BOYSE, Boys, or Bois, John, one of the translators of the Bible in the reign of James I. was son of William Bois, rector of West Stowe, near St Edmundsbury, Suffolk, and born at Nettlestead in Suffolk on the 3d of January 1560. He was taught the first rudiments of learning by his father; and his capacity was such, that at the age of five he was able, it is said, to read the Bible in Hebrew. He went afterwards to Hadley school; and at fourteen was admitted of St John's College, Cambridge, where he distinguished himself by his skill in Greek. Happening to catch the small-pox when he was elected fellow, he caused himself to be carried for admission in blankets, in order to preserve his seniority. He applied himself for some time to the study of medicine; but, fancying himself affected with every disease he read of, he quitted that science. He was during ten years principal Greek lecturer in his college, and read every day. He voluntarily read a Greek lecture for some years at four in the morning, in his own
chamber, which was frequented by many of the fellows. On the death of his father, he succeeded to the rectory of West Stowe. At the age of thirty-six he married the daughter of Mr Holt, rector of Buxworth, in Cambridge-shire, whom he succeeded in that living in October 1596. On his quitting the university, the college gave him £100. But his young wife, who had been bequeathed to him with the living, which was an adwovson, having proved a bad economist, and he himself being wholly addicted to his studies, he soon became so much involved in debt that he was obliged to sell his choice collection of books, consisting of almost every Greek author then extant. When a new translation of the Bible was directed to be made, Mr Bois was elected one of the Cambridge translators. He performed not only his own, but also the part assigned to another, with great reputation. He was also one of the six who had met at Stationers' Hall to revise the whole; which task they performed in nine months, having each, from the company of stationers, during that time, thirty shillings a week. He afterwards assisted Sir Henry Savile in publishing the works of St Crysostom. In 1615 Dr Lancelot Andrews, bishop of Ely, bestowed on him, unasked, the prebend in his church. He died on the 14th of January 1643, in the eighty-fourth year of his age, and left a great many manuscripts behind him, particularly a Commentary on almost all the books of the New Testament. When Bois was a young student at Cambridge, he received from the learned Dr Whitaker three rules for avoiding those distempers which usually attend a sedentary life, to which he adhered with equal constancy and success. The first was, To study always standing; the second, Never to study in a window; and the third, Never to go to bed with his feet cold.