commander-in-chief for Ireland. The treasurer-at-war in the following September paid Boate fifty pounds ‘on account of his entertainment as physician for Ireland.’ Boate arrived in Ireland at the latter end of 1649, while Cromwell was in command there, but he survived only a short time. He died in January 1649–50.
Boate's papers and his ‘Natural History’ left behind him in London came into the hands of Milton's friend, Samuel Hartlib, a Pole, resident in England. With the assent of Arnold Boate, then at Paris, the ‘Natural History’ was published at London in 1652 by Hartlib, with a dedication to Oliver Cromwell and to Charles Fleetwood, commander-in-chief in Ireland. It bore the title: ‘Ireland's Naturall History. Being a true and ample description of its situation, greatness, shape, and nature; of its hills, woods, heaths, bogs; of its fruitfull parts and profitable grounds, with the severall ways of manuring and improving the same; with its heads or promontories, harbours, roades, and bayes; of its springs and fountaines, brookes, rivers, loghs; of its metalls, mineralls, freestone, marble, sea-coal, turf, and other things that are taken out of the ground. And lastly of the nature and temperature of its air and season, and what diseases it is free from or subject unto. Conducing to the advancement of navigation, husbandry, and other profitable arts and professions. Written by Gerard Boate, late Doctor of Physick to the State in Ireland, and now published by Samuel Hartlib, Esq., for the common good of Ireland, and more especially for the benefit of the Adventurers and Planters there.’ In his dedication to Cromwell and Fleetwood, Hartlib observed: ‘I lookt also somewhat upon the hopefull appearance of replanting Ireland shortly, not only by the adventurers, but happily by the calling in of exiled Bohemians and other Protestants also, and happily by the invitation of some well affected out of the Low Countries, which to advance are thoughts suitable to your noble genius, and to further the settlement thereof, the Natural History of that countrie will not be unfit, but very subservient.’ The ‘Natural History’ is divided into twenty-four chapters. In a letter, dated Paris, 10 Aug., prefixed to the volume and addressed to Hartlib, Arnold Boate stated that his brother had contemplated three more books on the plants, ‘living creatures,’ and natives of Ireland respectively.
A French version, under the title of ‘Histoire Naturelle d'Irlande,’ was published at Paris in 1666. In relation to the work the author of a defective and inaccurate notice of Boate in the ‘Grand Dictionnaire’ of Moreri, observed: ‘Il y a peu d'ouvrages mieux exécutés dans ce genre. Il serait à souhaiter que nous eussions une histoire dressée sur le même plan de tous les pays du monde, au moins de ceux de l'Europe.’ In repayment of Gerard Boate's contributions in money above mentioned, his relict, Katherine Boate, obtained, under certificate dated 15 Nov. 1667, upwards of one thousand acres of land in Tipperary. A quarto edition of the ‘Natural History’ by Boate was published at Dublin in 1726, and reissued there in 1755. It was again published in the first volume of a ‘Collection of Tracts and Treatises illustrative of the Natural History, Antiquities, and Political and Social State of Ireland,’ 8vo, Dublin, 1860. No edition of Boate's ‘Natural History’ has hitherto been published with annotations or additions.
[Bibliotheca Belgica, cura I. F. Foppens, 1739; Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, London, 1857; Munk's College of Physicians, i. 243; Ashburnham MSS., Royal Irish Academy, Dublin, H. iv. 2; MS. Records of Proceedings under Act of Setlement, Public Record Office, Ireland; Le Grand Dictionnaire historique, par Louis Moreri, Paris, 1759, tome ii. p. 78.]
BOBART or BOBERT, JACOB (1599–1680), the elder, botanist, was born at Brunswick in 1599, and in 1632 was appointed superintendent of the Oxford Physic Garden on its foundation by the Earl of Danby in that year. In 1648 he published an anonymous catalogue, in alphabetical order, of sixteen hundred plants then under his care ('Catalogus plantarum horti medici Oxoniensis, scil. Latino-Anglicus et Anglico-Latinus'); this was revised in 1658 in conjunction with his son [see Bobart, Jacob, the younger], Dr. Philip Stephens, and William Brown. Very little seems to be known of his life, save a few stray hints, such as Granger's statement that 'on rejoicing days he used to have his beard tagged with silver,' and that a goat followed him instead of a dog. He died on 4 Feb. 1679-80 at the garden house, and was buried in the churchyard of St. Peter in the East, where there is a tablet to his memory. His will was dated 2 Nov. 1677, and was proved at the Oxford registry; in it he desired to be buried near his dear wife Mary. He left houses to his sons Jacob and Tilleman (or Tillemant), and mentions a deceased son Joseph; he left legacies also to six daughters, his second wife Ann being residuary legatee. The following portraits exist: engraving by 'Bougher, dated 1675; a full length as frontis-
