Part 41

BOYDELL, JOHN (1719-1804), English alderman and publisher, was born at Dorrington, and at the age of twenty-one came to London and was apprenticed for seven years to an engraver. In 1746 he published a volume of views in England and Wales, and started in business as a print-seller. By his good taste and liberality he managed to secure the services of the best artists, and his engravings were executed with such skill that his business became extensive and lucrative. He succeeded in his plan of a Shakespeare gallery, and obtained the assistance of the most eminent painters of the day, whose contributions were exhibited publicly for many years. The engravings from these paintings form a splendid companion volume to his large illustrated edition of Shakespeare's works. Towards the close of his life Boydell sustained severe losses through the French Revolution, and was compelled to dispose of his Shakespeare gallery by lottery. Boydell had previously become an alderman, and rose to be lord mayor of London.

BOYER, ALEXIS (1757-1833), French surgeon, was born on the 1st of March 1757 at Uzerches (Correze). The son of a tailor, he obtained his first medical knowledge in the shop of a barber-surgeon. Removing to Paris he had the good fortune to attract the notice of Antoine Louis (1723-1792) and P.J. Desault (1744-1795); and his perseverance, anatomical skill and dexterity as an operator, became so conspicuous, that at the age of thirty-seven he obtained the appointment of second surgeon to the Hotel Dieu of Paris. On the establishment of the Ecole de Sante he gained the chair of operative surgery, but soon exchanged it for the chair of clinical surgery. In 1805 Napoleon nominated him imperial family surgeon, and, after the brilliant campaigns of 1806-7, conferred on him the legion of honour, with the title of baron of the empire and a salary of 25,000 francs. On the fall of Napoleon the merits of Boyer secured him the favour of the succeeding sovereigns of France, and he was consulting surgeon to Louis XVIII., Charles X., and Louis Philippe. In 1825 he succeeded J.F.L. Deschamps (1740-1824) as surgeon-in-chief to the Hopital de la Charite, and was chosen a member of the Institute. He died in Paris on the 23rd of November 1833. Perhaps no French surgeon of his time thought or wrote with greater clearness and good sense than Boyer; and while his natural modesty made him distrustful of innovation, and somewhat tenacious of established modes of treatment, he was as judicious in his diagnosis and as cool and skilful in manipulating, as he was cautious in forming his judgment on individual cases. His two great works are:--_Traite complet de l'anatomie_ (in 4 vols., 1797-1799), of which a fourth edition appeared in 1815, and _Traite des maladies chirurgicales et des operations qui leur conviennent_ (in 11 vols., 1814-1826), of which a new edition in 7 vols. was published in 1844-1853, with additions by his son, Philippe Boyer (1801-1858).

BOYER, JEAN PIERRE (1776-1850), president of the republic of Haiti, a mulatto, was born at Port-au-Prince on the 28th of February 1776. He received a good education in France, and, returning to St Domingo, joined the army in 1792. In 1794 he was already in command of a battalion, and fought with distinction under General Rigaud against the English. The negro insurrection under Toussaint l'Ouverture, which was directed against the mulattoes as well as the whites, ultimately forced him to take refuge in France. He was well received by Napoleon, and in 1802 obtained a commission in Leclerc's expedition. Being opposed to the reinstitution of slavery, he turned against the French and succeeded in producing an alliance between the negroes and mulattoes by which they were driven from the island. Dessalines, a negro, was proclaimed king, but his cruelty and despotism were such that Boyer combined with A.A.S. Petion and General Christophe to overthrow him (1806). Christophe now seized the supreme power, but Petion set up an independent republic in the southern part of the island, with Boyer as commander-in-chief. Christophe's efforts to crush this state were defeated by Boyer's gallant defence of Port-au-Prince, and a series of brilliant victories, which, on Petion's death in 1818, led to Boyer's election as president. Two years later the death of Christophe removed his only rival, and he gained almost undisputed possession of the whole island. During his presidency Boyer did much to set the finances and the administration in order, and to encourage the arts and sciences, and in 1825 obtained French recognition of the independence of Haiti, in return for a payment of 150,000 francs. The weight of this debt excited the greatest discontent in Haiti. Boyer was able to carry on his government for some years longer, but in March 1843 a violent insurrection overthrew his power and compelled him to take refuge in Jamaica. He resided there till 1848, when he removed to Paris, where he died in 1850.

See Wallez, _Precis historique des negociations entre la France et Saint-Domingue, avec une notice biographique sur le general Boyer_ (Paris, 1826).

BOYLE, JOHN J. (1851- ), American sculptor, was born in New York City. He studied in the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, and in the Ecole des Beaux Arts, Paris. He is particularly successful in the portrayal of Indians. Among his principal works are: "Stone Age," Fairmount Park, Philadelphia; "The Alarm," Lincoln Park, Chicago; and, a third study in primitive culture, the two groups, "The Savage Age" at the Pan-American Exposition of 1901. His work also includes the seated "Franklin," in Philadelphia; and "Bacon" and "Plato" in the Congressional library, Washington, D.C.

BOYLE, ROBERT (1627-1691), English natural philosopher, seventh son and fourteenth child of Richard Boyle, the great earl of Cork, was born at Lismore Castle, in the province of Munster, Ireland, on the 25th of January 1627. While still a child he learned to speak Latin and French, and he was only eight years old when he was sent to Eton, of which his father's friend, Sir Henry Wotton, was then provost. After spending over three years at the college, he went to travel abroad with a French tutor. Nearly two years were passed in Geneva; visiting Italy in 1641, he remained during the winter of that year in Florence, studying the "paradoxes of the great star-gazer" Galileo, who died within a league of the city early in 1642. Returning to England in 1644 he found that his father was dead and had left him the manor of Stalbridge in Dorsetshire, together with estates in Ireland. From that time he gave up his life to study and scientific research, and soon took a prominent place in the band of inquirers, known as the "Invisible College," who devoted themselves to the cultivation of the "new philosophy." They met frequently in London, often at Gresham College; some of the members also had meetings at Oxford, and in that city Boyle went to reside in 1654. Reading in 1657 of Otto von Guericke's air-pump, he set himself with the assistance of Robert Hooke to devise improvements in its construction, and with the result, the "machina Boyleana" or "Pneumatical Engine," finished in 1659, he began a series of experiments on the properties of air. An account of the work he did with this instrument was published in 1660 under the title _New Experiments Physico-Mechanical touching the spring of air and its effects_. Among the critics of the views put forward in this book was a Jesuit, Franciscus Linus (1595-1675), and it was while answering his objections that Boyle enunciated the law that the volume of a gas varies inversely as the pressure, which among English-speaking peoples is usually called after his name, though on the continent of Europe it is attributed to E. Mariotte, who did not publish it till 1676. In 1663 the "Invisible College" became the "Royal Society of London for improving natural knowledge," and the charter of incorporation granted by Charles II. named Boyle a member of the council. In 1680 he was elected president of the society, but declined the honour from a scruple about oaths. In 1668 he left Oxford for London where he resided at the house of his sister, Lady Ranelagh, in Pall Mall. About 1689 his health, never very strong, began to fail seriously and he gradually withdrew from his public engagements, ceasing his communications to the Royal Society, and advertising his desire to be excused from receiving guests, "unless upon occasions very extraordinary," on Tuesday and Friday forenoon, and Wednesday and Saturday afternoon. In the leisure thus gained he wished to "recruit his spirits, range his papers," and prepare some important chemical investigations which he proposed to leave "as a kind of Hermetic legacy to the studious disciples of that art," but of which he did not make known the nature. His health became still worse in 1691, and his death occurred on the 30th of December of that year, just a week after that of the sister with whom he had lived for more than twenty years. He was buried in the churchyard of St Martin's in the Fields, his funeral sermon being preached by his friend Bishop Burnet.

Boyle's great merit as a scientific investigator is that he carried out the principles which Bacon preached in the _Novum Organum_. Yet he would not avow himself a follower of Bacon or indeed of any other teacher: on several occasions he mentions that in order to keep his judgment as unprepossessed as might be with any of the modern theories of philosophy, till he was "provided of experiments" to help him judge of them, he refrained from any study of the Atomical and the Cartesian systems, and even of the _Novum Organum_ itself, though he admits to "transiently consulting" them about a few particulars. Nothing was more alien to his mental temperament than the spinning of hypotheses. He regarded the acquisition of knowledge as an end in itself, and in consequence he gained a wider outlook on the aims of scientific inquiry than had been enjoyed by his predecessors for many centuries. This, however, did not mean that he paid no attention to the practical application of science nor that he despised knowledge which tended to use. He himself was an alchemist; and believing the transmutation of metals to be a possibility, he carried out experiments in the hope of effecting it; and he was instrumental in obtaining the repeal, in 1689, of the statute of Henry IV. against multiplying gold and silver. With all the important work he accomplished in physics--the enunciation of Boyle's law, the discovery of the part taken by air in the propagation of sound, and investigations on the expansive force of freezing water, on specific gravities and refractive powers, on crystals, on electricity, on colour, on hydrostatics, &c.--chemistry was his peculiar and favourite study. His first book on the subject was _The Sceptical Chemist_, published in 1661, in which he criticized the "experiments whereby vulgar Spagyrists are wont to endeavour to evince their Salt, Sulphur and Mercury to be the true Principles of Things." For him chemistry was the science of the composition of substances, not merely an adjunct to the arts of the alchemist or the physician. He advanced towards the modern view of elements as the undecomposable constituents of material bodies; and understanding the distinction between mixtures and compounds, he made considerable progress in the technique of detecting their ingredients, a process which he designated by the term "analysis." He further supposed that the elements were ultimately composed of particles of various sorts and sizes, into which, however, they were not to be resolved in any known way. Applied chemistry had to thank him for improved methods and for an extended knowledge of individual substances. He also studied the chemistry of combustion and of respiration, and made experiments in physiology, where, however, he was hampered by the "tenderness of his nature" which kept him from anatomical dissections, especially of living animals, though he knew them to be "most instructing."

Besides being a busy natural philosopher, Boyle devoted much time to theology, showing a very decided leaning to the practical side and an indifference to controversial polemics. At the Restoration he was favourably received at court, and in 1665 would have received the provostship of Eton, if he would have taken orders; but this he refused to do, on the ground that his writings on religious subjects would have greater weight coming from a layman than a paid minister of the Church. He spent large sums in promoting the spread of Christianity, contributing liberally to missionary societies, and to the expenses of translating the Bible or portions of it into various languages. By his will he founded the Boyle lectures, for proving the Christian religion against "notorious infidels, viz. atheists, theists, pagans, Jews and Mahommedans," with the proviso that controversies between Christians were not to be mentioned.

In person Boyle was tall, slender and of a pale countenance. His constitution was far from robust, and throughout his life he suffered from feeble health and low spirits. While his scientific work procured him an extraordinary reputation among his contemporaries, his private character and virtues, the charm of his social manners, his wit and powers of conversation, endeared him to a large circle of personal friends. He was never married. His writings are exceedingly voluminous, and his style is clear and straightforward, though undeniably prolix.

The following are the more important of his works in addition to the two already mentioned:--_Considerations touching the Usefulness of Experimental Natural Philosophy_ (1663), followed by a second part in 1671; _Experiments and Considerations upon Colours, with Observations on a Diamond that Shines in the Dark_ (1663); _New Experiments and Observations upon Cold_ (1665); _Hydrostatical Paradoxes_ (1666); _Origin of Forms and Qualities according to the Corpuscular Philosophy_ (1666); a continuation of his work on the spring of air (1669); tracts about the _Cosmical Qualities of Things_, the _Temperature of the Subterraneal and Submarine Regions_, the _Bottom of the Sea_, &c. with an _Introduction to the History of Particular Qualities_ (1670); _Origin and Virtues of Gems_ (1672); _Essays of the strange Subtilty, great Efficacy, determinate Nature of Effluviums_ (1673); two volumes of tracts on the _Saltness of the Sea_, the _Hidden Qualities of the Air, Cold, Celestial Magnets, Animadversions on Hobbes's_ Problemata de Vacuo (1674); _Experiments and Notes about the Mechanical Origin or Production of Particular Qualities_, including some notes on electricity and magnetism (1676); _Observations upon an artificial Substance that Shines without any Preceding Illustration_ (1678); the _Aerial Noctiluca_ (1680); _New Experiments and Observations upon the Icy Noctiluca_ (1682); a further continuation of his work on the air; _Memoirs for the Natural History of the Human Blood_ (1684); _Short Memoirs for the Natural Experimental History of Mineral Waters_ (1685); _Medicina Hydrostatica_ (1690); and _Experimenta et Observiationes Physicae_ (1691). Among his religious and philosophical writings were:--_Seraphic Love_, written in 1648, but not published till 1660; an _Essay upon the Style of the Holy Scriptures_ (1663); _Occasional Reflections upon Several Subjects_ (1665), which was ridiculed by Swift in _A Pious Meditation upon a Broomstick_, and by Butler in _An Occasional Reflection on Dr Charlton's Feeling a Dog's Pulse at Cresham College_; _Excellence of Theology compared with Natural Philosophy_ (1664); _Some Considerations about the Reconcileableness of Reason and Religion_, with a _Discourse about the Possibility of the Resurrection_ (1675); _Discourse of Things above Reason_ (1681); _High Veneration Man owes to God_ (1685); _A Free Inquiry into the vulgarly received Notion of Nature_ (1686); and the _Christian Virtuoso_ (1690). Several other works appeared after his death, among them _The General History of the Air designed and begun_ (1692); a "collection of choice remedies," _Medicinal Experiments_ (1692-1698); and _A Free Discourse against Customary Swearing_ (1695). An incomplete and unauthorized edition of Boyle's works was published at Geneva in 1677, but the first complete edition was that of Thomas Birch, with a life, published in 1744, in five folio volumes, a second edition appearing in 1772 in six volumes, 4to. Boyle bequeathed his natural history collections to the Royal Society, which also possesses a portrait of him by the German painter, Friedrich Kerseboom (1632-1690).

BOYLE, a market town of Co. Roscommon, Ireland, in the north parliamentary division, on the Sligo line of the Midland Great Western railway, 106-1/4 m. N.W. by W. from Dublin and 28 m. S. by E. from Sligo. Pop. (1901) 2477. It is beautifully situated on both banks of the river Boyle, an affluent of the Shannon, between Loughs Gara and Key. Three bridges connect the two parts of the town. There is considerable trade in agricultural produce. To the north of the town stand the extensive ruins of a Cistercian abbey founded in 1161, including remains of a cruciform church, with a fine west front, and Norman and Transitional arcades with carving of very beautiful detail. The offices of the monastery are well preserved, and an interesting feature is seen in the names carved on the door of the lodge, attributed in Cromwell's soldier, who occupied the buildings. Neighbouring antiquities are Asselyn church near Lough Key, and a large cromlech by the road towards Lough Gara. Boyle was incorporated by James I., and returned two members to the Irish parliament.

BOYNE, a river of Ireland, which, rising in the Bog of Allen, near Carbery in Co. Kildare, and flowing in a north-easterly direction, passes Trim, Navan and Drogheda, and enters the Irish Sea, 4 m. below the town last named. It is navigable for barges to Navan, 19 m. from its mouth. Much of the scenery on its banks is beautiful, though never grand. About 2 m. west of Drogheda, an obelisk, 150 ft. in height, marks the spot where the forces of William III. gained a celebrated victory over those of James II., on the 1st of July[1] 1690, known as the battle of the Boyne.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] This was the "old style" date, which in the new style (see CALENDAR) would be July 11th (not 12th, as Lecky says, _Hist, of Ireland_, iii. p. 427). The 12th of July is annually celebrated by the Orangemen in the north of Ireland as the anniversary, but this is a confusion between the supposed new style for July 1st and the old style date of the battle of Aughrim, July 12th; the intention being to commemorate both.

BOYS' BRIGADE, an organization founded in Glasgow by Mr (afterwards Sir) W.A. Smith in 1883 to develop Christian manliness by the use of a semi-military discipline and order, gymnastics, summer camps and religious services and classes. There are about 2200 companies connected with different churches throughout the United Kingdom, the British empire and the United States, with 10,000 officers and 100,000 boys. A similar organization, confined to the Anglican communion, is the Church Lads' Brigade. Boys' and girls' life brigades are a more recent movement; they teach young people how to save life from fire and from water, and hold classes in hygiene, ambulance and elementary nursing.

BOZDAR, a Baluch tribe of Rind (Arab) extraction, usually associated with the mountain districts of the frontier near Dera Ghazi Khan. They are also to be found in Zhob, Thal-Chotiali and Las Bela, whilst the majority of the population are said to live in the Punjab. They are usually graziers, and the name Bozdar is probably derived from Buz, the Persian name for goat. Within the limits of their mountain home on the outer spurs of the Suliman hills they have always been a turbulent race, mustering about 2700 fighting men, and they were formerly constantly at feud with the neighbouring Ustarana and Sherani tribes. In 1857 their raids into the Punjab drew upon them an expedition under Brigadier-General Sir N.B. Chamberlain. The Sangarh pass was captured and the Bozdars submitted. Since Baluchistan has been taken over they have given but little trouble.

BOZRAH. (1) A capital of Edom (Gen. xxxvi. 33; Amos i. 12; Is. xxxiv. 6, lxiii. 1), doubtfully identified with _el-Buseireh_, S.E. of the Dead Sea, in the broken country N. of Petra; the ruins here are comparatively unimportant. It is the centre of a pastoral district, and its inhabitants, who number between 100 and 200, are all shepherds. (2) A city in the _Mishor_ or plain country of Moab, denounced by Jeremiah (xlviii. 24). It has been identified (also questionably) with a very extensive collection of ruins of various ages, now called Bosra (the Roman _Bostra_), situated in the Hauran, about 80 m. south of Damascus. The area within the walls is about 1-1/4 m. in length, and nearly 1 m. in breadth, while extensive suburbs lie to the east, north and west. The principal buildings which can still be distinguished are a temple, an aqueduct, a large theatre (enclosed by a castle of much more recent workmanship), several baths, a triumphal and other arches, three mosques, and what are known as the church and convent of the monk Boheira. In A.D. 106 the city was beautified and perhaps restored from ruin by Trajan, who made it the capital of the new province of Arabia. In the reign of Alexander Severus it was made a colony, and in 244, a native of the place, Philippus, ascended the imperial throne. By the time of Constantine the Great it seems to have been Christianized, and not long after it was the seat of an extensive bishopric. It was one of the first cities of Syria to be subjected to the Mahommedans, and it successfully resisted all the attempts of the Crusaders to wrest it from their hands. As late as the 14th century it was a populous city, after which it gradually fell into decay. It is now inhabited by thirty or forty families only. Another suggested identification is with Kusur el-Besheir, equidistant (2 m.) from Dibon and Aroer. This is perhaps the same as the Bezer mentioned in Deuteronomy and Joshua as a levitical city and a city of refuge.

In 1 Macc. v. 26 there is mention of Bosor and of Bosora. The latter is probably to be identified with Bosra, the former perhaps with the present Busr el-Hariri in the south-east corner of the Leja. (R. A. S. M.)

BRABANT, a duchy which existed from 1190 to 1430, when it was united with the duchy of Burgundy, the name being derived from Brabo, a semi-mythical Frankish chief.