Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 06.djvu/116

 he published a poem on General Lesly's victory at Newburn, which is marked by the utmost extravagance and absurdity of language and of metaphor. In 1640 he published 'Four Letters of Comforts for the deaths of Earle of Haddington and of Lord Boyd.' The 'Psalms of David in Meeter,' with metrical versions of the songs of the Old and New Testament, was published in 1648. The manuscript writings of Boyd, preserved in Glasgow University, are very voluminous, and some extracts have been published as curiosities. The chief portions are the 'Four Evangels' in verse, and a collection of poetical stories, taken chiefly from Bible history, which he calls 'Zion's Flowers,' and which, having been commonly called 'Boyd's Bible,' gave currency to the idea that he had translated the whole Bible. The stories are often absurd enough in style and treatment, but the general notion of their absurdities has been exaggerated from the fact that they were abundantly parodied by those whose object was to caricature the presbyterian style which Boyd represented. He seems to have been inclined to oppose the policy of the royalist party even in earlier days; for though he wrote a Latin ode on the coronation of Charles I at Holyrood in 1633, his dedication of the 'Battell of the Soul' to the king contained what must have been taken as a reflection on the want of strict Sabbatarianism in the episcopal church. In later years he became a staunch covenanter, but did not relish the triumph of Cromwell. In 1650 he preached before Cromwell in the cathedral, and, as we are told, 'railed at him to his face.' Thurloe, Cromwell's secretary, would have called him to account, but Cromwell took means to pay him back more effectually in kind by inviting him to dine and then treating him to three hours of prayers. After that, we are told, Boyd found himself on better terms with the Protector. Reflecting many of the oddities and absurdities of style which were characteristic of his time, Boyd seems nevertheless to have been a man of considerable energy and shrewdness, and to have won a fair amount of contemporary popularity as an author.

 BOYDELL, JOHN (1719–1804), engraver, print publisher, and lord mayor, was born at Dorrington in Shropshire on 19 Jan. 1719. His father, Josiah, was a land surveyor, and his mother's maiden name was Milnes. His grandfather was the Rev. J. Boydell, D.D., vicar of Ashbourne and rector of Mapleton in Derbyshire. Boydell was brought up to his father's profession, but when about one-and-twenty he appears to have abandoned it in favour of art. He walked up to London, became a student in the St. Martin's Lane academy, and apprenticed himself to W. H. Toms, the engraver. The year of his apprenticeship is stated by himself to have been 1741, but in another place he says that he bound himself apprentice when 'within a few months of twenty-one years of age.' It is said that he was moved to do this by his admiration of a print by Toms, after Badeslade, of Hawarden Castle, but we have his own statement engraved upon his first print that he 'never saw an engraved copper-plate before he came on trial.' This first print, which was begun immediately on being bound apprentice, is a copy of an engraving by Le Bas after Teniers. He soon began to publish on his own account small landscapes, which he produced in sets of six and sold for sixpence. One of these was known as his 'Bridgebook' because there was a bridge in each view. As there were few print-shops at that time in London, he induced the sellers of toys to expose them in their windows, and his most successful shop was at the sign of the Cricket-bat in Duke's Court, St. Martin's Lane. Twelve of these small landscape plates are included in the collection of his engravings which he published in 1790, and the earliest date to be found on any of them is 1744. In the next year he appears to have commenced the publication, at the price of one shilling each, of larger views about London, Oxford, and other places in England and Wales, drawn and engraved by himself. This practice he continued with success for about ten years, by which time he had amassed a small capital. This was the foundation of his fortune. In the copy of the Collection of 1790 in the British Museum, which was presented by him to Miss Banks (daughter of the sculptor), is preserved an autograph note, in which he calls it 'The only book that had the honour of making a Lord Mayor of London.' In the 'advertisement' or preface to the volume he speaks of his master Toms as one 'who had himself never risen to any degree of perfection,' and adds, 'indeed at that period there was no engraver of any eminence in this country.' Of his own engravings he speaks with proper humility, for beyond a certain neatness of execution they have little merit. 'The engraver has now collected them,' he wrote, 'more to show the improvement of art in this country, since