that year, that he had just been endeavouring, through the influence of his correspondent, Dr Isaac Watts, to induce the London booksellers to publish it. It was rejected by two of these patrons of literature, to whom it had been recommended by Dr Watts; but was finally printed at London, in 1743, "for Mr Cooper." The author appears to have been seriously anxious that it should become a popular work, for he thus writes to Dr Doddridge:—"In order to make it more generally liked, I was obliged sometimes to go cross to my own inclination, well knowing that, whatever poem is written upon a serious argument, must, upon that very account, be under serious disadvantages; and therefore proper arts must be used to make such a piece go down with a licentious age, which cares for none of those things." This is not very clearly intelligible, but perhaps alludes to the plain, strong, rational, and often colloquially familial language of the poem, which the plurality of modern critics will allow to be its best feature. "The Grave" is now to be esteemed as one of the standard classics of English poetical literature, in which rank it will probably remain longer than many works of greater contemporary, or even present fame.
BOECE, Hector, whose name was otherwise spelled Boyis, Boyes, Boiss, and Boice, an eminent, though credulous, historian, was born about the year 1465-6, at Dundee, and hence he assumed the surname of Deidonanus. His family were possessed of the estate of Panbride, or Balbride, in the county of Angus, which had been acquired by his grandfather, Hugh Boece, along with the heiress in marriage, in consequence of his services to David II., at the battle of Dupplin. The rudiments of his education he received in his native town, which at that time, and for a long time after, was celebrated for its schools: he afterwards studied at Aberdeen, and finally at Paris, where, in 1497, he became a professor of philosophy in the college of Montacute. Of a number of the years of his life about this period, there is evidently nothing to be told. The garrulous and sometimes fabling Dr Mackenzie has filled up this part of his life with an account of his fellow-students at Paris, all of whose names, with one exception, have sunk into oblivion. That exception is the venerated name of Erasmus, who, as a mark of affection for Boece, dedicated to him a catalogue of his works, and maintained with him in after life as regular a correspondence as the imperfect communication of those times would permit In the year 1500, Bishop Elphinstone, who had just founded the College of Aberdeen, invited Boece home to be the principal. The learned professor, reluctant to quit the learned society he enjoyed at Paris, was only persuaded to accept this invitation, as he informs us himself, "by means of gifts and promises;" the principal inducement must of course have been the salary, which amounted to forty merks a-year—equal to two pounds three shillings and fourpence sterling—a sum, however, which Dr Johnson remarks, was then probably equal, not only to the needs, but to the rank of the President of King's College.
On his arrival at Aberdeen he found, among the Chanon Regulars, a great many learned men, and became a member of their order. From this order, indeed, the professors seem to have been selected. As colleague in his ne\v office, Hector Boece associated with himself Mr William Hay, a gentleman of the shire of Angus, who had studied along with him under the same masters both at Dundee and Paris. Alexander Hay, a Chanon of Aberdeen, was the first teacher of scholastic theology in that university. David Guthry and James Ogilvy are mentioned as professors of civil and canon law; but whether they were contemporary teachers or succeeded each other in the same chair, is not quite clear. Henry Spital was the first who taught philosophy at Aberdeen, and for this purpose he wrote An Easy Introduction to the philosophy of Aristotle. Another of the learned professors was Alexander Galloway, rector of Kinkell, who
