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was banished for awhile from Paris for the indecency of cursing and swearing at a fashionable gaming-table, when there was a run of luck against him. He was more often spoken of by the name of a favourite actor than by his own—the Abbé Monclori was what he was generally called. He seems to have been an idle, good-humoured, and good-natured fellow—a sort of small Sir John Falstaff. The list of his works, most of them dramatic pieces, would occupy more room than we can spare. The first published was "Poems," printed in 1626; his last, "Epistles in Verse," &c., 1659. Two volumes of tales in imitation of Fontaine's, published under the name of his brother, Antoine Ouville le Metel, are said to be by Boisrobert.—J. A., D.

BOISSARD, Jean Jacques, born at Besançon in 1528; died at Metz in 1602. He commenced his studies at the university of Louvain, then went to Germany and Italy. Here he entered into the service—we are not told in what capacity—of Cardinal Caraffa. Antiquarian tastes were soon formed among the wonder-works of Rome. Our young student cultivated his talents for design, and made drawings of the most remarkable objects in Rome and the islands of the Archipelago. He was proceeding to Greece when ill health compelled his return. He was now assisted and encouraged by Cardinal Carpi. Boissard's earliest studies were directed by his uncle, a distinguished Greek scholar. On the continent, as in England—(see the article on Roger Ascham)—the study of Greek was, in the sixteenth century, regarded as connected with protestantism. However this may be, before leaving Rome, Boissard professed the reformed doctrines. When he returned to Franche Comté he found that protestantism, in any form, was not tolerated there. He left at Monbeillard a valuable collection of antiquities, which he had found in Italy, with a friend for safe keeping, and he fixed his tent at Metz. His antiquarian treasures were plundered or destroyed in the miserable religious wars which convulsed France. Of Boissard's works there are none without some interest. They are chiefly, we might almost say exclusively, on subjects of art and archeology—volumes of poems, valuable for their engraved illustrations; books of emblems, often very fanciful; folios of topography, and of history and biography; in which faithful portraits of the features of each person whose life is given, are held out as the great temptation to purchase. These, could we believe the promise fulfilled, would be valuable.—J. A., D.

BOISSAT, Pierre de, born at Vienne in Dauphiné in the latter part of the sixteenth century; died in 1613. He was vice-bailli of Vienne. He wrote several historical and genealogical works, the most important of which is a "History of the Knights of Malta," edited by his son, the best edition of which is that of Paris, 1659.—J. A., D.

BOISSAT, Pierre de, born at Vienne in Dauphiné in 1603; died in 1662. He appears to have had a quick ear for verse, and wrote Latin in metrical forms with facility. This talent was exhibited while he was yet a child, and from it he was called "Boissat l'Esprit." He was first intended for ecclesiastical life, then the bar was thought of; while thus irresolute, accident or idleness threw him into a dragoon saddle. Our young officer visited Malta, where the recollection of his father's History of the Knights of Malta secured him a hospitable and kindly reception. Boissat had the reputation of a brave man, and what served him even better, that of a skilful duellist. Society, in its various grades, seemed determined to show him such honours as it could. He was named by the court, gentleman of the chamber to Gustav d'Orleans, was received as a member of the French Academy, and by Gaspar Lascaris, vice-legate of Avignon, he was given the title and dignity of count palatine. Less distinctions than these would have made him a dangerous visitor to ladies with or without hearts; and we have a strange story of his having been found at a ball in female costume with Madame Sault, whose husband was lieutenant du roi in Dauphiné. The story is not very intelligibly told; perhaps there was more to tell than the lady communicated—perhaps less than her servants suspected. The servants fell upon him with sticks and beat him unmercifully. Six years' litigation followed—pleadings and counter-pleadings, oral and written. The affair, somehow or other, not taking the natural course of a duel—the lieutenant du roi perhaps not being gentleman enough for the comte palatine—but getting into the law-courts at last, the noblesse of Dauphiné thought that too much had been made of the matter by the public, and too much also by the lawyers. The result of their movement was, that the count had to quit Grenoble and trudge back to Vienne. Whether a condition to that effect was insisted on by the friends of the lieutenant to give him the opportunity of retaliation, or whether he was led only by his own free fancy, the count soon reappeared as a married man. Years past on, and we find him again alone—his wife dead or forgotten. He is now a devotee, a worshipper, seen of all men in streets and marketplaces; a long white beard, hair streaming in negligent strings, clothes ragged and filthy. He called himself a pilgrim, and wished to teach children their catechism; but though they gathered round him, it was only to laugh at the fantastic figure of the poor man, who yet could not be treated as if actually insane. Queen Christina of Sweden passed through Vienne, and Boissat presented himself before her. She did not or would not believe that it was the same person whom she had seen under other circumstances, and said that some frantic fanatic had assumed his name. He published in 1631, under the name of Baudon, a romance, entitled "The Negropontine Story, or the Loves of Alexander and Olympia." Under the same name he published, in 1633, Fables from Æsop, and was in the habit of printing poems on flying sheets, or broadsides as they are called. Some of these were bound together, and issued as his "Piéces en prose et en vers." One hundred and fifty copies thus entitled are said to have been in the hands of his family, and issued for sale so late as the year 1720. It is probably the same collection which we find mentioned with the title "Petri de Boissat Opera et operum fragmenta Historica et Poetica." He published "Relation des miracles de notre dame de l'Ozier." This book also contained "Des vers à la louange de la Sainte Vierge," in five languages—Greek, Latin, Spanish, Italian, and French; 1659. He published also "Morale Chretienne." These were with his own name.—J. A., D.

BOISSEAU, François-Gabriel, a French physician and medical writer, was born at Brest in 1791. He served in the French peninsular army as a junior assistant-surgeon, and continued attached to the imperial army until the battle of Waterloo. He then entered the military hospital of the Val-de-grâce, where he continued his medical studies, and took his degree as doctor of medicine in April, 1817. From this year to 1829, Boisseau was the principal editor of the Journal universel des Sciences Médicales, and also assisted in the preparation of the Biographie Médicale, published during the same period by Panckoucke. After the revolution of 1830 he was appointed professor of the hospital at Metz; but excessive literary labour had undermined his health, and he died in Metz on the 2nd January, 1836. Of his numerous writings the principal are—"Considérations générales sur les classifications en Médecine," Paris, 1826; "Nosographie Organique," Paris, 1828-1830; and "Pyrétologie Physiologique ou Traité des fiévres," &c., Paris, 1823.—W. S. D.

BOISSEREE, Sulpice, a noted German architect and archæologist, borne at Cologne in 1783. A journey which he made to Paris in 1803, and another along the course of the Rhine, in company with his brother Melchior, and his friend, J. B. Bertram, were the occasions of his resolving to make a collection of German art-antiquities. This resolution he carried out in his native city, by amassing upwards of two hundred pictures, which, as representative of various schools of painting that, predominating in one century, were almost entirely lost sight of in the next, were considered of such value that, after being removed to Stuttgart, the price of 120,000 thalers was offered for them by Louis of Bavaria. This collection is now at Munich. In 1835 Sulpice Boisserée was named curator-general of plastic antiquities in Bavaria, and shortly afterwards a member of the French Academy of Fine Arts. He had an important share in the composition of the following work—"Sammlung altnieder-und oberdeutscher Gemaelde der Brüder, S. und M. Boiserée und Bertram," &c. 1822-1839.—J. S., G.

* BOISSIER, Edward, a Swiss botanist of the present century, member of the Society of Natural History of Geneva. He has travelled much in Spain, and has published an account of a botanical trip in the south of Spain during the year 1837, and a description of the new plants collected during the journey; also a Flora Orientalis, which is still incomplete.—J. H. B.

BOISSIEU, Jean Jacques, a French portrait and landscape painter, born at Lyons in 1725. His manner was a little after Ostade. His engravings after Berchem, Ruysdael, and Asselyn, are numerous; and Bryan tells us "his point is remarkably pleasing and picturesque, yet spirited and masterly."—W. T.

BOISSONADE, Jean François, a distinguished Greek