himself in two huge folios, London, 1728 (usually bound in one; they are the earliest if not the only folios published by a presbyterian minister of Ireland). Prefixed is a recommendation (dated 23 April 1728) signed by Calamy and five other London ministers. The first volume contains seventy-one sermons (several being funeral, ordination, and anniversary discourses; many had already been collected in two volumes, 1708–10, 8vo), and several tracts on justification. Embedded among the sermons (at p. 326) is a very curious piece of puritan autobiography, ‘Some Remarkable Passages in the Life and Death of Mr. Edmund Trench.’ The second volume is wholly controversial. Not included in these volumes are:
- ‘Vindication of Osborne’ (see above).
- ‘Sacramental Hymns collected (chiefly) out of such Passages of the New Testament as contain the most suitable matter of Divine Praises in the Celebration of the Lord's Supper, &c.,’ Dublin, 1693, small 8vo, with another title-page, London, 1693. (This little book, overlooked by his biographers, is valuable as illustrating Boyse's theology: it nominally contains twenty-three hymns, but reckoning doublets in different metres there are forty-one pieces by Boyse, one from George Herbert, and two from Mr. Patrick, i.e. Simon Patrick, bishop of Ely. In a very curious preface Boyse disclaims the possession of any poetic genius; but his verses, published thirteen years before Isaac Watts came into the field, are not without merit. To the volume is prefixed the approval of six Dublin ministers, headed by ‘Tho. Toy,’ and including ‘Tho. Emlin.’)
- ‘Case of the Protestant Dissenters’ (see above. The tract is so rare that Reid knows only of the copy at Trinity College, Dublin. The vindication of it is in the ‘Works’).
- ‘Family Hymns for Morning and Evening Worship. With some for the Lord's Days. … All taken out of the Psalms of David,’ Dublin, 1701, 16mo. (Unknown to bibliographers. Contains preface, recommendation by six Dublin ministers, and seventy-six hymns, in three parts, with music. Boyse admits ‘borrowing a few expressions from some former versions.’ The poetry is superior to his former effort. A copy, uncatalogued, is in the Antrim Presbytery Library at Queen's College, Belfast.)
- ‘The Difference between Mr. E. and the Dissenting Ministers of D., &c.’ (see above. Emlyn reprints it in the appendix to his ‘Narrative,’ 1719, and says Boyse drew it up). Of his separate publications an incomplete list is furnished by Witherow. The bibliography of the earlier ones is better given in Reid. Boyse wrote the Latin inscription on the original pedestal (1701) of the equestrian statue of William III in College Green, Dublin.
[Choppin's Funeral Sermon, 1728; Towers, in Biog. Brit. ii. (1780), 531; Calamy's Hist. Acc. of my own Life, 2nd ed. 1830, ii. 515; Thorn's Liverpool Churches and Chapels, 1854, 68; Witherow's Hist. and Lit. Mem. of Presbyterianism in Ireland, 1st ser. 1879, p. 79, 2nd ser. 1880, p. 74; Reid's Hist. Presb. Ch. in Ireland (ed. Killen), 1867, vols. ii. iii.; Anderson's British Poets, 1794, x. 327; Monthly Repos. 1811, pp. 204, 261; Christian Moderator, 1826, p. 34; Armstrong's Appendix to Ordination Service (James Martineau), 1829, p. 70; Lodge's Peerage of Ireland (ed. Archdall), 1789 (re Countess Donegal); Winder's MSS. in Renshaw Street Chapel Library, Liverpool (re Whitehaven); Narrative of the Proceedings of Seven General Synods of the Northern Presbyterians in Ireland, 1727, p. 47; manuscript extracts from Minutes of General Synod, 1721; Smith's Biblioth. Anti-Quak. 1782, p. 82.]
BOYSE, SAMUEL (1708–1749), poet, was the son of Joseph Boyse [q, v.], a dissenting minister, and was born in Dublin in 1706. He was educated at a private school in Dublin and at the university of Glasgow, His studies were interrupted by his marriage when twenty with a Miss Atchenson. He returned to Dublin with his wife, and lived in his father's house without adopting any profession. His father died in 1728, and in 1730 Boyse went to Edinburgh. He had printed a letter on Liberty in the 'Dublin Journal,' No. xcvii., in 1726, but his regular commencement as an author dates from 1731, when he printed his first book, 'Translations and Poems,' in Edinburgh. He was patronised by the Scottish nobility, and in this volume and in some later poems wrote in praise of his patrons. An elegy on the death of Viscountess Stormont, called 'The Tears of the Muses,' 1736, procured for Boyse a valuable reward from her husband, and the Duchess of Gordon gave the poet an introduction for a post in the customs. The day on which he ought have applied was stormy, and Boyse chose to lose the place rather than face the rain. Debts at length compelled him to fly from Edinburgh. His patrons gave him introductions to the chief poet of the day, Mr. Pope, to the lord chancellor, and to Mr. Murray, afterwards Lord Mansfield, and then solicitor-general. Boyse had, however, not sufficient steadiness to improve advantages, and wasted the opportunities which these introductions might have given him of procuring a start in the world of letters or a settlement in life. Pope happened to be from home, and Boyse never called again. The phrases of Johnson may be recognised in a description of him at
