Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 05.djvu/292

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justice of the common pleas in Ireland. She was at the time of her marriage in her seventeenth year, and is described as of great beauty, and endowed with rare abilities, virtues, and accomplishments. In addition to his 'ample and flourishing practice' at Dublin Boate was engaged as physician-general of the English forces in Ireland, large numbers of which were then employed there against the Irish confederates. An interesting medical work by Boate — ' Observationes medicæ de affectibus a veteribus omissis' 12mo) — appeared in 1649 (cf. Haller's Bibl. Med.) Boate quitted Ireland in May 1644, and in that year published in quarto at London a treatise with the following title on the Hebrew text of the Old Testament: 'Animadversiones sacræ ad textum Hebraicum Veteris Testamenti: in quibus loci multi difficiles hactenus non satis intellecti vulgo, multseque phrases obscuriores ac vocabula parum adhuc percepta explicantur. . . . Auctore Amoldo Bootio, M.D. Boate's work was severely criticised by the erudite Louis Capel, professor at the protestant university at Saumur, whose treatise, entitled 'Arcanum Punctuationis revelatum,' published in 1624, was regarded as an assault on the integrity of the Hebrew text of the Bible, Boate fixed his residence at Paris, and maintained correspondence with Ussher, who acknowledged his obligations to him for valuable aid and for information in connection with continental manuscripts, and with the works of erudition in progress abroad. A reply to criticisms by Louis Capel was published by Boate at Paris in 1650, addressed to Ussher, and entitled 'De Textus Hebraici Veteris Testamenti certitudine et authoritate contra Ludovici Capelli criticam Epistola Amoldi Bootii ad reverendissimum Jacobum Usserium archiepiscopum Armachanum.' To this publication were appended a letter dated August 1650, from Ussher to Boate, and an appendix addressed by the latter to Buxtorf. Boate's wife died in her twenty-fifth year at Paris in April 1651. As a memorial of her virtues and of his attachment to her he published there in the same year in English 'The Character of a Trulie Vertuous and Pious Woman, as it hath been acted by Mistris Margaret Dungan (wife to Doctor Arnold Boate) in the constant course of her whole life.' This small volume, apparently unknown to bibliographers, was inscribed to Thomas Syderserf, the deprived bishop of Galloway, who contributed to it a Latin elegy on the deceased lady. Boate's views as to the Hebrew text of the Bible were vindicated by Ussher in a Latin letter addressed by him to Capel in 1652. In that year we find Boate in communication with Samuel Hartlib in reference to the publication of 'Ireland's Naturall History ' — a work prepared by Boate's brother Gerard [q. v.] The last printed work of Boate appears to have been a quarto volume of two hundred and forty pages, issued at Paris in 1658, with the following title: 'Arnoldi Bootii Vindiciæ seu apodixis apologetica pro Hebraica veritate contra duos notissimos et infensissimos ejus hostes, Johannem Morinum et Ludovicum Capellum.' Prefixed is a dedication, dated Paris, 6 May 1663, to Gisbert Voet, an eminent protestant theologian, professor of Hebrew in the university of Utrecht. The date of Boate's death has not been ascertained.

[Parr's Life of James Ussher, London, 1686 ; Works of Ussher, Dublin, 1848; Epistola Jacobi Usserii Armachani ad Ludovicum Capellum de variantibus textus Hebraici lectionibus, London, 1652, 1658; Bibliotheca Belgica, cura J. F. Foppens, Bruxelles, 1739; History of City of Dublin, 1854; Hist, of Irish Confederation and War in Ireland, 1641–43, Dublin, 1882.]

J. T. G.


BOATE, DE BOOT, BOOTIUS, or BOTIUS, GERARD (1604–1650), physician, brother of Arnold Boate [q. v.], was born at Gorcum, Holland, in 1604. He entered the university of Leyden as a medical student 21 June 1628, and graduated there as doctor of medicine 3 July 1628. In 1630 he published a book styled ‘Horæ Jucundæ.’ Boate settled in London, was employed as physician to the king, and, in conjunction with his brother Arnold, produced the treatise on philosophy, already mentioned as published in 1641. He became a contributor to the fund under the English act of parliament of 1642, which admitted the Dutch to subscribe money for the reduction of the Irish, to be subsequently repaid by grant of forfeited lands in Ireland. With a view to augmenting the interest of ‘adventurers’ for Irish lands, he undertook the compilation of a work to supply information on the profits to be derived from the various productions of that country. Boate had never visited Ireland, but materials for his work were furnished by his brother Arnold and by some of the English who had been ejected from Irish lands sometime occupied by them. Boate commenced the ‘Natural History’ early in 1645 and completed it within the year, but its publication was deferred. He was admitted a licentiate of the College of Physicians 6 Nov. 1646. In April 1649 the appointment of Boate as doctor to the hospital at Dublin was referred by the council of state at London to Oliver Cromwell, who in the preceding month had been appointed