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 exhibitions and devote themselves to teaching. Towards 1862 a new boxer, J. Charlemont, was not only very clever with his fists and feet, but an excellent teacher, and the author of a treatise on the art. Lecour, Vigneron and Charlemont may be said to have created la boxe française, which, for defence at equal weights, the French claim to be better than the English.

 BOXWOOD, the wood obtained from the genus Buxus, the principal species being the well-known tree or shrub, B. sempervirens, the common box, in general use for borders of garden walks, ornamental parterres, &c. The other source of the ordinary boxwood of commerce is B. balearica, which yields the variety known as Turkey boxwood. The common box is grown throughout Great Britain (perhaps native in the chalk-hills of the south of England), in the southern part of the European continent generally, and extends through Persia into India, where it is found growing on the slopes of the western Himalayas. There has been much discussion as to whether it is a true native of Britain. Writing more than 200 years ago, John Ray, the author of the important Historia Plantarum, says, “The Box grows wild on Boxhill, hence the name; also at Boxwell, on the Cotteswold Hills in Gloucestershire, and at Boxley in Kent.... It grows plentifully on the chalk hills near Dunstable.” On the other hand the box is not wild in the Channel Islands, and in the north of France, Holland and Belgium is found mainly in hedgerows and near cultivation, and it may have been one of the many introductions owed to the Romans. Only a very small proportion of the wood suitable for industrial uses is now obtained in Great Britain. The box is a very slow-growing plant, adding not more than 1 or 2 in. to its diameter in twenty years, and on an average attaining only a height of 16 ft., with a mean diameter of 10 in. The leaves of this species are small, oval, leathery in texture and of a deep glossy green colour. B. balearica is a tree of considerable size, attaining to a height of 80 ft., with leaves three times larger than those of the common box. It is a native of the islands of the Mediterranean, and grows in Turkey, Asia Minor, and around the shores of the Black Sea, and is supposed to be the chief source of the boxwood which comes into European commerce by way of Constantinople. The wood of both species possesses a delicate yellow colour; it is very dense in structure and has a fine uniform grain, which has given it unique value for the purposes of the wood-engraver. A large amount is used in the manufacture of measuring rules, various mathematical instruments, flutes and other musical instruments, as well as for turning into many minor articles, and for inlaying, and it is a favourite wood for small carvings. The use of boxwood for turnery and musical instruments is mentioned by Pliny, Virgil and Ovid.

 BOYACÁ, or, an inland department of Colombia, bounded by the departments of Santander and Cundinamarca on the N., W. and S., and the republic of Venezuela on the E., and having an area of 33,321 sq. m., including the Casanare territory. Pop. (1899, estimate) 508,940. The department is very mountainous, heavily forested and rich in minerals. The famous Muso emerald mines are located in the western part of Boyacá. The capital, Tunja (pop. 1902, 10,000), is situated in the Eastern Cordilleras, 9054 ft. above sea-level, and has a cool, temperate climate, though only 5° N. of the equator. It was an important place in colonial times, and occupies the site of one of the Indian towns of this region (Hunsa), which had acquired a considerable degree of civilization before the discovery of America. Other towns of note in the department are Chiquinquira (20,000), Moniquira (18,000), Sogamoso (10,787), and Boyacá (7000), where on the 7th of August 1819 Bolivar defeated the Spanish army and secured the independence of New Granada.

 BOYAR (Russ. boyarin, plur. boyare), a dignity of Old Russia conterminous with the history of the country. Originally the boyars were the intimate friends and confidential advisers of the Russian prince, the superior members of his druzhina or bodyguard, his comrades and champions. They were divided into classes according to rank, most generally determined by personal merit and service. Thus we hear of the “oldest,” “elder” and the “younger” boyars. At first the dignity seems to have been occasionally, but by no means invariably, hereditary. At a later day the boyars were the chief members of the prince’s duma, or council, like the senatores of Poland and Lithuania. Their further designation of luchshie lyudi or “the best people” proves that they were generally richer than their fellow subjects. So long as the princes, in their interminable struggles with the barbarians of the Steppe, needed the assistance of the towns, “the best people” of the cities and of the druzhina proper mingled freely together both in war and commerce; but after Yaroslav’s crushing victory over the Petchenegs in 1036 beneath the walls of Kiev, the two classes began to draw apart, and a political and economical difference between the members of the princely druzhina and the aristocracy of the towns becomes discernible. The townsmen devote themselves henceforth more exclusively to commerce, while the druzhina asserts the privileges of an exclusively military caste with a primary claim upon the land. Still later, when the courts of the northern grand dukes were established, the boyars appear as the first grade of a fullblown court aristocracy with the exclusive privilege of possessing land and serfs. Hence their title of dvoryane (courtiers), first used in the 12th century. On the other hand there was no distinction, as in Germany, between the Dienst Adel (nobility of service) and the simple Adel. The Russian boyardom had no corporate or class privileges, (1) because their importance was purely local (the dignity of the principality determining the degree of dignity of the boyars), (2) because of their inalienable right of transmigration from one prince to another at will, which prevented the formation of a settled aristocracy, and (3) because birth did not determine but only facilitated the attainment of high rank, e.g. the son of a boyar was not a boyar born, but could more easily attain to boyardom, if of superior personal merit. It was reserved for Peter the Great to transform the boyarstvo or boyardom into something more nearly resembling the aristocracy of the West.

 BOY-BISHOP, the name given to the “bishop of the boys” (episcopus puerorum or innocentium, sometimes episcopus scholariorum or chorestarum), who, according to a custom very wide-spread in the middle ages, was chosen in connexion with the festival of Holy Innocents. For the origin of the curious authority of the boy-bishop and of the rites over which he presided, see. In England the boy-bishop was elected on December 6, the feast of St Nicholas, the patron of children, and his authority lasted till Holy Innocents’ day (December 28). The election made, the lad was dressed in full bishop’s robes with mitre and crozier and, attended by comrades dressed as priests, made a circuit of the town blessing the people. At Salisbury the boy-bishop seems to have actually had ecclesiastical patronage during his episcopate, and could make valid appointments. The boy and his colleagues took possession of the cathedral and performed all the ceremonies and offices except mass. Originally, it seems, confined to the cathedrals, the custom spread to nearly all the parishes. Several ecclesiastical councils had attempted to abolish or to restrain the abuses of the custom, before it was prohibited by the council of Basel in 1431. It was, however, too popular to be easily suppressed. In England it was abolished by Henry VIII. in 1542, revived by Mary in 1552 and finally abolished by Elizabeth. On the continent it survived longest in Germany, in the so-called Gregoriusfest, said to have been founded by Gregory IV. in 828 in honour of St Gregory, the patron of schools. A school-boy was elected bishop, duly vested, and, attended by two boy-deacons and the town clergy, proceeded to the parish church, where, after a hymn in honour of St Gregory had been sung, he preached. At Meiningen this custom survived till 1799.

