result. Neither in their plot nor their intrinsic interest do they take hold of the mind, and their licentiousness and occasional coarseness are calculated to repel and even disgust, and formed a subject of bitter regret to himself. The answer is found in the charm of the composition. He found a tongue rude and neglected, yet, as his instinct told him, capable of being wrought into beauty. Arid as the lapidary detects the jewel in the rough stone, and works it into the gem to be set in the coronet of a sovereign, so Boccaccio laboured at the vulgar tongue, till he polished, and shaped, and purified it, making it as harmonious, and ornate, and felicitous a vehicle of prose, as his great contemporaries had made it in the domains of poetry. Besides this, too, and equal to it, is Boccaccio's marvellous sprightliness of description and power of narrative. A country scene glows and ripens beneath his pen as it would beneath the pencil of Claude or Poussin. His personages are instinct with life; and his account of the great plague, prefacing the "Decamerone," is a masterpiece, fit to place beside Thucydides or Defoe. But Boccaccio has other claims than that of the novelist, the father of Italian prose, and the inventor of the stanza which Ariosto and Tasso have made vocal through the world. He was more than any man of his age the restorer of the ancient classical learning, especially the Greek. How entirely this last had passed away from Italy may be learned from the fact that Petrarch neither possessed a copy of Homer, nor could read it if he had. What privations he endured, what sacrifices he made in reviving that language, we have seen; and Manetti justly observes, that Italy owes all its Greek to Boccaccio. We have not recounted all the works of Boccaccio; they will be found enumerated in Mazzuchelli, Ginguéne, and other authorities; but the work by which he is now best known after the "Decamerone," is the "Life of Dante," one of the purest and most elegant of his compositions.—J. F. W.
BOCCA-DI-FERRO, Lodovico, called also BUCCA-FERRI and BUCCA-FERRA by different writers, an Italian physician, born in 1482 at Bologna, where he died, 1545. He studied and obtained his degrees in the university of his native place, where he also occupied a chair of logic, and counted among his disciples, Scaliger, Francesco Piccolomini, and Benedetto Varchi. The Cardinal Gonzague, who was also one of his pupils, persuaded him to visit Rome, where he resided for five years teaching the Aristotelian philosophy with as much success as had attended him in Bologna. On the sacking of Rome by the imperial troops, Bocca-di-Ferro returned to Bologna, resumed his chair of philosophy, and entered into orders. He subsequently received the title of Count Palatine from the emperor, Charles V. Amongst his contemporaries he had the reputation of being one of the first philosophers of his age and country; but he appears to have adhered servilely to the Aristotelian maxims, and his principal writings consist of commentaries upon different parts of the works of the great Stagyrite.—W. S. D.
BOCCAGE, Manuel Maria Barbosa del. This celebrated Portuguese poet was born of a noble family at Setuval in 1771. Having finished his classic studies, he entered the navy, from which he was expelled by order of the minister of state, Count St. Vincent, whom he had grossly offended. Being sent by government to Goa, he was well received by the Portuguese colonists, whom his poetical versatility attached to him wherever he went. His satirical humour having stirred up the anger of many who became his enemies, he was compelled to fly from Macao, to avoid the persecution of the chief magistrate of that place, whom he had ridiculed in some epigrams. He returned to Goa, where he met with a Mecenas in the person of Joachim Pereira Almeira, a very wealthy merchant, who brought him to Lisbon, and whose liberality afforded Boccage ample means of living in plenty and happiness. Endowed with the greatest memory, and thoroughly acquainted with the Latin, French, Italian, and Spanish classics, he could compose and recite extempore exquisite sonnets, odes, and even idyls, in the most elegant language. He has translated Ovid's Metamorphoses; and Mirra is considered a masterpiece of elegance and precision. By order of the Inquisition Boccage was imprisoned for having circulated a letter written in the style of Voltaire, in which he denied the immortality of the soul; he was, however, mildly treated, and through the protection of Scabra, then secretary of state, he recovered his liberty. Nevertheless the horrors of his prison preyed so much on his mind, that his health being impaired, his constitution gave way, and after a long and painful illness, he departed this life towards the end of the year 1806.—A. C. M.
BOCCAGE, Marie Anne, née le Page, born at Rouen in 1710; died in 1802. Married Fiquet du Boccage, who held a lucrative fiscal office—receveur de tailles de Dieppe. He died early—de bonne heure, as the French courteously say. Her talents for versification, which were very considerable, appear to have been cultivated in secret, and her first work, produced at the mature age of thirty-six, came as a surprise on her friends. We have a distrust of the decisions of academies on such subjects. It is not the less our duty to record such augury for good or evil, that the academy of Rouen decreed her a prize in 1746, for what was believed to be her first poem. Thus encouraged, she no longer shrunk from publicity; nay, rather courted it, and the world of Paris was delighted with her "Paradise Lost," pleasanter reading, they said, than Milton's, and her "Death of Abel." In 1749 she published her "Columbiade," an epic poem in ten cantos. A tragedy of hers, the "Amazons," was acted about the same time. She wrote for the taste of the day in which her lot was cast; and she had her reward. Her praise was in all the academies. She was successively admitted to the bosom—such are the affectionate words which the forms of the language in which he writes suggest to the French biographer who records the fact (admise au sein)—of the academies of Rome, of Boulogne, of Padua, and, last not least, of her native Rouen. To her "salon" the "spirituelle" widow brought all that France contained of distinguished men; Voltaire was there enjoying and conferring fame; and there, too, Fontenelle was to be met, who loved to call her his daughter. This was no doubt a happy life, and she enjoyed it long. The academy of the Arcades at Rome wrote verses in her praise; nay, printed them in a volume as "thick as all this cheese." Many of her works were translated into English, Spanish, German, and Italian—all forgotten! not one to be had for love or money, and no love or money to be had for them should one by rare accident turn up at book-sale or book-stall. A volume of letters, addressed to her sister, madame du Perron, describing her travels in Italy, England, and Holland, is the only one of her books now looked at—such is fame!—J. A., D.
BOCCALINI, Trajano. This satirical writer was born at Loretto in 1556; his versatility of genius, and his facility in versification, make him to be considered one of the wittiest writers of Italy. The limited means of his father did not allow him to commence his studies until he had reached a mature age. The rapid progress he made, particularly in poetical compositions, gave immediately the greatest hopes of his future literary renown, and soon he became the life and centre of a large circle of friends and admirers, who loved and esteemed him for his amenity of character and benevolent disposition. Had his political conduct been consistent with his written doctrines, no doubt he would have attained to the highest distinctions and dignities in the state; but having given offence, and alienated from him many of his patrons, fearing for his safety he was compelled to repair to Venice, where he published "I Ragnagli di Parnasso," which met with the greatest success. In this work he imagines that Apollo has become the sovereign judge of Parnassus, and cites before his high tribunal kings, authors, and warriors, examines their faults and crimes, and pronounces judgment on them. He left also a commentary on the Annals of Tacitus, and on the first book of the Histories of Agricola. "La pietra del Paragone" is considered his best satire, and in a Horatian style he vents his wrath against the Spanish misrule in Italy. Many of his contemporary biographers state, although contradicted by Muratori, that on account of this last work he met with a violent death on the 16th November, 1613.—A. C. M.
BOCCANERA, Julius or Gilles, brother of Simon, by whom, in recompense for numerous services, he was raised to the command of the Genoese fleet. In 1340 he went to the succour of Alfonso XI. of Castile against the Moors of Andalusia and Africa; and having commended himself to the Spanish monarch by his share in the victory of Tariffa and the taking of Algeziras, was raised to the office of admiral of the Spanish fleet, and presented with the earldom of Palma. On the accession of Henry II., whose part he seems to have taken in the civil wars which resulted from the rivalry between him and his natural brother, he was confirmed in his office and rank. In 1372, on the occasion of the earl of Pembroke's attempting to land at Rochelle to claim the crown of Castile for John of Ghent, an engagement ensued between the English and Spanish fleets, in which Pembroke was taken prisoner.—J. S., G.
