had then no aspirings to

1 Nichols's Hist. of Leicestershire, vol. IV. Part II.