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Bohemia, Moravia and Hungary, a number of books, mostly new editions. Some Bohemians, who observed the decay of their language, strove to remedy it; as Pesina Z. Cechorodu; Joh. Beckowsky, who continued the Bohemian history to 1620; W. Weseley, who wrote a work on geometry and trigonometry, &c.; but the decay was too great to admit of being checked; the nobility had become strangers, and the government encouraged only German literature. From this time, therefore, the Bohemians wrote more in the German language.—In the fifth period, from 1774 to 1826, a new ray of hope shone on Bohemian literature; when, under the emperor Joseph II, a deputation of secret Bohemian Protestants, trusting to his liberal views, made him acquainted with the great number of their brethren of the same faith. He perceived the necessity of introducing toleration, and hundreds of thousands of Protestants, in Bohemia and Moravia, came to light: their concealed works were printed anew, their classical language was again acknowledged and cultivated. This is done still more under the present government, who perceive the necessity and utility of the Sclavonian language, which, in the Austrian states, is spoken by 14,000,000 people, and of which the Bohemian is the written dialect. Under this protection, many men of merit, mindful of the fame of their ancestors, have endeavored to cultivate anew all branches of the sciences, and to reach, if possible, their more advanced neighbors. In particular, the members of the Bohemian society of sciences, of the national museum, and of other patriotic societies, above all, count Kollowrath-Liebsteinsky and count Caspar of Sternberg, deserve to be named with high respect.-The Bohemian has natural talents for mathematics, as Copernicus, Vega, Strnad, Wydra, Littrow, &c., may prove. The corps of Austrian artillery, which are recruited in Bohemia and Moravia, have always contained men distinguished for acquaintance with this science. In philology and music, the Bohemians are likewise eminent. The teacher of Mozart was Kluck, a Bohemian. Recently, Adlabert Sedlaczek, canon of a chapter of the Præmonstratenses, has distinguished himself by physical and mathematical compendiums in the Bohemian language.-Compare the Vollständige Bohnische Literatur of professor Jungmann (Prague, 1825, 2 vols.).

BOIARDO, Matteo Maria, count of Scan

diano, was born at a seat belonging to his family near Ferrara, in 1434. From 1488 to 1494, the period of his death, he was commander of the city and castle of Reggio, in the service of his protector, Ercole d'Este, duke of Modena. This accomplished courtier, scholar and knight was particularly distinguished as a poet. His Orlando Innamorato (Scandiano, 1496) is continued to the 79th canto, but not completed. He immortalized the names of his own peasants, and the charms of the scenery at Scandiano, in the persons of his heroes and his descriptions of the beauties of nature. In language and versification, he has been since surpassed by Ariosto, whom he equalled in invention, grace, and skilful conduct of complicated episodes. Dominichi, Berni and Agostini new modelled and continued the work of B. without improving it. One continuation, only, will never be forgotten the immortal Orlando of Ariosto. In some of his works, B. was led, by the spirit of his times, to a close imitation of the ancients e. g., in his Capitoli; also, in a comedy borrowed from Lucian's Timon; and in his Latin eclogues and translations of Herodotus and Apuleius. In his sonnets and canzoni (first printed at Reggio, 1499), he has displayed great talents as a lyric poet.

BOIL; to heat a fluid until it bubbles and becomes changed into vapor. If the requisite heat is applied a sufficient time, bubbles continually arise, until the fluid is entirely consumed. A singular circumstance is to be remarked, that the fluid, in open vessels, when it has once begun to boil, receives no increase of heat, even from the hottest fire. The reason is this, that the additional caloric goes to form steam, and ascends with it into the air. The steam itself, when formed, may be raised to a much higher degree of temperature. During the period of boiling, the surface of the fluid exhibits a violent undulating motion, and the stratum of air immediately over it is filled with vapor. The noise which accompanies boiling, arises, without doubt, from the displacing of the steam-bubbles, and varies very much with the nature and situation of the vessel. The vaporization of fluids is, very probably, nothing more than a mechanical union of caloric with the fluid. The degree of heat at which different fluids boil is very different. Spirits boil at the lowest temperature; pure water next; at a still higher temperature, the fixed oils. The degree of heat at which a fluid boils is called its boiling point.

This is used as one of the fixed points in the graduation of thermometers. This point is uniform only in case of complete boiling, and under a uniform pressure of the atmosphere. The influence of this pressure appears from experiments. In an exhausted receiver, the heat of the human hand is sufficient to make water boil; while, on the contrary, in Papin's digester, where the confinement prevents evaporation, it may be heated to 300 or 400 degrees without boiling. Under the common pressure of the atmosphere, the boiling point of rain-water is 212° Fahrenheit; that of alcohol, 174°; that of mercury, 660°; that of ether, 98°. From the experiments of prof. Robinson, it appears, that, in a vacuum, all liquids boil about 145° lower than in the open air, under a pressure of 30 inches of mercury; water, therefore, would boil in a vacuum at 67° Ether may be made to boil at the common temperature, by merely exhausting the air from the vessel in which it is contained.

BOILEAU, Despréaux Nicholas, born in 1636, at Crosne, near Paris, commenced, his studies in the collège d'Harcourt, and continued them in the collège de Beaurais. Even in his early youth, he read with ardor the great poets of antiquity, and tried his own powers in a tragedy, though with little success. After having completed his academical studies, he entered upon the career of the law; but soon left it from disinclination, tried some other pursuits, and resolved, finally, to devote himself entirely to belles-lettres. His first satire, Les adieux à Paris, made known his talents. In 1666, he published seven satires, with an introduction, addressed to the king. They met with extraordinary applause; for no one, before him, had written with such elegance of versification. But in this, and in the purity of his language, and the clearness with which he sets forth his luminous principles, consists their chief merit; novel, profound, original ideas, we should look for in vain, though the pieces are not destitute of graceful touches and delicate strokes. They are unequal in merit. The satires Sur l'Equivoque and Sur l'Homme have undeniable defects. That on Women, which he wrote at a more advanced age, is monotonous, and deficient in humor. His epistles, in which he is the successful rival of Horace, are more esteemed at the present day. They display a graceful versification, a natural and sustained style, vigorous and well connected ideas. These were followed

by his Art Poétique, in which he describes, with precision and taste, all the different kinds of poetry (with the exception of the apologue), and lays down rules for them. In regularity of plan, happy transitions, and continual elegance of style, this poem is superior to the Ars Poetica of Horace. It was long regarded, not only in France, but also in foreign countries, as a poetical code, and has every where had a favorable influence, as it inculcates purity and regularity, and subjects all the productions of poetical genius to a fixed standard. B.'s censures of Tasso and Quinault, with some other equally unfounded opinions, display a narrowness of spirit. He had many opponents, who accused him of want of fertility, invention and variety. To refute them, he wrote his Lutrin, a mock-heroic poem, which is still unrivalled in the eyes of the French. A music-stand, which had been removed from its place, had occasioned dissensions in a chapter: this is the subject of B.'s poem, in which his art of making petty details interesting deserves as much praise as the other excellences of his poetry already enumerated. In his life, B. was amiable and generous. Louis XIV gave him the place of historiographer, in connexion with Racine. As he had attacked the academicians in several of his writings, he was not received into their society until 1684, and then only by the interference of the king. He died in 1711, of the dropsy. M. de St. Surin has published Euvres de Boileau, with a commentary, Paris, 1824, 4 vols. The first volume of Daunou's (member of the institute) Euvres complètes de Boileau, with a literary and historical commentary, appeared in Paris, 1825.

BOILER. (See Steam and Steam Engine.)

BOIS-LE-DUC (the French name for the Dutch Hertogenbosh, also Im Bosh); a fortified city in the province of North Brabant, in the kingdom of the Netherlands, with 3770 houses and 13,300 inhabitants, at the confluence of the Dommel and the Aa, which form, by their junction, the Diest. Lon. 5° 9′ E.; lat. 51° 40 N. It has many manufactories, and much trade in corn, some saltworks, a lyceum, 10 Catholic churches, 4 Calvinistic, 1 Lutheran. Godfrey, duke of Brabant, founded this important military post in 1184. The fortifications now consist of strong walls and seven bastions, but it owes its security, chiefly, to the facility with which the whole country around can be laid under water (the new

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canal to Maestricht has 16 sluices). B. is defended by several forts and a citadel. The city has four gates, and three entrances from the water. The cathedral is one of the finest in the Netherlands. The city suffered much in the religious wars of the 16th century, and fell into the hands of the Dutch in 1629. Sept. 14, 1794, the French defeated the English here; Oct. 9 of the same year, it surrendered to Pichegru. In January, 1814, it was taken by the Prussian general Bülow. BOISSEREE. A celebrated gallery of pictures is exhibited in Stuttgart, which was collected by the brothers Sulpice and Melchior Boisserée, and John Bertram, men who, animated by love of the arts, began, at the time of the destruction of the monasteries, during and after the French revolution, to purchase old pictures, and afterwards completed their collection by the addition of many valuable paintings of the old German school. By this collection, the brothers Boisserée, and Bertram, have happily realized the idea of a historical series of old German paintings. It is to their endeavors that we owe the discovery, that Germany possessed, as early as the 13th century, a school of painters of much merit, which, like the Italian, proceeded from the old Byzantine school, but became, in the sequel, distinguished by excellences of its own. We owe to these collectors, also, the restoration to favor of the forgotten Low German masters, and a just estimation of John von Eyck, as the creator of the genuine German style of painting. By this collection, the names of von Eyck, Wilhelm von Köln, Hemling, Goes, Meckenem, Wohlgemuth, Schoen, Mabuse, Schoorel, and many others, have attained deserved honor. The most distinguished connoisseurs and artists, including Göthe, Canova, Dannecker and Thorwaldsen, have strongly expressed their admiration of this collection. The proprietors are publishing a work consisting of excellent lithographic prints from their pictures. In the autumn of 1820, the publication of the splendid engravings, illustrative of the cathedral in Cologne, was resolved on. The plates surpass, in size and execution, every thing which had appeared in the department of architectural delineations, and were partly made in Paris. (See Boisserée's Geschichte und Beschreibung des Doms von Köln, Stuttgart, 1823.) BOISSONADE, Jean François, born at Paris, 1774, one of the most distinguished Greek scholars in France, was made assistant professor of the Greek language

in the university of Paris, in 1809; and, in 1812, after the death of Larcher, whom he succeeded in the institute, principal professor. The king made him a member of the legion of honor in 1814, and, in 1816, member of the academy of inscriptions. Besides valuable contributions to the Journal des Débats, to the Mercure, to the Magazin Encyclopédique, to the Biographie Universelle, and to the Notices et Extraits (10 vols.), we are indebted to him for an edition of the Heroica of Philostratus (1806), and of the Rhetoric of Tiberius (1815). Still more important are his editions of Eunapus' Lives of the Sophists, of Proclus' Commentary on the Cratylus of Plato, never before printed; of a Greek romance by Nicetas Eugenianus, &c. He compiled, also, a French dictionary, on the plan of Johnson's.

BOJACA, BATTLE OF, so called, from having been fought near the bridge of the small town of Bojaca, not far from the city of Tunja, between the Spaniards, under Barreyro, and the united forces of Venezuela and New Grenada, commanded by Bolivar. It occurred August 7th, 1819, and was decisive of the independence of New Grenada. Among the republicans, generals Anzuȧtegui, Paez and Santander distinguished themselves; and the Spaniards sustained a total defeat, their general, most of their officers and men who survived the battle, together with all their arms, ammunition and equipments, falling into the hands of Bolivar. So complete was the destruction of the Spanish army, that the viceroy instantly fled from Santa Fé, leaving even the public treasure a prey to the conquerors.

BOLE; a fossil of a yellow, brown, or red color, often marked with black dendrites; found in different parts of Bohemia, Silesia and Stiria, also in Lemnos, and at Sienna in Italy. It is made into pipes for smoking, and vessels for cooling water in hot weather. The terra sigillata is nothing but bole.

BOLEYN, or BOLEN, Anne, second wife of Henry VIII of England, was the youngest child of sir Thomas Boleyn and a daughter of the duke of Norfolk. She was born, according to some accounts, in 1507, but, according to other more probable ones, in 1499 or 1500. She attended Mary, sister of Henry, on her marriage with Louis XII, to France, as lady of honor. On the return of that princess, after the king's death, she entered the service of queen Claude, wife of Francis I, and, after her death, that of the duchess

of Alençon, sister of the French king. Young, beautiful, gay and witty, she was an object of great attraction in the gallant court of Francis I. She returned to England about 1525 or 1527, and became lady of honor to the queen, whom she soon supplanted. The king, passionately enamored of her, found an unexpected opposition to his wishes, and Anne firmly declared that she could be had on no terms but those of marriage. She knew that the king already meditated a divorce from his wife, Catharine of Aragon; but she also knew what difficulties the Catholic religion opposed to the execution of this plan. Cranmer offered his services to bring about the accomplishment of the king's wishes, and thus gave the first occasion to the separation of England from the Roman church. But the impetuous Henry did not wait for the ministers of his new religion to confirm his divorce: on the contrary, he privately married Anne, Nov. 14, 1532, having previously created her marchioness of Pembroke. When her pregnancy revealed the secret, Cranmer declared the first marriage void, and the second valid, and Anne was crowned queen at Westminster, with unparalleled splendor. In 1533, she became the mother of the famous Elizabeth. She could not, however, retain the affections of the king, as inconstant as he was tyrannical; and, as she had supplanted her queen, while lady of honor to Catharine, she was now supplanted herself by Jane Seymour, her own lady of honor. Suspicions of infidelity were added to the disgust of Henry, which seem to be not entirely unfounded, although the judicial process instituted against her was wholly irregular. In 1535, she was imprisoned, accused, and brought before a jury of peers. Smeaton, a musician, who was arrested with others, confessed that he had enjoyed the queen's favors, and, May 17, 1536, she was condemned to death by 26 judges. Anne in vain affirmed that she had long before been contracted to the duke of Northumberland, and, therefore, had never been the lawful wife of Henry. Cranmer in vain declared the marriage void. The sentence of death was executed by the command of the inflexible Henry, who esteemed it a great exercise of clemency to substitute the scaffold for the stake. The last day of the life of this unhappy woman, May 19, 1536, presents many interesting moments. She sent for the wife of the lieutenant of the Tower, threw herself upon her knees before her, and said, "Go to the princess

Mary (daughter of Catharine) in my name, and, in this position, beg her forgiveness for all the sufferings I have drawn upon her and her mother." "She sent her last message to the king," says Hume, "and acknowledged the obligations which she owed him in uniformly continuing his endeavors for her advancement." "From a private gentlewoman, you have made me, first, a marchioness, then a queen; and, as you can raise me no higher in this world, you are now sending me to be a saint in heaven."

BOLINGBROKE, Henry St. John, viscount, born in 1672, at Battersea, near London, of an ancient family, the members of which had distinguished themselves in military and civil offices, received an education adapted to his rank, and completed his studies at Oxford, where he early exhibited uncommon talents, and attracted general attention. On entering the world, he displayed a rare union of brilliant parts and elegance of manners, with beauty of person, dignity and affability, and such fascinating eloquence, that, according to the unanimous testimony of his contemporaries, nobody could resist him. Unfortunately, the passions of his youth opposed the developement of his talents; and, in his 23d year, he was distinguished principally as an accomplished libertine. His parents, supposing that marriage would have a salutary influence upon him, proposed to him a lady, the heiress of a million, who united with a charming figure a cultivated mind and noble birth. But the young couple had lived but a short time together, when irreconcilable disputes arose between them, in consequence of which they separated for ever. plan was adopted to give a better direction to the impetuous character of B. By the influence of his father, he obtained a seat in the house of commons. Here his eloquence, his acuteness, and the strength of his judgment, attracted universal attention. His former idleness was changed at once into the most incessant activity. In 1704, he was made secretary of war, and came into immediate connexion with the duke of Marlborough, whose talents he discerned, and whose enterprises he supported with all his influence. When, however, the whigs gained the ascendency, B. gave in his resignation. Now followed, as he said himself, the two most active years of his life, in which he devoted himself to study, but by no means neglected public affairs. He continued to maintain a constant intercourse with the queen, who preferred him to her other counsellors.

Another

The whig ministry was overthrown, to the astonishment of all Europe; and B. received the department of foreign affairs, in which post he concluded the peace of Utrecht, of which he was always proud, and which gained him general admiration. In concluding this peace, every thing was unfavorable to him-the whigs, the peers, the bank, the East India society, Marlborough, Eugene, the emperor, Holland, the jealousy of all the European powers, the weakness of his own queen, the irresolution, imprudence, and even the envy of his colleagues. B. afterwards became a prey to the impetuosity of his passions, and exhibited a versatility of conduct that has rendered his loyalty, his patriotism and his whole character suspected. The collision of the whigs and tories produced such a general excitement, that the ministers were attacked, the peace was decried as disastrous, and the Protestant succession was declared in danger. At this moment, a fatal contention broke out between the lord high treasurer (the earl of Oxford) and B., immediately after the conclusion of the peace. Swift, the friend of both, but particularly intimate with the lord high treasurer, accused B. of having principally contributed to the ruin of their party. Be this as it may, queen Anne, provoked to the utmost by Oxford, dismissed him four days before her death, and made B. prime minister. But the death of Anne changed the whole scene. George I of Hanover ascended the throne, and the whigs triumphed more completely than ever. B., who could not impose on the Hanoverian court by his plausible pretences, and who was as much envied as he was hated, was dismissed by king George, while yet in Germany, and fled to France, upon learning that the opposite party intended to bring him to the scaffold. James III, the Pretender, as he was called, invited him to Lorraine, and made him his secretary of state. But, when Louis XIV died, B. lost all hope of the success of the Pretender, and repented of having entered into so close a connexion with him. Whatever the feelings and plans of B. may have been, his intentions, with regard to James III, were doubtless honest. Nevertheless, the latter deprived him of his dignity, and transferred it to the duke of Ormond. Thus it was the strange fate of B. to be charged with treachery, both by the king and the Pretender. Offers were made to him by king George, on condition of his revealing the secrets of the Pretender. This proposal he at first declined, but

afterwards yielded so far as to promise a decisive blow against the cause of the Pretender, on condition of the total oblivion of what had already passed, and of an entire confidence for the future. Walpole, however, was afraid of B.'s influence in parliament, and opposed his recall. B., in order to forget his situation, applied himself to writing philosophical consolations after the manner of Seneca, but soon found sweeter ones in his marriage with a rich and amiable lady, niece of madame de Maintenon. In 1723, the parliament, which had been so hostile to B., was at length dissolved, and he was permitted to return to England. His estates, however, were not restored until two years after, by a particular act of parliament. On his return, he lived at first retired in the country, maintaining, however, a correspondence with Swift and Pope. But no sooner was the voice of opposition heard in parliament, than he hastened to London, and, as the restoration of his seat in the house of lords was still denied him, attacked the ministry during eight years, in the journals or in pamphlets, with great success. He drew upon himself powerful enemies, against whom he directed his Treatise on Parties, which is considered as his masterpiece. He then returned to France, with the intention, as even Swift supposed, of throwing himself into the arms of the Pretender's party, against which charge Pope defended him, and declared that he had himself advised his noble friend to leave an ungrateful country, by which he was suspected and persecuted. In France, B. wrote, 1735, his Letters upon History, which are admired even at the present day, but in which the individual character of the author appears to the exclusion of general views, and which were blamed, in particular, for attacking revealed religion, which he had once warmly defended. In 1729, in the midst of his contest with Walpole, he had suggested to Pope his Essay on Man, assisted him in the composition, and supplied him with the most important materials. His feelings finally carried him back to his country, where he wrote, 1738, his Idea of a Patriot King, under the eyes of the heir apparent. He died in 1751, in his 80th year, after a long and dreadful disease, during which he composed Considerations on the State of the Nation. He bequeathed his manuscripts to the Scotch poet Mallet, who published them in 1753; but scarcely had they appeared, when a general cry was raised against them, on account of their