matician and writer on hydrostatics and hydrodynamics, was born at Tartaras, near St. Etienne, on the 11th of August, 1730, and was educated in the jesuits' college at Lyons. On the completion of his education, he addressed himself for advice as to his future course in life to Fontenelle, by whom he was introduced to Clairant and d'Alembert; and those philosophers, appreciating his talent for mathematics, encouraged him to persevere in cultivating that science, and assisted in obtaining him advancement. In 1752 he was elected a correspondent of the Academy of Sciences, to which body he continued during life to contribute many important memoirs. In the same year, by the recommendation of the eminent architect, Le Camus de Mézières, he obtained a professorship at the school of engineering at Mézières. In 1768, on the retirement of Le Camus from the office of examiner of students of engineering, the Abbé Bossut succeeded him, and became remarkable for the strictness and impartiality with which he conducted his examinations. In the same year he was elected a member of the Academy of Sciences. The Revolution deprived him for a time of his places, with the emoluments, and reduced him to temporary poverty; but on the establishment of the institute, he was chosen one of its members, and afterwards was appointed one of the examiners of the polytechnic school. From this situation, age and infirmity obliged him to retire with a pension in 1808. He died on the 14th of January, 1814, in his eighty-fourth year, as highly respected for his moral character, as he was admired for his scientific abilities. The sciences to the advancement of which Bossut contributed most were those relating to the equilibrium and motion of liquids; and in particular, the theory of the stability of ships may be said to have been founded by him—a theory whose practical application has been attended with most beneficial results to the art of ship-building. These advantages naturally fell, in the first instance, to the lot of the French navy, the superior sailing qualities of which, at the end of the last and beginning of the present century, are a matter of history. Subsequent authors have added to our knowledge of the theory of the stability of ships, but the greater part of it is still due to Bossut. His memoirs on this and on other mathematical subjects, which gained prizes offered by the Academy of Sciences, were collected in one volume, and published in 1812. He was the author, besides, of several other works, amongst which the most important were, a course of mathematics, very valuable in its time as a book of instruction and reference, but now superseded by more recent works, and a "History of Mathematics," published in 1810, a popular rather than a profound work, but excellent of its kind.—W. J. M. R.
BOSSULUS, Matthew, an eminent rhetorician of Paris, who in 1583 gave lessons in the college of Boncour in that city. He was a great master of his art, which he taught for some time at Valencia in Spain, where his reputation stood so high, that he was chosen tutor to Don Carlos, the son of Philip II. On one occasion he delivered an oration on oratory and orators, which made so deep an impression on one of his hearers, that although the discourse lasted for an hour and a half, he remembered and could repeat every word of it.—T. J.
BOSTANAI or BOSTANI, was Resh Gelutha (Prince of the Captivity), i.e. temporal head of the Jewish colony in Babylonia, at the time of the conquest of Persia by the Moslems in 1641. He was in favour, it is said, with the Caliph Ali, from whose hands he received the daughter of the last native king of Persia, Jezdegerd III. She was converted to Judaism and became Bostanai's wife. His life, which fell in an eventful time, became the theme of a legendary story, published in Venice, 1585, and elsewhere.—T. T.
BOSTOCK, John, an English physician, born at Liverpool in 1774, practised first in his native town, where he also lectured on physiology. In 1817 he removed to London, and was appointed in 1822 chemical lecturer in the medical school attached to Guy's hospital. This position he continued to hold for many years. He died in 1846. Dr. Bostock's most important work is his "Elementary System of Physiology," London, 1827; of this a second edition appeared in 1837. He was the author of several articles in Brewster's Edinburgh Cyclopædia, in Nicholson's Journal, the Annals of Philosophy, &c., and also of an essay on respiration, published in 1804.—W. S. D.
BOSTON, The Rev. Thomas, a Scotch presbyterian divine of the established church, born at Dunse, Berwickshire, 17th March, 1676. His father, who belonged to the humbler ranks of life was a man of high respectability of character—a decided covenanter, and a sufferer in the cause. While in prison, whither he had been sent because unable or unwilling to pay the fines imposed upon him, his son Thomas, the youngest of seven children, then only entering on boyhood, was his constant companion—a circumstance which continued to live in his recollection, and exert an influence upon his character. After receiving some initiatory training at home, he was sent in his ninth year to the grammar school of his native parish, where, during the four years of his attendance, he made rapid progress in learning. While yet a youth he was brought to serious reflection by incidentally hearing two discourses preached by the Rev. Henry Erskine, father of the Erskines, founders of the secession church, while on a ministerial visit to Dunse. It was his design on leaving school to study for the ministry, but the death of his father about that time prevented him then, and for two years after, from carrying his purpose into execution. In the interim he was occasionally employed in the office of a public notary in the town, where he doubtlessly benefited by the knowledge of business and character which he acquired, but without receiving any salary, on which account he considered himself unjustly used. He entered the university of Edinburgh in 1691, and soon injured his health by the eager diligence with which he applied himself to study. This however, gained him the exhibition in the gift of the presbytery of Dunse, a trifle in its way, but very acceptable to the needy student. Having entered upon the study of theology, he endeavoured to increase his finances, between sessions, by teaching a school at Glencairn, where he resided with the minister of the parish, in whose family he found himself very uncomfortable in consequence of frequent dissensions amongst its members. After leaving this situation he obtained that of tutor to Mr. Andrew Fletcher of Aberlady, whose mother had then married Lieutenant Bruce of Kennet as her second husband, and taken her son with her to her new residence. Here he remained till entering upon his trials for license as a preacher, which he obtained in 1697. Mr. Boston began his probationary career as a terrorist—a style of preaching which he subsequently modified to some extent, but without approaching to that which has been described as "prophesying smooth things." This circumstance, together with his conscientious objection to patronage, hindered his obtaining a settlement till three years after license. The one he then obtained was in Simprin, a small barren parish in the lower merse of Berwickshire, containing at that time only ninety adult inhabitants, and subsequently united, on account of its insignificance, with the adjoining parish of Swinton. Here he was ordained in 1699, and remained till 1707, when he was translated to Ettrick, a parish in the south-west of Selkirkshire, where he found himself little better off in point of emolument, and in other respects a loser from change of place. The day on which he entered upon his new sphere of labour was that on which the union between England and Scotland legally took effect—1st May, 1707—an event which excited political animosities in that remote, as in more central places, from which it was impossible the minister, however temperate and discreet, could escape. The government had shortly before imposed the oath of abjuration on all persons holding public and official stations, whether in church or state. The refusal to take this oath exposed the nonjurors to the penalty of £500, besides loss of office. Most of the Scotch clergy took the oath. The minority, among whom was Mr. Boston, refused on various grounds. Those on which he demurred were conscientious scruples respecting the lawfulness of swearing at all. He was decidedly opposed to the Pretender, against whose adherents the oath was chiefly if not solely aimed, and as decidedly attached to the existing government. Even this discriminate loyalty towards the ruling powers was construed into sycophancy and time-serving, and a number of persons withdrew from his ministry.
Several favourable opportunities offered themselves for removing from Ettrick to more eligible places; but in despite of the treatment he received, he continued there till his death, which took place on the 20th March, 1732, in the fifty-seventh year of his age, and thirty-third of his ministry. Had he survived till the end of the following year, he no doubt would have taken part with the seceders who then withdrew from the established church, and with whom he had co-operated in most of their preliminary doings. A simple stone raised to his memory in the burial-ground of Ettrick has been superseded of late years by a more handsome one raised by public subscription.
