signed ‘J. B. O.’ to the third edition of his father's life of Johnson, and afterwards carefully revised and corrected the text for the sixth edition (see Malone's Prefaces). Called to the bar of the Inner Temple, 24 May 1805, he was afterwards appointed a commissioner of bankrupts. He was intimate from an early age with his father’s friend Malone [see Malone, Edmund, whom he assisted in collecting and arranging the materials for a second edition of his Shakespeare, and was requested by him in his last illness to complete it, a task which he duly performed. He contributed to the 'Gentleman's Magazine’ for June 1813 a memoir of Malone, which in 1814 he reprinted for private circulation. One of the earliest members of the Roxhurghe Club, he presented to it in 1816 a facsimile reprint of the poems of Richard Barnfield, and in 1817 ‘A Roxburgh Garland,‘ which consists of a few bacchanalian songs by seventeenth-century poets, and of which ‘L’Envoi,’ a convivial lyric in honour of the club, was composed by himself. In 1821 appeared under his editorship what is known as the third variorum Shakespeare, ‘The Plays and Poems of William Shakespeare, with the corrections and illustrations of various commentators, comprehending a life of the poet and an enlarged history of the stage, by the late Edmund Malone, with a new glossarial index,’ 21 vols. Boswell contributed a long preliminary ‘advertisement,’ various readings and notes of no great importance, with the completion of Ma1one's ‘Essay on the Phraseology and Metre of Shakespeare’ and the Glossarial Index. The collection of old English literature which Malone left him to be used in the preparation of this edition was presented to the Bodleian by Malone’s brother after Boswell’s death. He died suddenly at his chambers in the Temple, unmarried and apparently in embarrassed circumstances, on 24 Feb. 1822, a few weeks before the death, in a duel, of his brother Sir Alexander [q. v.], who in a poetical tribute to his memory said of him that he had ‘never lost one friend or found one foe.' Lockhart in his ‘Life of Scott’ (edition of 1845, p. 477, note) describes Boswell as ‘a man of considerable learning, and of admirable social qualities,' to whom, as to his brother Sir Alexander, Scott was ‘warmly attached’ He belonged to the Albemarle Street circle of John Murray the publisher, who thought Boswell's favourable opinion of the first series of Tales of my Lanrhord ‘worth quoting to Scott, with those of Hallam and Hookham Frere Lockhart's Scott, p. 338).
[Gent. Mag. for March 1822; Letters James Boswell addressed to the Rev. W. J. Temple, 1857; Boswelliana, the Commonplace Book of James Boswell, 1871 ; Catalogue of Oxford Graduates; Catalogue of Early English Poem, collected by E. Malone and now preserved in the Bodleian Library, 1836 ; MS. Registers of Inner Temple.]
BOSWELL, JOHN (1698–1756), author, was descended from a Gloucestershire family, and was born at Dorchester 23 Jan. 1698. After attending the school at Abbey Milton in Dorsetshire, under the Rev. George Marsh, he proceeded to Balliol College, Oxford, as a commoner. Before taking his bachelor's degree in 1720 he acted as tutor to Lord Kinnaird. He subsequently went to Cambridge and took his degree of M.A. at St. John’s College. He was ordained deacon at Oxford and priest at Wells, and in 1727 was presented to the vicarage of St. Mary Magdalene, Taunton. He was also, from 1730, prebendary of Wells Cathedral. He died in June 1756, aged 58. There is a Latin inscription to his memory in Taunton church.
He published the following works: 1. ‘A Sermon on Psalm xvi. 7, preached on the anniversary of the Restoration; 1730. 2. ‘A Method of Study, or an Useful Library, in two parts; part i. containing short directions and a catalogue of books for the study of several valuable parts of learning, viz. geography, chronology, history, classical learning, natural philosophy, &c.; part ii. containing some directions for the study of divinity, and prescribing proper books for that purpose,' vol. i. 1738, vol. ii. 1743, 8vo. The author professed that his object in this work was to assist the poor clergyman in his studies, and to induce the young gentleman to look into books. 3, ‘Remarks on the Free and Candid Disquisitions,’ two pamphlets published in 1750 and 1751. 4. ‘The Case of the Royal Martyr considered with Candour, or an Answer to some Libels lately published in prejudice to the memory of that Unfortunate Prince,’ 1768, 8vo, two vols. The author's name is not attached to this work. The authority for ascribing it to the vicar of Taunton is John Nichols (Literary Anecdotes). It is a reply to two books published in 1746 and 1747: the first is a tract issued anonymously, but written by G. Conde, jun., woolstaper of Exeter, entitled ‘A Letter to a Clergyman relating to his Sermon on 30 Jan.,’ and the second, Thomas Birch’s ‘Enquiry’ into the Earl of Glamorgan’s negotiations with the Irish catholics. It was written and designed for the press in 1745, and announced for publication in 1754, but delayed apparently for an extension, which, as stated on p. 220, vol. ii., was left unfinished in consequence of the author's death.
