Boy, French army, and carried his little patrimony with him, which he soon dissipated at play. He was shortly after roused by that emulation which is natural to great minds, and applied himself to letters with unremitting ardour, till he became one of the most consummate scholars of his age. He is said to have translated Caesar's Commentaries into Greek in the style of Herodotus, and to have written many Latin poems which were little inferior to the first productions of the Augustan age. He also left several manuscripts on philological, political, and historical subjects, in Latin and French, which languages were as familiar to him as his native tongue. He could with facility dictate to three amanuenses at the same time, in different languages, and on different subjects. He was also one of the best Scottish poets of the age. To all this we must add, that his personal beauty and accomplishments were equal to his mental superiority. He died at Pinkhill in Scotland, in 1621. The following works, which are all that have been printed, were published in the Deliciae Poetarum Scotorum; Amstel. 1637, 12mo. 1. Epigrammata, lib. ii. 2. Heroicum Epistolae XIV, lib. ii. 3. Hymni XIV.

Boyer, Abel, a well-known lexicographer and historiographer, born at Castris in France, in 1664. Upon the revocation of the edict of Nantz, he went first to Geneva, then to Franeker, where he finished his studies; and came finally to England, where he applied himself so assiduously to the study of the English language, and made so great a proficiency therein, that he became an author of considerable note in it, being employed in the writing of several periodical and political works. He was for many years concerned in a newspaper called the Post-boy, of which he had the principal management. He likewise published a monthly work entitled the Political State of Great Britain. He wrote a life of Queen Anne in folio, which is esteemed a very good chronicle of that period of the English history. But what has rendered him the most known, and has most firmly established his reputation, are the excellent Dictionary and Grammar of the French language, which he compiled, and which are still reckoned the best in their kind. He also wrote, or rather translated from the French of M. de Racine, the tragedy of Iphigenia, which he published under the title of The Victim. It was performed with success at the theatre of Drury-Lane, and is far from being a bad play. Nor can there perhaps be a stronger instance of the abilities of its author, than success in such an attempt; since writing with any degree of correctness or elegance, even in prose, in a foreign language, is an excellence not very frequently attained; but to proceed so far in the perfection of it as to be even tolerable in poetry, and more especially in that of the drama, in which the diction and manner of expression require a peculiar dignity and force, and in a language so difficult to attain the perfect command of as the English, is what has been very seldom accomplished. He died in 1729.