Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 05.djvu/377

 # ‘Tributes to the Dead, more than 200 Epitaphs, many of them original,' 1830, 12mo. The ‘Gentleman’s Magazine’ mentions, without date: He published numerous single sermons and addresses. He wrote a ‘Moral Review of the Conduct and Case of Mary Ashford, violated and murdered by Abraham Thorton,’ Dudley, 1818, 8vo. (This poor girl was murdered, at the age of twenty, on 27 May 1817; Booker wrote her epitaph, partly in verse signed L. B., in Sutton churchyard.) He is sometimes quoted as the author of another piece suggested by the occurrence, ‘The Mysterious Murder, or What’s o’clock: a Melodrama in 3 acts; by G. L.,’ Birmingham [1817?], 12mo. This was by George Ludlam, prompter at the Theatre Royal, Birmingham. Booker's pamphlet was much discussed, inasmuch as he assumed the guilt of the acquitted man. He also wrote: ‘Suggestions for a candid Revisal of the Book of Common Prayer,' ‘A Plain Form of Christian Worship for use of Workhouses and Infimaries,' ‘Select Psalms and Hymns for use of Churches,' and ‘Illustrations of the Liturgy.'
 * 1) ‘The Springs of Plynlimmon, a Poem.' Wolverhampton, 1834, 12mo.
 * 1) ‘The Mitre Oak,' and
 * 2) ‘Mandane, a Drama.'

 BOOLDE, WILLIAM (fl. 1455), topographer and historian, is said by Tanner (on the authority of a manuscript at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge) to have entered the monastery of Christ Church, Canterbury. on Lady Day, 1443, and to have been elected ‘not11rius’ of the same monastery in 1455. The Works ascribed to him by Tanner are ‘Catalogue monasteriorum et castellorum in singulis Angliæ comitatibus, uti etiam in Scotia,’ and ‘Chronicon breve Regum Angliæ ab Arturo nd Henricum VI.’

 BOOLE, GEORGE (1815–1864), mathematician and logician, was born on 2 Nov. 1815, His father was a small tradesman in Lincoln, and besides his own direct help-which must have been of some value, for he was an ingenious man with a decided turn for mechanics and elementary mathematics -was only able to give his son such instruction as it national school in Lincoln, and subsequently a small commercial school, afforded. From the age of sixteen Boole was himself employed in teaching, first at a school in Lincoln and then at one in the neighbouring village of Waddington. He was only in his twentieth year when he opened a school on his own account. During these earlier years every moment of spare time was devoted to his private study, and he thus acquired an extensive knowledge not only of Greek and Latin, but also of the modern languages, such as French, German, and Italian. His devotion to mathematics was of somewhat later growth than is usual in cases of such remarkable subsequent eminence.

In the year 1849 he was appointed to the mathematical chair in the newly formed Queen's College at Cork, where the rest of his life was spent in the active prosecution of his professorial duties. He afterwards held the office of public examiner for degrees in the Queen's University, with great success. The principal recognitions of his eminence by other public bodies during the next few years were the bestowal of a Royal Society medal in 1844, of the Keith medal by the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1857, and the degrees of LL.D. and D.C.L. by the universities of Dublin and Oxford respectively. In 1855 he married Miss Everest, daughter of the Rev. T. R. Everest, a niece of the distinguished Indian surveyor, Colonel Everest, with whom he lived in perfect domestic happiness, and by whom he had a family of five daughters.

His constitution, which had never been very strong, was probably somewhat weakened by his strenuous studies. His death was rather sudden, the result of a feverish cold and congestion of the lungs following on exposure to the rain when going to the college. He died on 8 Dec. 1864. By the unanimous testimony of those who knew him he was a man of much sweetness and reverence of temper, of wide culture and sympathy, and of remarkable modesty.

His principal productions were in the province of pure mathematics. Besides two text-books, of very high merit and including much original research, on ‘Differential Equations’ and on ‘Finite Differences,' he published a number of papers in various mathematical and other journals. Of these the most remarkable are his ‘Researches on the Theory of Analytical Transformations,’ contributed to the ‘Cambridge Mathematical Journal’ in 184l, the ‘General Method in Analysis’ (1844), ‘The Comparison of Transcendents’ (1857); also several papers on ‘Differential Equations’ (1862, 1864). these being published in the ‘Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.' He also 