Hector, a distinguished historian, was born at Dundee about the year 1465, being descended of a family which for several generations had possessed the barony of Panbride or Balbride. The orthography of his surname is extremely fluctuating; it is to be found under the various modifications of Bocc, Boec, Boes, Boys, Boyse, Boyes, Boyis, Boiss, and Boyce. The first of these, we strongly suspect, was never a name belonging to any living man in Scotland: it was formed by the French from the name of the latest Roman classic, and on that account appears to have been adopted by Bellenden in his transla- tion of the history. The real Scottish name is a mono- syllable; and we adhere to the orthography of Boyce, as being most common in our own time. He received the first rudiments of learning at Dundee, and completed his course of study in the university of Paris, where he took the degree of B.D. He was appointed a professor of philoso- phy in the College of Montaigne; and in this seminary he became intimately acquainted with Erasmus, who in two epistles has testified his esteem for Boyce's character. In his academical station he had already distinguished himself by his talents and attainments, when King's College was founded at Aberdeen by the munificence of William Elphin- stone, bishop of the diocese. The papal bull for the erec- tion of a university had been obtained in the year 1494, but the buildings were not sufficiently advanced, nor did the lectures commence, till about the year 1500. It was not without some degree of hesitation that he consented to quit the lettered society of Paris, and to become principal of this new college; but having at length accepted the conditions, he proceeded to Aberdeen, and experienced a kind reception from the canons of the cathedral, several of whom he has commemorated as men of learning. It was a part of his duty as principal to read lectures on divinity. The sub-principal was his friend William Hay, a native of the same county, who had been his fellow-student at Dun- dee and at Paris, and who at length succeeded him as head of the college. The principal's brother, Arthur Boyce, doctor of the canon and licentiate of the civil law, was appointed professor of the canon law, and afterwards became a judge of the court of session. The common branches of science and literature were taught with zeal and success; and the prosperity of the institution was greatly promoted by the talents and by the reputation of Boyce.
The emoluments of his office were not such as appear very dazzling to modern eyes. "Boethius, as president of the university," says Dr. Johnson, "enjoyed a revenue of forty Scottish marks, about two pounds four shillings and sixpence of sterling money. In the present age of trade and taxes, it is difficult even for the imagination so to raise the value of money, or so to diminish the demands of life, as to suppose four and forty shillings a-year an honourable stipend; yet it was probably equal not only to the needs but to the rank of Boethius. The wealth of England was undoubtedly to that of Scotland more than five to one, and it is known that Henry the Eighth, among whose faults avarice was never reckoned, granted to Roger Ascham, as a reward of his learning, a pension of ten pounds a-year." But it is necessary to recollect that this was not the only preferment which Boyce enjoyed: he was not only principal of King's College, but was likewise a canon of Aberdeen, and rector of Tyrie in the same county. Under the date of July 14, 1527, we find a "grant to Maister Hector" of an annual pension of fifty pounds, to be paid by the sheriff of Aberdeen out of the king's casualties: and on the 26th of July 1529 was issued a "precept for a letter to Mr Hector Boys, professor of theology, of a pension of L50 Scots yearly, until the king promote him to a benefice of 100 marks Scots of yearly value; the said pension to be paid him by the customers of Aberdeen." In 1533 and 1534, one-half of his pension was, however, paid by the king's treasurer, and the other half by the comptroller; and as no payment subsequent to that of Whitsuntide 1534 has been traced in the trea- surer's accounts, he is supposed to have obtained his bene- fice soon after that period.
His earliest publication, the lives of the bishops of Aber- deen, appeared under the subsequent title: "Episcoporum Murthlacensium et Aberdonensium per Hectorem Boetium Vita." Impressa sunt hac prelo Ascensione, ad Idus Maies anno Salutis M.D.XXII., 4to. This little volume, which is of great rarity, has been reprinted for the mem- bers of the Banntyne Club—"Hectoris Boetii Murthla- censium et Aberdonensium Episcoporum Vita; iterum in lucem edita." Edinb. 1825, 4to. Of the bishops of this diocese the seat was originally at Murthlake, in the county of Banff, but it was afterwards transferred to Aberdeen. His notices of the early prelates are necessarily brief and uns-
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1 Erasmus Opera, tom. i. tom. iii. col. 1784, edit. Clerici.—The first of these epistles introduces a catalogue of his own writings. Here his learned correspondent is named Hector Boetius, nor has Dr. Joettin subjoined his more common appellation. (Life of Erasmus, vol. ii. p. 725.) 2 In Orem's Description of King's College, Aberdeen, p. 154-7, he is erroneously called William Gray. 3 Boyce has mentioned his brother in very favourable terms: "Arthuri Boetius mihi germanus, in pontificio jure doctor, in civico (ut dicunt) licentiatus, vir multae doctrinae, plus literarum indies consecuturus, quod studium et permanet animo idéfesso, nobissem jura pie et scite profestiter. Est in eo vis et gravitas eloquenti, a vulgari genere plurimum abhorrens. (Aberdonensis Episcoporum Vita, p. 63, edit. Edinb. 1825, 4to.) 4 Johnson's Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland, p. 29. Lond. 1776, 8vo. 5 Maclean's Biographical Introduction to Bellenden, p. xxiii. tisfactory; and the most interesting portion of the book is that which relates to his liberal patron Bishop Elphinstone; of whose private history and public services he has given a circumstantial detail, which occupies nearly one-third of the volume. Here we likewise find an account of the foundation and constitution of the college, together with some notices of its earliest members.
His more famous work, the history of Scotland, was published after an interval of five years: "Scotorum Historiae a prima gentis origine cum aliarum et rerum et gentium illustratione non vulgari praemissa epistle nuncupatoria, tabellisque amplissimis, et non ponitenda Isagoge, quae ab hujus tergo explicabatur diffusis. Quae omni impressa quidem sunt Iodoci Badii Ascensi typis et opera: impensis autem nobilib. et prodacti vii Hectoris Boethii Deidomani, a quo sunt et condita et edita." Fol. The title and colophon have no date, but the commendatory epistle by Alexander Lyon, preceptor of the cathedral of Elgin, bears the fifteenth of March 1527. This edition contains seventeen books. Another edition, containing the eighteenth book and a fragment of the nineteenth, was published by Ferrerius, who has added an appendix of thirty-five pages. Paris, 1574, fol. Though published at Paris, the latter edition appears from the colophon to have been printed at Lausanne.
The composition of Boyce's history displays much talent; and if the style does not always reach the standard of ancient purity, it displays a certain vein of elegance which generally renders it attractive. The author's love of his native country, and his anxiety to emblazon the heroic deeds of his countrymen, are conspicuous in every part of the work; nor must we leave unnoticed those aspirations after political freedom, by which he was honourably distinguished at a period when the human mind was so generally chained to the earth by the most slavish maxims of submission. It may be recorded as commendation, instead of reproach, that his principles of policy have been represented as no better than those of Buchanan. Boyce's imagination was, however, stronger than his judgment: of the extent of the historian's credibility, his narrative exhibits many unequivocal proofs; and if this circumstance admits of a sufficient excuse from the common propensity of the age in which he lived, his work presents strong indications of another fault, for which it is not so easy to find an apology. According to Bishop Lloyd, he put Fordun's tales "into the form of an history, and pieced them out with a very good invention, that part in which he chiefly excelled." He professes to have obtained from the monastery of Icolmkill, through the good offices of the Earl of Argyle and his brother the treasurer, certain original historians of Scotland, and among the rest Veremundus and Campbell, of whose writings not a single vestige is now to be found. In his dedication to the king, he is pleased to state that Veremundus, a Spaniard by birth, was archdeacon of St Andrews, and that he wrote in Latin a history of Scotland from the origin of the nation to the reign of Malcolm the Third, to whom he inscribed his work. According to Bishop Stillingtonfleet, whose opinion has been adopted by many other writers, these historians never existed except in Boyce's fertile imagination. From the charge of downright fabrication he has very recently been vindicated by Mr Maitland; but notwithstanding the ingenuity of the defence, we find it extremely difficult to divest ourselves of a strong impression, that the historian's account of his original materials, if not destitute of truth, is at least destitute of verisimilitude. His propensity to the marvellous was at an early period exposed in the following tetristich of Leland, which Dempster has erroneously ascribed to Humphrey Lluyd:
Hectoris historici tot quot mendacia scripsit, Si vis ut numeres, lector amice, tibi, Me jubas etiam fluctus numerare marinos, Et liquidi stellas consummere polis.
Lluyd, who attacked him in different works, spoke of his fabrications without management or scruple; nor did he experience much better treatment from Stanhurst, an Irish writer of considerable reputation. Of his merits as an historian, a very unfavourable estimate has more recently been formed by Lord Halle's and Mr Pinkerton. But in the opinion of Mr Wallace, a learned lawyer, his "elegant style and correct composition, not to add beautiful genius and fine fancy, are conclusive proofs that his understanding could not be inaccurate." And, as Mr Maitland has remarked, "in forming a final estimate of the literary character of Beoce, we must bear in mind, that when scholar-craft in this country at least was rare, he was a scholar, and contributed, by reviving ancient learning, to dispel the gloom of the middle ages; and that, while the history of his country existed only in the rude page of the chroniclers who preceded him, or in the fading records of oral tradition, he embodied it in narrative so interesting, and language so beautiful, as to be worthy of a more refined age."
Boyce's History of Scotland was translated into the Scottish language by John Bellenden, archdeacon of Moray and
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1 Joannes Ferrerius, a native of Piedmont, resided for several years in Scotland under the patronage of Robert Reid, abbot of Kinloss, and afterwards bishop of Orkney. In the dedication of one of his works to this prelate, he mentions Hector and Arthur Boyce, together with several other scholars of Aberdeen. "Aberdonis rector a Kynell, homo studiosus et politicus, me semper complexus est humanissime. Item fecit Hector ille Boethius, historiarum veterarum scriptor nuncupat salis landatis; ut interim intimam Arthurnum Boethii fratrem germanum, utriusque juris peritissimum, Gulielmum Haye, theologum synorum, ac Jacobum Vane, eam doctorum medico peritisimo Roberto Gray. Addo hos Joannem Vans, virum cum literis tum moribus ornatisissimum, et de juvenitate Scotica bene merito." (Auditor Visu prestato, contra velutum Aristotelis Placitum, academica Johannis Ferrerii Pedemontani Dissertatio. Paris, 1539, 4to.)
With respect to his literary character, see Lord Halle's Examination of some of the Arguments for the high Antiquity of Regional Magistrates, p. 29. Edinb. 1769, 4to. Among various other works, he wrote a history of the abbots of Kinloss, which is printed, though not without difficulties, in Macfarlane's Vitae Veterum Scriptorum et Monumentorum Collectio, tom. vi.
2 Lloyd's Historical Account of Church Government in Great Britain and Ireland, pref.
3 Stillingtonfleet's Antiquities of the British Churches, p. 255.
4 One of the letters of Joseph Scaliger contains the subsequent passage relative to Boyce's story of the barnacles or soland-geese: "Nam de conchis amaterris fabula proceris est. Nullum enim amatex ex conchis producitur, sed ex putredine vetustorum navigiorum, quibus conchas adhaerent, amatex quadam nasci certum est. Etiam arbores amaterris eas in ultima Scotia, ubi nullae proceris arbores sunt, hacenus metita est scriptorum veritatis." (Scaligeri Epistolae, p. 729. Lugd. Bat. 1627, 8vo.) See likewise Nicolai Nancelli Analogia Microcosmi ad Macrocosmum, col. 835. Lutetiae Paris. 1611, fol. It is just as easy to believe that birds grow upon trees as that they are produced from rotten wood; so that the philosophy of Scaliger seems to have conducted him but a little way beyond the region of absolute credulity.
5 Dempsteri Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Scotorum, p. 98. Bononiæ, 1627, 4to.
6 Lelandi de Rebus Britannicis, vol. v. p. 126.
7 "Ut hominem imperissimam suis deplangam colortibus," says Lluyd, "forsique et praetilgia quibus omnium oculos perstringere coma- tur, necesse est, ut antiquissimae antiquitatis antiquissimam antiquitatem pro mendacibus cognitam, leviter attingamus." (Commentarius Britannicus Descriptionis Fragmentum, f. 32, a. Col. Agrip. 1573, 8vo.) In another work, De Mona Druidum Insula, Epistola, he speaks in a similar strain: "Ut Hectoris Boethii numero mendacis hinc facilius dignoscantur."
8 Stanhurstii de Rebus in Hispania gestis illustris quaestor, p. 18. Antverpiae, 1584, 4to.
9 Wallace's Nature and descent of Ancient Perceages, p. 451. edit. Edinb. 1785, 8vo.
10 Biographical Introduction to Mr Maitland's edition of Bellenden's Translation, p. xxxv. The king's grace I knew is nocht perfyte In Latyn toung, and namell in sic dyte; It will be knowne, that dar I tak an hand, To rely thir thinge we can not understand: War it traslated is our vulgar toung? Out throw that realme the rumor [would be rounge.]
In the year 1528, soon after the publication of his history, Boyce took the degree of D.D. at Aberdeen; and on this occasion the magistrates voted him a present of a tun of wine when the new wines should arrive, or, according to his option, the sum of twenty pounds to purchase a new bonnet. He appears to have survived till the year 1536; for on the 22nd of November in that year, the king presented John Garden to the rectory of Tyrie, vacant by the death of "Mr Hector Boiss." He died at Aberdeen, and, according to the most probable conjecture, he had then attained or at least approached the age of seventy.