of the regent Murray. He enjoyed a high and influential position under the regent James Douglas, earl of Morton, but was banished in 1583 for his share in the seizure of King James VI., a plot known as the Raid of Ruthven. He retired to France, but was soon allowed to return to Scotland. He died on the 3rd of January 1590.
William, 8th or 9th Lord Boyd (d. 1692), was created earl of Kilmarnock in 1661, and this nobleman’s grandson William, the 3rd earl (d. 1717), was a partisan of the Hanoverian kings and fought for George I. during the rising of 1715. His son William, the 4th earl (1704–1746), was educated in the same principles, but in 1745, owing either to a personal affront or to the influence of his wife or to his straitened circumstances he deserted George II. and joined Charles Edward, the Young Pretender. The 4th earl fought at Falkirk and Culloden, where he was made prisoner, and was beheaded on the 18th of August 1746. The title of earl of Kilmarnock is now merged in that of earl of Erroll.
BOYD, ZACHARY (1585?–1653), Scottish divine, was educated
at the universities of Glasgow and St Andrews. He was for
many years a teacher in the Protestant college of Saumur in
France, but returned to Scotland in 1621, to escape the Huguenot
persecution. In 1623 he was appointed minister of the Barony
church in Glasgow, and he was rector of the university in 1634,
1635 and 1645. He bequeathed to the university the half of his
fortune, a sum amounting to £20,000 Scots, besides his library
and twelve volumes of MSS. His poetical compositions, though
often eccentric, have some merit. The common statement that
he made the printing of his metrical version of the Gospels and
other Biblical narratives a condition of the reception of his grant
to the university is a mistake. In later years he was a staunch
Covenanter, and though for a time opposed to Oliver Cromwell,
afterwards became friendly with him. His best-known works
are The Battel of the Soul in Death (1629), of which a new edition,
with a biography by G. Neil, was published in Glasgow in 1831;
Zion’s Flowers—often called “Boyd’s Bible” (1644); Four Letters of Comfort (1640, reprinted, Edinburgh, 1878).
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 (Corrèze). 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 Hôtel Dieu of Paris. On the establishment of the
École de Santé 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 Hôpital de la Charité, 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:—Traité complet de l’anatomie (in 4 vols.,
1797–1799), of which a fourth edition appeared in 1815, and
Traité des maladies chirurgicales et des opérations 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. Pétion and General Christophe to overthrow him (1806).
Christophe now seized the supreme power, but Pétion 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 Pétion’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, Précis historique des négociations entre la France et Saint-Domingue, avec une notice biographique sur le général 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 École 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
