The law of the United States is similar to English law.

Under the French Code Civil, claims for subsistence furnished to a

debtor and his family during the last year of his life by boarding-house

keepers (_maitres de pension_) are privileged over the generality of

moveables, the privilege being exerciseable after legal expenses,

funeral expenses, the expenses of the last illness, and the wages of

servants for the year elapsed and what is due for the current year (art.

2101 (5)). Keepers of taverns (_aubergistes_) and hotels (_hoteliers_)

are responsible for the goods of their guests--the committal of which to

their custody is regarded as a deposit of necessity (_depot

necessaire_). They are liable for the loss of such goods by theft,

whether by servants or strangers, but not where the loss is due to

_force majeure_ (arts. 1952-1954). Their liability for money and bearer

securities not actually deposited is limited to 1000 francs (law of 18th

of April 1889). These provisions are reproduced in substance in the

Civil Codes of Quebec (arts. 1814, 1815, 1994, 2006) and of St Lucia

(art. 1889). In Quebec, boarding-house keepers have a lien on the goods

of their guests for the value or price of any food or accommodation

furnished to them, and have also a right to sell their baggage and other

property, if the amount remains unpaid for three months, under

conditions similar to those imposed on innkeepers in England (art. 1816

A; and see INNS AND INNKEEPERS); also in the Civil Code of St Lucia

(arts. 1578, 1714, 1715) (A. W. R.)

BOARDING-OUT SYSTEM, in the English poor law, the boarding-out of orphan

or deserted children with suitable foster-parents. The practice was

first authorized in 1868, though for many years previously it had been

carried out by some boards of guardians on their own initiative.

Boarding-out is governed by two orders of the Local Government Board,

issued in 1889. The first permits guardians to board-out children within

their own union, except in the metropolis. The second governs the

boarding-out of children in localities outside the union. The sum

payable to the foster-parents is not to exceed 4s. per week for each

child. The system has been much discussed by authorities on the

administration of the poor law. It has been objected that few

working-men with an average-sized family can afford to devote such an

amount for the maintenance of each child, and that, therefore,

boarded-out children are better off than the children of the independent

(Fawcett, _Pauperism_). Working-class guardians, also, do not favour the

system, being suspicious as to the disinterestedness of the

foster-parents. On the other hand, it is argued that from the economic

and educational point of view much better results are obtained by

boarding-out children; they are given a natural life, and when they grow

up they are without effort merged in the general population (Mackay,

_Hist. Eng. Poor Law_). See also POOR LAW.

The "boarding-out" of lunatics is, in Scotland, a regular part of the

lunacy administration. It has also been successfully adopted in Belgium.

(See INSANITY.)

BOARDMAN, GEORGE DANA (1801-1831), American Baptist missionary, was born

at Livermore, Me., and educated at Waterville College and Andover

Theological Seminary. In 1825 he went to India as a missionary, and in

1827 to Burma, where his promising work among the Karens was cut short

by his early death. His widow married another well-known Burmese

missionary, Adoniram Judson.

His son, GEORGE DANA BOARDMAN, the younger (1828-1903), made the voyage

from Burma to America alone when six years of age. He graduated in 1852

at Brown University, and from the Newton Theological Institution in

1855. He held Baptist pastorates at Rochester (1856-1864), and at

Philadelphia, and was president of the American Baptist Missionary

Union, 1880-1884. At Philadelphia he is said to have taken his

congregation through every verse of the New Testament in 643 Wednesday

evening lectures, which occupied nearly eighteen years, and afterwards

to have begun on the Old Testament in similar fashion. Among his

published works are _Studies in the Model Prayer_ (1879), and

_Epiphanies of the Risen Lord_ (1879).

BOASE, HENRY SAMUEL (1799-1883), English geologist, the eldest son of

Henry Boase (1763-1827), banker, of Madron, Cornwall, was born in London

on the 2nd of September 1799. Educated partly at Tiverton

grammar-school, and partly at Dublin, where he studied chemistry, he

afterwards proceeded to Edinburgh and took the degree of M.D. in 1821.

He then settled for some years as a medical practitioner at Penzance;

there geology engaged his particular attention, and he became secretary

of the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall. The results of his

observations were embodied in his _Treatise on Primary Geology_ (1834),

a work of considerable merit in regard to the older crystalline and

igneous rocks and the subject of mineral veins. In 1837 he removed to

London, where he remained for about a year, being elected F.R.S. In 1838

he became partner in a firm of bleachers at Dundee. He retired in 1871,

and died on the 5th of May 1883.

BOAT (O. Eng. _bat_; the true etymological connexion with Dutch and Ger.

_boot_, Fr. _bateau_, Ital. _battello_ presents great difficulties;

Celtic forms are from O. Eng.), a comparatively small open craft for

conveyance on water, usually propelled by some form of oar or sail.

The origin of the word "boat" is probably to be looked for in the A.S.

_bat_ = a stem, a stick, a piece of wood. If this be so, the term in its

inception referred to the material of which the primitive vessel was

constructed, and in this respect may well be contrasted with the word

"ship," of which the primary idea was the _process_ by which the

material was fashioned and adapted for the use of man.

We may assume that primitive man, in his earliest efforts to achieve the

feat of conveying himself and his belongings by water, succeeded in

doing so--(1) by fastening together a quantity of material of sufficient

buoyancy to float and carry him above the level of the water; (2) by

scooping out a fallen tree so as to obtain buoyancy enough for the same

purpose. In these two processes is to be found the genesis of both boat

and ship, of which, though often used as convertible terms, the former

is generally restricted to the smaller type of vessel such as is dealt

with in this article. For the larger type the reader is referred to

SHIP.

Great must have been the triumph of the man who first discovered that

the rushes or the trunks he had managed to tie together would, propelled

by a stick or a branch (cf. _ramus_ and _remus_) used as pole or paddle,

convey him safely across the river or lake, which had hitherto been his

barrier. But use multiplies wants, discovers deficiencies, suggests

improvements. Man soon found out that he wanted to go faster than the

raft would move, that the water washed over and up through it, and this

need of speed, and of dry carrying power, which we find operative

throughout the history of the boat down to the present day, drove him to

devise other modes of flotation as well as to try to improve his first

invention.

The invention of the hollowed trunk, of the "dug-out" (monoxylon),

however it came about, whenever and wherever it came into comparison

with the raft, must have superseded the latter for some purposes, though

not by any means for all. It was superior to the raft in speed, and was,

to a certain extent, water-tight. On the other hand it was inferior in

carrying power and stability. But the two types once conceived had come

to stay, and to them severally, or to attempts to combine the useful

properties of both, may be traced all the varieties of vessel to which

the name of boat may be applied.

The development of the raft is admirably illustrated in the description,

given us by Homer in the Odyssey, of the construction by the hero

Ulysses of a vessel of the kind. Floating timber is cut down and

carefully shaped and planed with axe and adze, and the timbers are then

exactly fitted face to face and compacted with trenails and dowels, just

as the flat floor of a lump or lighter might be fashioned and fitted

nowadays. A platform is raised upon the floor and a bulwark of osiers

contrived to keep out the wash of the waves (cf. _infra_, Malay boats).

It seems as if the poet, who was intimately acquainted with the sea ways

of his time, intended to convey the idea of progress in construction, as

illustrated by the technical skill of his hero, and the use of the

various tools with which he supplies him.

On the other hand the dug-out had its limitations. The largest tree that

could be thrown and scooped out afforded but a narrow space for carrying

goods, and presented problems as to stability which must have been very

difficult to solve. The shaping of bow and stern, the bulging out of the

sides, the flattening of the bottom, the invention of a keel piece, the

attempt to raise the sides by building up with planks, all led on

towards the idea of constructing a boat properly so called, or perhaps

to the invention of the canoe, which in some ways may be regarded as the

intermediate stage between dug-out and boat.

Meanwhile the raft had undergone improvements such as those which Homer

indicates. It had arrived at a floor composed of timbers squared and

shaped. It had risen to a platform, the prototype of a deck. It was but

a step to build up the sides and turn up the ends, and at this point we

reach the genesis of ark and punt, of sanpan and junk, or, in other

words, of all the many varieties of flat-bottomed craft.

When once we have reached the point at which the improvements in the

construction of the raft and dug-out bring them, as it were, within

sight of each other, we can enter upon the history of the development of

boats properly so called, which, in accordance with the uses and the

circumstances that dictated their build, may be said to be descended

from the raft or the dug-out, or from the attempt to combine the

respective advantages of the two original types.

Uses and circumstances are infinite in variety and have produced an

infinite variety of boats. But we may safely say that in all cases the

need to be satisfied, the nature of the material available, and the

character of the difficulties to be overcome have governed the reason

and tested the reasonableness of the architecture of the craft in use.

It is not proposed in this article to enter at any length into the

details of the construction of boats, but it is desirable, for the sake

of clearness, to indicate certain broad distinctions in the method of

building, which, though they run back into the far past, in some form or

other survive and are in use at the present day.

The tying of trunks together to form a raft is still not unknown in the

lumber trade of the Danube or of North America, nor was it in early days

confined to the raft. It extended to many boats properly so called, even

to many of those built by the Vikings of old. It may still be seen in

the Madras surf boats, and in those constructed out of driftwood by the

inhabitants of Easter Island in the south Pacific. Virgil, who was an

archaeologist, represents Charon's boat on the Styx as of this

construction, and notes the defect, which still survives, in the craft

of the kind when loaded--

"Gemuit sub pondere cymba

Sutilis, et multam accepit rimosa paludem!"

_Aen._ vi. 303.

Next to the raft, and to be counted in direct descent from it, comes the

whole class of flat-bottomed boats including punts and lighters. As soon

as the method of constructing a solid floor, with trenails and dowels,

had been discovered, the method of converting it into a water-tight box

was pursued, sides were attached plank fashion, with strong knees to

stiffen them, and cross pieces to _yoke_ or _key_ (cf. [Greek: zugon,

klaeis]) them together. These thwarts once fixed naturally suggested

seats for those that plied the paddle or the oar. The ends of the vessel

were shaped into bow or stern, either turned up, or with the side

planking convergent in stem or stern post, or joined together fore and

aft by bulkheads fitted in, while interstices were made water-tight by

caulking, and by smearing with bitumen or some resinous material.

The evolution of the boat as distinct from the punt, or flat-bottomed

type, and following the configuration of the dug-out in its length and

rounded bottom, must have taxed the inventive art and skill of

constructors much more severely than that of the raft. It is possible

that the coracle or the canoe may have suggested the construction of a

framework of sufficient stiffness to carry a water-tight wooden skin,

such as would successfully resist the pressure of wind and water. And in

this regard two methods were open to the builder, both of which have

survived to the present day: (1) the construction first of the shell of

the boat, into which the stiffening ribs and cross ties were

subsequently fitted; (2) the construction first of a framework of

requisite size and shape, on to which the outer skin of the boat was

subsequently attached.

Further, besides the primitive mode of tying the parts together, two

main types of build must be noticed, in accordance with which a boat is

said to be either carvel-built or clinker-built. (1) A boat is

carvel-built when the planks are laid edge to edge so that they present

a smooth surface without. (2) A boat is clinker-built when each plank is

laid on so as to overlap the one below it, thus presenting a series of

ledges running longitudinally.

The former method is said to be of Mediterranean, or perhaps of Eastern

origin. The latter was probably invented by the old Scandinavian

builders, and from them handed down through the fishing boats of the

northern nations to our own time.

Ancient boats.

The accounts of vessels used by the Egyptians and Phoenicians generally

refer to larger craft which naturally fall under the head of SHIP

(q.v.). The Nile boats, however, described by Herodotus (ii. 60),

built of acacia wood, were no doubt of various sizes, some of them quite

small, but all following the same type of construction, built up brick

fashion, the blocks being fastened internally to long poles secured by

cross pieces, and the interstices caulked with papyrus. The ends rose

high above the water, and to prevent hogging were often attached by a

truss running longitudinally over crutches from stem to stern.

The Assyrian and Babylonian vessels described by Herodotus (i. 194),

built up of twigs and boughs, and covered with skins smeared with

bitumen, were really more like huge coracles and hardly deserve the name

of boats.

The use of boats by the Greeks and Romans is attested by the frequent

reference to them in Greek and Latin literature, though, as regards such

small craft, the details given are hardly enough to form the basis of an

accurate classification.

We hear of small boats attendant on a fleet ([Greek: kelaetion], Thuc.

i. 53), and of similar craft employed in piracy (Thuc. iv. 9), and in

one case of a sculling boat, or pair oar ([Greek: akation amphaerikon],

Thuc. iv. 67), which was carted up and down between the town of Megara

and the sea, being used for the purpose of marauding at night. We are

also familiar with the passage in the Acts (xxvii.) where in the storm

they had hard work "to come by the boat"; which same boat the sailors

afterwards "let down into the sea, under colour as though they would

have cast anchors out of the foreship," and would have escaped to land

in her themselves, leaving the passengers to drown, if the centurion and

soldiers acting upon St Paul's advice had not cut off the ropes of the

boat and let her fall off.

There can be little doubt that boat races were in vogue among the Greeks

(see Prof. Gardner, _Journal of Hellenic Studies_, ii. 91 ff.), and

probably formed part of the Panathenaic and Isthmian festivals. It is,

however, difficult to prove that small boats took part in these races,

though it is not unlikely that they may have done so. The testimony of

the coins, such as it is, points to galleys, and the descriptive term

([Greek: neon amilla]) leads to the same conclusion.

It is hardly possible now to define the differences which separated

[Greek: akatos], [Greek: akation], from [Greek: kelaes], [Greek:

kelaetion], or from [Greek: lembos] or [Greek: karabos]. They seem all

to have been rowing boats, probably carvel-built, some with keels

(_acatii modo carinata_, Plin. ix. 19), and to have varied in size, some

being simply sculling boats, and others running up to as many as thirty

oars.

Similarly in Latin authors we have frequent mention of boats

accompanying ships of war. Of this there is a well-known instance in the

account of Caesar's invasion of Britain (_B.G._ iv. 26), when the boats

of the fleet, and the pinnaces, were filled with soldiers and sent to

assist the Legionaries who were being fiercely attacked as they waded on

to the shore. There is also an instance in the civil war, which is a

prototype of a modern attack of torpedo boats upon men of war, when

Antonius manned the pinnaces of his large ships to the number of sixty,

and with them attacked and defeated an imprudent squadron of Quadriremes

(_B.C._ iii. 24). The class of boats so frequently mentioned as

_actuariae_ seems to have contained craft of all sizes, and to have been

used for all purposes, whether as pleasure boats or as despatch vessels,

or for piracy. In fact the term was employed vaguely just as we speak of

craft in general.

The _lembus_, which is often referred to in Livy and Polybius, seems to

have been of Illyrian origin, with fine lines and sharp bows. The class

contained boats of various sizes and with a variable number of oars

(biremis, Livy xxiv. 40, sexdecim, Livy xxxiv. 35); and it is

interesting to note the origin in this case, as the invention of the

light Liburnian galleys, which won the battle of Actium, and altered the

whole system of naval construction, came from the same seaboard.

Besides these, the piratical _myoparones_ (see Cic. _In Verrem_), and

the poetical _phaselus_, deserve mention, but here again we are met with

the difficulty of distinguishing boats from ships. There is also an

interesting notice in Tacitus (_Hist_. iii. 47) of boats hastily

constructed by the natives of the northern coast of Asia Minor, which he

describes as of broad beam with narrow sides (probably meaning that the

sides "tumbled home"), joined together without any fastenings of brass

or iron. In a sea-way the sides were raised with planks added till they

were cased in as with a roof, whence their name _camarae_, and so they

rolled about in the waves, having prow and stern alike and convertible

rowlocks, so that it was a matter of indifference and equally safe, or

perhaps unsafe, whichever way they rowed.

Similar vessels were constructed by Germanicus in his north German

campaign (_Ann_. ii. 6) and by the Suiones (_Ger_. 44). These also had

stem and stern alike, and remind us of the old Norse construction, being

rowed either way, having the oars loose in the rowlock, and not, as was

usual in the south, attached by a thong to the thowl pin.

Lastly, as a class of boat directly descended from the raft, we may

notice the flat-bottomed boats or punts or lighters which plied on the

Tiber as ferry-boats, or carrying goods, which were called _codicariae_

from _caudex_, the old word for a plank.

It is difficult to trace any order of development in the construction of

boats during the Byzantine period, or the middle ages. Sea-going vessels

according to their size carried one or more boats, some of them small

boats with two or four oars, others boats of a larger size fitted with

masts and sail as well as with oars. We find _lembus_ and _phaselus_ as

generic names in the earlier period, but the indications as to size and

character are vague and variable. The same may be said of the _batelli,

coquets, chaloupes, chalans, gattes_, &c., of which, in almost endless

number and variety, the nautical erudition of M. Jal has collected the

names in his monumental works, _Archeologie navale_ and the _Glossaire

nautique_.

It is clear, however, that in many instances the names, originally

applied to boats properly so called, gradually attached themselves to

larger vessels, as in the case of _chaloupe_ and others, a fact which

leads to the conclusion that the type of build followed originally in

smaller vessels was often developed on a larger scale, according as it

was found useful and convenient, while the name remained the same. Many

of these types still survive and may be found in the Eastern seas, or in

the Mediterranean or in the northern waters, each of which has its own

peculiarities of build and rig.

Existing types.

It would be impossible within our limits to do justice to the number and

variety of existing types in sea-going boats, and for more detailed

information concerning them the reader would do well to consult _Mast

and Sail in Europe and Asia_, by H. Warington Smyth, an excellent and

exhaustive work, from which much of the information which follows

regarding them has been derived.

In the Eastern seas the Chinese _sanpan_ is ubiquitous. Originally a

small raft of three timbers with fore end upturned, it grew into a boat

in very early times, and has given its name to a very large class of

vessels. With flat bottom, and considerable width in proportion to its

length, the normal sanpan runs out into two tails astern, the timbers

rounding up, and the end being built in like a bulkhead, with room for

the rudder to work between it and the transom which connects the two

projecting upper timbers of the stern. Some of them are as much as 30

ft. in length and 8 to 10 ft. in beam. They are good carriers and

speedy under sail.

The Chinese in all probability were the earliest of all peoples to solve

the chief problems of boat building, and after their own fashion to work

out the art of navigation, which for them has now been set and unchanged

for thousands of years. They appear to have used the lee-board and

centre-board in junks and sanpans, and to have extended their trade to

India and even beyond, centuries before anything like maritime

enterprise is heard of in the north of Europe.

As regards the practice of long boat racing on rivers or tidal waters

the Chinese are easily antecedent in time to the rest of the world. On

great festivals in certain places the Dragon boat race forms part of the

ceremony. The Dragon boats are just over 73 ft. long, with 4 ft. beam,

and depth 21 in. The rowing or paddling space is about 63 ft. and the

number of thwarts 27, thus giving exactly the same number of rowers as

that of the Zygites in the Greek trireme. The two extremities of the

boat are much cambered and rise to about 2 ft. above the water. At about

15 ft. from each end the single plank gives place to three, so as to

offer a concave surface to the water. The paddle blade is spade-like in

form and about 6-1/2 in. broad.

Both in Siam and Burma there is a very large river population, and boat

racing is on festival days a common amusement. The typical craft,

however, is the Duck-boat, which in the shape of hull is in direct

contrast to the dug-out form, and primarily intended for sailing. It is

interesting to note that the Siamese method of slinging and using

quarter rudders is the oldest used by men in sailing craft, being in

fact the earliest development from the simple paddle rudder, which has

in all ages been the first method of steering boats. The king of Siam's

state barge, we are told, is steered by long paddles, precisely in the

same way as is figured in the case of the Egyptian boats of the 3rd

dynasty (6000 B.C.). On the other hand the slung quarter rudders are the

same in fashion as those used by Roman and Greek merchantmen, by

Norsemen and Anglo-Saxons, and by medieval seamen down to about the 14th

century.

The Malays have generally the credit of being expert boat-builders, but

the local conditions are not such as to favour the construction of a

good type of boat. "Small displacement, hollow lines, V-shaped sections,

shallow draught and lack of beam" result in want of stability and

weatherliness. But it is among them that the ancient process of dug-out

building still survives and flourishes, preserving all the primitive and

ingenious methods of hollowing the tree trunk, of forcing its sides

outwards, and in many cases building them up with added planks, so that

from the dug-out a regular boat is formed, with increased though limited

carrying power, increased though still hardly sufficient stability.

To ensure this last very necessary quality many devices and contrivances

are resorted to.

In some cases (just as Ulysses is described as doing by Homer, _Od_. v.

256) the boatman fastens bundles of reeds or of bamboos all along the

sides of his boat. These being very buoyant not only act as a defence

against the wash of the waves, but are sufficient to keep the boat

afloat in any sea.

But the most characteristic device is the outrigger, a piece of floating

wood sharpened at both ends, which is fixed parallel to the longer axis

of the boat, at a distance of two or three beams, by two or more poles

laid at right angles to it. This, while not interfering materially with

the speed of the boat, acts as a counterpoise to any pressure on it

which would tend, owing to its lack of stability, to upset it, and makes

it possible for the long narrow dug-out to face even the open sea. It is

remarkable that this invention, which must have been seen by the

Egyptians and Phoenicians in very early times, was not introduced by

them into the Mediterranean. Possibly this was owing to the lack of

large timber suitable for dug-outs, and the consequent evolution by them

of boat from raft, with sufficient beam to rely upon for stability.

On the other hand in the boats of India the influence of Egyptian and

Arab types of build is apparent, and the dinghy of the Hugli is cited

as being in form strangely like the ancient Egyptian model still

preserved in the Ghizeh museum. Coming westward the dominant type of

build is that of the Arab _dhow_, the boat class of which has all the

characteristics of the larger vessel developed from it, plenty of beam,

overhanging stem and transom stern. The planking of the shell over the

wooden frame has a double thickness which conduces to dryness and

durability in the craft.

On the Nile it is interesting to find the _naggar_ preserving, in its

construction out of blocks of acacia wood pinned together, the old-world

fashion of building described by Herodotus. The _gaiassa_ and _dahabiah_

are too large to be classed as boats, but they and their smaller sisters

follow the Arab type in build and rig.

It is noteworthy that nothing apparently of the ancient Egyptian or

classical methods of build survives in the Mediterranean, while the

records of the development of boat-building in the middle ages are

meagre and confusing. The best illustrations of ancient methods of

construction, and of ancient seamanship, are to be found, if anywhere,

in the East, that conservative storehouse of types and fashions, to

which they were either communicated, or from which they were borrowed,

by Egyptians or Phoenicians, from whom they were afterwards copied by

Greeks and Romans.

In the Mediterranean the chief characteristics of the types belonging to

it are "carvel-build, high bow, round stern and deep rudder hung on

stern post outside the vessel."

In the eastern basin the long-bowed wide-sterned _caique_ of the

Bosporus is perhaps the type of boat best known, but both Greek and

Italian waters abound with an unnumbered variety of boats of "beautiful

lines and great carrying power." In the Adriatic, the Venetian gondola,

and the light craft generally, are of the type developed from the raft,

flat-bottomed, and capable of navigating shallow waters with minimum of

draught and maximum of load.

In the western basin the majority of the smaller vessels are of the

sharp-sterned build. Upon the boats of the _felucca_ class, long vessels

with easy lines and low free-board, suitable for rowing as well as

sailing, the influence of the long galley of the middle ages was

apparent. In Genoese waters at the beginning of the 19th century there

were single-decked rowing vessels, which preserved the name of galley,

and were said to be the descendants of the Liburnians that defeated the

many-banked vessels of Antonius at Actium. But the introduction of steam

vessels has already relegated into obscurity these memorials of the

past.

Along the Riviera and the Spanish coast a type of boat is noticeable

which is peculiar for the inward curve of both stem and stern from a

keel which has considerable camber, enabling them to be beached in a

heavy surf.

On the Douro, in Portugal, it is said that the boats which may be seen

laden with casks of wine, trailing behind them an enormously long

steering paddle, are of Phoenician ancestry, and that the curious signs,

which many of them have painted on the cross board over the cabin, are

of Semitic origin though now undecipherable.

Coming to the northern waters, as with men, so with boats, we meet with

a totally different type. Instead of the smooth exterior of the

carvel-build, we have the more rugged form of clinker-built craft with

great beam, and raking sterns and stems, and a wide flare forward. In

the most northern waters the strakes of the sea-going boats are wide and

of considerable thickness, of oak or fir, often compacted with wooden

trenails, strong and fit to do battle with the rough seas and rough

usage which they have to endure.

In most of these the origin of form and character is to be sought for in

the old Viking vessels or long _keeles_ of the 5th century A.D., with

curved and elevated stem and stern posts, and without decks or, at the

most, half decked.

In the Baltic and the North Sea most of the fishing boats follow this

type, with, however, considerable variety in details. It is noticeable

that here also, as in other parts of the world, and at other times, the

pressing demand for speed and carrying power has increased the size in

almost all classes of boats till they pass into the category of ships.

At the same time the carvel-build is becoming more common, while, in the

struggle for life, steam and motor power are threatening to obliterate

the old types of rowing and sailing boats altogether.

Next to the Norse skiff and its descendants, perhaps the oldest type of

boat in northern waters is to be found in Holland, where the conditions

of navigation have hardly altered for centuries. It is to the Dutch that

we chiefly owe the original of our pleasure craft, but, though we have

developed these enormously, the Dutch boats have remained pretty much

the same. The clinker-build and the wide rounded bow are now very much

of the same character as they are represented in the old pictures of the

17th and 18th centuries.

The development of boat-building in the British Isles during the 19th

century has been unceasing and would need a treatise to itself to do it

justice. The expansion of the fishing industry and the pressure of

competition have stimulated constant improvement in the craft engaged,

and here also are observable the same tendencies to substitute carvel,

though it is more expensive, for clinker build, and to increase the

length and size of the boats, and the gradual supersession of sail and

oar by steam power. Under these influences we hear of the _fifie_ and

the _skaffie_ classes, old favourites in northern waters, being

superseded by the more modern _Zulu_, which is supposed to unite the

good qualities of both; and these in turn running to such a size as to

take them outside the category of boats. But even in the case of smaller

boats the _Zulu_ model is widely followed, so that they have actually

been imported to the Irish coast for the use of the crofter fishermen in

the congested districts.

For the Shetland _sexern_ and the broad boats of the Orkneys, and the

_nabbies_ of the west coast of Scotland, the curious will do well to

refer to H. Warington Smyth's most excellent account.

On the eastern coast of England the influence of the Dutch type of build

is manifest in many of the flat-bottomed and mostly round-ended craft,

such as the Yorkshire _Billyboy_, and partly in the _coble_, which

latter is interesting as built for launching off beaches against heavy

seas, and as containing relics of Norse influence, though in the main of

Dutch origin.

The life-boats of the eastern coast are in themselves an admirable class

of boat, with fine lines, great length, and shallow draught, wonderful

in their daring work in foul weather and heavy seas, in which as a rule

their services are required. Here, however, as in the fishing boats, the

size is increasing, and steam is appropriating to itself the provinces

of the sail and the oar.

The wherry of the Norfolk Broads has a type of its own, and is often

fitted out as a pleasure boat. It is safe and comfortable for inland

waters, but not the sort of boat to live in a sea-way in anything but

good weather.

The Thames and its estuary rejoice in a great variety of boats, of which

the old _Peter_ boat (so called after the legend of the foundation of

the abbey on Thorney Island) preserved a very ancient type of build,

shorter and broader than the old Thames pleasure wherry. But these and

the old _hatch_ boat have now almost disappeared. Possibly survivors may

still be seen on the upper part of the tidal river. Round the English

coast from the mouth of the Thames southwards the conditions of landing

and of hauling up boats above high-water mark affect the type, demanding

strong clinker-build and stout timbers. Hence there is a strong family

resemblance in most of the short boats in use from the North Foreland

round to Brighton. Among these are the life-boats of Deal and the other

Channel ports, which have done and are still doing heroic work in saving

life from wrecks upon the Goodwins and the other dangerous shoals that

beset the narrowing sleeve of the English Channel.

Farther down, along the southern coast, and to the west, where harbours

are more frequent, a finer and deeper class of boats, chiefly of

carvel-build, is to be found. The Cornish ports are the home of a great

boat-building industry, and from them a large number of the finest

fishing boats in the world are turned out annually. Most of them are

built with stem and stern alike, with full and bold quarters, and ample

floor.

It is not possible here to enumerate, much less to describe in detail,

the variety of types in sea-going boats which have been elaborated in

England and in America. For this purpose reference should be made to the

list of works given at the end of the article.

The following is a list of the boats at present used in the royal navy.

They have all of them a deep fore foot, and with the exception of the

whalers and Berthon boats, upright stems and transom sterns. The whalers

have a raking stem and a sharp stern, and a certain amount of sheer in

the bows.

Length. Beam. Depth.

Feet. Ft. In. Ft. In.

1a. Dinghy. Freeboard about 9 in.

Weight 3 cwt. 2 qr. Between

thwarts 2 ft. 9 in. Elm. 13-1/2 4' 8" 2' 2"

1b. Skiff dinghy for torpedo boats.

Freeboard about 9 in. Carry about

ten men in moderate weather.

Between thwarts 2 ft. 7-1/2 in.

Weight 3 cwt. 4 lb. Yellow pine. 16 4' 6" 1' 10"

2a. Whaler for destroyers. 5 in. sheer.

Yellow pine. 25 5' 6" 2'

2b. Whaler. Between thwarts 2 ft. 10 in.

Freeboard about 12 in. Weight,

8 cwt. Strakes No. 13. Lap

3/4 in. Elm. 27 5' 6" 2' 2"

(All have bilge strakes with hand-holes.)

3. Gig. Between thwarts 2 ft. 9-1/2 in.

Weight 8 cwt. 2 qr. 15 lb. 13

Strakes. Elm. 30 5' 6" 2' 2"

4. Cutter. Between thwarts 3 ft. 1 in.

To carry 49 men. Carvel built. 30 8' 1" 2' 8-1/2"

5. Pinnace. Between thwarts 3 ft.

Carvel-built. Elm. 36 10' 2" 3' 5"

6. Launch. Between thwarts 3 ft. 1 in.

To carry 140 men. Double skin

diagonal. Teak. 42 11' 6" 4' 6"

7. Berthon collapsible boats weighing

7 cwt. for destroyers.

With the exception of the larger classes, viz. cutters, pinnaces and

launches, the V-shape of bottom is still preserved, which does not tend

to stability, and it is difficult to see why the smaller classes have

not followed the improvement made in their larger sisters.

Pleasure boats and racing.

Though the number and variety of sea-going boats is of much greater

importance, no account of boats in general would be complete without

reference to the development of pleasure craft upon rivers and inland

waters, especially in England, during the past century. There is a

legend, dating from Saxon times, which tells of King Edgar the Peaceable

being rowed on the Dee from his palace in Chester to the church of St

John, by eight kings, himself the ninth, steering this ancient 8-oar;

but not much is heard of rowing in England until 1453, when John Norman,

lord mayor of London, set the example of going by water to Westminster,

which, we are told, made him popular with the watermen of his day, as in

consequence the use of pleasure boats by the citizens became common.

Thus it was that the old Thames pleasure wherry, with its high bows and

low sharp stern and V-shaped section, and the old skiff came into vogue,

both of which have now given way to boats, mostly of clinker-build, but

with rounder bottoms and greater depth, safer and more comfortable to

row in.

In 1715 Thomas Doggett (q.v.) founded a race which is still rowed in

peculiar sculling boats, straked, and with sides flaring up to the sill

of the rowlock. Strutt tells us of a regatta in 1775 in which watermen

contended in pair-oared boats or skiffs.

At the beginning of the 19th century numerous rowing clubs flourished on

the upper tidal waters of the Thames, and we hear of four-oared races

from Westminster to Putney, and from Putney to Kew, in what we should

now consider large and heavy boats, clinker-built, with bluff entry.

Longer boats, 8-oars, and 10-oars, seem to have been existent at the end

of the 18th century. Eton certainly had one 10-oar, and three 8-oars,

and two 6-oars, before 1811. The record of 8-oar races at Oxford begins

in 1815, at Cambridge in 1827. Pair-oar and sculling races in lighter

boats seem to have come in soon after 1820, and the first Oxford and

Cambridge eight-oared race was rowed in 1829, in which year also Eton

and Westminster contended at Putney.

Henley regatta was founded in 1839, and since that date the building of

racing boats, eights, fours, pairs, and sculling boats, has made great

progress. The products of the present time are such, in lightness of

build and swiftness of propulsion, as would have been thought impossible

between 1810 and 1830.

In the middle of the 19th century the long boats in use were mostly

clinker-built with a keel. At Oxford the torpids were rowed, as now, in

clinker-built craft, but the summer races were rowed in carvel-built

boats, which also had a keel.

In 1855 the first keelless 8-oar made its appearance at Henley, built by

Mat Taylor for the Royal Chester Rowing Club. The new type was

constructed on moulds, bottom upwards, a cedar skin bent and fitted on

to the moulds, and the ribs built in after the boat had been turned

over.

In 1857 Oxford rowed in a similar boat at Putney, 55 ft. long, 25 in.

beam. From that time the keelless racing boat has held its own, fours

and pairs and sculling boats all following suit. But with the

introduction of sliding seats racing eights have developed in length to

63 ft. or more, with considerable camber, and a beam of 23-24 in. There

are, however, still advocates of the shorter type with broader beam, and

it is noticeable that the Belgian boat that won the Grand Challenge at

Henley in 1906 did not exceed 60 ft. The boat in which Oxford won the

University race in 1901 was 56 ft. long with 27 in. of beam.

In sculling boats the acceptance of the Australian type of build has led

to the construction of a much shorter boat with broader beam than that

which was in vogue twenty years ago. The same tendency has not shown

itself so pronouncedly in pair oars, but will no doubt be manifest in

time as the build improves. In fact we may expect the controversy

between long and short racing boats, and the proper method of propelling

them respectively, to be carried a step farther. The tendency, with the

long slide, and long type of boat, is to try to avoid "pinch" by

adopting the scullers' method of easy beginning, and strong drive with

the legs, and sharp finish to follow, but it remains to be seen whether

superior pace is not to be obtained in a shorter boat by sharp beginning

at a reasonable angle to the boat's side, and a continuous drive right

out to the finish of the stroke.

Appended is a list of pleasure boats in use (1909) on the Thames, with

their measurements (in feet and inches).

Class of Boat. Length. Beam. Depth.

Racing eight 56' to 63' 23" to 27" 9" to 10"

Clinker eight 56' to 60' 24" to 27" 9" to 10"

Clinker four 38' to 42' 23" to 24" 8" to 9"

Tub fours 30' to 32' 3'8"-3'10" 13" from keel to

top of stem

Outrigger pair 30' to 34' 14" to 16" 7" to 8"

Outrigger sculls 25' to 30' 10" to 13" 5-1/2" to 6"

Coaching gigs 26' to 28' 3' to 3'4" 10-1/2" to 14"

Skiffs (Thames) 24' to 26' 3'9" to 4' 12"

Skiffs (Eton) 27' 2'3" 9-1/2"

Gigs (pleasure) 24' to 36' 4' 15" to 16"

Randans 27' to 30' 4' to 4'6" 13" from keel to

top of stem

Whiffs 20' to 23' 1'4" to 1'6" 6" from keel to

top of stem

Whiff Gigs 19' to 20' 2'8" to 2'10" 12" over all

Punts racers 30' to 34' 1'3" to 1'6" 6" to 7"

" semi racers 28' to 30' 2' 9" to 10-1/2"

" pleasure 26' to 28' 2'9" to 3' 12" to 13"

AUTHORITIES.--For ancient boats: _Dict. Ant._, "Navis"; C. Torr,

_Ancient Ships_; Smith, _Voyage and Shipwreck of St Paul_; Graser, _De

re navali_; Breusing, _Die Nautik der Alten_; Contre-amiral Serre, _La

Marine des anciens_; Jules Var, _L'Art nautique dans l'antiquite_.

Medieval: Jal, _Archeologie navale_, and _Glossaire nautique_; Marquis

de Folin, _Bateaux et navires, progres de la construction navale_;

W.S. Lindsay, _History of Merchant Shipping and Ancient Commerce_.

Modern: H. Warington Smyth, _Mast and Sail in Europe and Asia_; Dixon

Kempe, _Manual of Yacht and Boat Sailing_; H.C. Folkhard, _The Sailing

Boat_; F.G. Aflato, _The Sea Fishing Industry of England and Wales_;

R.C. Leslie, _Old Sea Wings_, &c. (E. Wa.)

BOATSWAIN (pronounced "bo'sun"; derived from "boat" and "swain," a

servant), the warrant officer of the navy who in sailing-ships had

particular charge of the boats, sails, rigging, colours, anchors and

cordage. He superintended the rigging of the ship in dock, and it was

his duty to summon the crew to work by a whistle. The office still

remains, though with functions modified by the introduction of steam. In

a merchant ship the boatswain is the foreman of the crew and is

sometimes also third or fourth mate.

BOBBILI, a town of British India, in the Vizagapatam district of Madras,

70 m. north of Vizagapatam town. Pop. (1901) 17,387. It is the residence

of a raja of old family, whose estate covers an area of 227 sq. m.;

estimated income, L40,000; permanent land revenue, L9000.

The attack on the fort at Bobbili made by General Bussy in 1756 is one

of the most memorable episodes in Indian history. There was a constant

feud between the chief of Bobbili and the raja of Vizianagram; and when

Bussy marched to restore order the raja persuaded him that the fault lay

with the chief of Bobbili and joined the French with 11,000 men against

his rival. In spite of the fact that the French field-pieces at once

made practicable breaches in the mud walls of the fort, the defenders

held out with desperate valour. Two assaults were repulsed after hours

of hand-to-hand fighting; and when, after a fresh bombardment, the

garrison saw that their case was hopeless, they killed their women and

children, and only succumbed at last to a third assault because every

man of them was either killed or mortally wounded. An old man, however,

crept out of a hut with a child, whom he presented to Bussy as the son

of the dead chief. Three nights later four followers of the chief of

Bobbili crept into the tent of the raja of Vizianagram and stabbed him

to death. The child, Chinna Ranga Rao, was invested by Bussy with his

father's estate, but during his minority it was seized by his uncle.

After a temporary arrangement of terms with the raja of Vizianagram the

old feud broke out again, and the Bobbili chief was forced to take

refuge in the nizam's country. In 1794, however, on the break-up of the

Vizianagram estate, Chinna Ranga Rao was restored by the British, and in

1801 a permanent settlement was made with his son. The title of raja was

recognized as hereditary in the family; that of maharaja was conferred

as a personal distinction on Sir Venkataswetachalapati Ranga Rao,

K.C.I.E., the adopted great-great-grandson of Chinna Ranga Rao.

For the siege see _Imp. Gazetteer of India_ (Oxford, 1908), s.v.

"Bobbili Estate."

BOBBIO, a town and episcopal see of Lombardy, Italy, in the province of

Pavia, 32-1/2 m. S.W. of Piacenza by road. Pop. (1901) 4848. Its most

important building is the church dedicated to St Columban, who became

first abbot of Bobbio in 595 or 612, and died there in 615. It was

erected in Lombard style in the 11th or 12th century (to which period

the campanile belongs) and restored in the 13th. The cathedral is also

interesting. Bobbio was especially famous for the manuscripts which

belonged to the monastery of St Columban, and are now dispersed, the

greater part being in the Vatican library at Rome, and others at Milan

and Turin. The cathedral archives contain documents of the 10th and 11th

centuries.

See M. Stokes, _Six Months in the Apennines_ (London, 1892), 154 seq.;

C. Cipolla, in _L'Arte_ (1904), 241.

BOBER, a river of Germany, the most considerable of the left bank

tributaries of the Oder; it rises at an altitude of 2440 ft., on the

northern (Silesian) side of the Riesengebirge. In its upper course it

traverses a higher plateau, whence, after passing the town of Landeshut,

it descends through a narrow and fertile valley to Kupferberg. Here its

romantic middle course begins, and after dashing through a deep ravine

between the towns of Hirschberg and Lowenberg, it gains the plain. In

its lower course it meanders through pleasant pastures, bogland and pine

forests in succession, receives the waters of various mountain streams,

passes close by Bunzlau and through Sagan, and finally, after a course

of 160 m., joins the Oder at Crossen. Swollen by the melting of the

winter snows and by heavy rains in the mountains, it is frequently a

torrent, and is thus, except in the last few miles, unnavigable for

either boats or rafts.

BOBRUISK, a town and formerly a first-class fortress of Russia, in the

government of Minsk, and 100 m. by rail S.E. of the town of Minsk, in 53

deg. 15' N. lat. and 28 deg. 52' E. long., on the right bank of the

Berezina river, and on the railway from Libau and Vilna to

Ekaterinoslav. Pop. (1860) 23,761; (1897) 35,177, of whom one-half were

Jews. In the reign of Alexander I. there was erected here, at the

confluence of the Bobruiska with the Berezina, nearly a mile from the

town, a fort, which successfully withstood a bombardment by Napoleon in

1812, and was made equal to the best in Europe by the emperor Nicholas

I. It was demolished in 1897, the defences being antiquated. The town

has a military hospital and a departmental college. There are ironworks

and flour-mills; and corn and timber are shipped to Libau. The town was

half burnt down in 1902.

BOCAGE, MANUEL MARIA BARBOSA DE (1765-1805), Portuguese poet, was a

native of Setubal. His father had held important judicial and

administrative appointments, and his mother, from whom he took his last

surname, was the daughter of a Portuguese vice-admiral of French birth

who had fought at the battle of Matapan. Bocage began to make verses in

infancy, and being somewhat of a prodigy grew up to be flattered,

self-conscious and unstable. At the age of fourteen, he suddenly left

school and joined the 7th infantry regiment; but tiring of garrison life

at Setubal after two years, he decided to enter the navy. He proceeded

to the royal marine academy in Lisbon, but instead of studying he

pursued love adventures, and for the next five years burnt incense on

many altars, while his retentive memory and extraordinary talent for

improvisation gained him a host of admirers and turned his head. The

Brazilian _modinhas_, little rhymed poems sung to a guitar at family

parties, were then in great vogue, and Bocage added to his fame by

writing a number of these, by his skill in extemporizing verses on a

given theme, and by allegorical idyllic pieces, the subjects of which

are similar to those of Watteau's and Boucher's pictures. In 1786 he was

appointed _guardamarinha_ in the Indian navy, and he reached Goa by way

of Brazil in October. There he came into an ignorant society full of

petty intrigue, where his particular talents found no scope to display

themselves; the glamour of the East left him unmoved and the climate

brought on a serious illness. In these circumstances he compared the

heroic traditions of Portugal in Asia, which had induced him to leave

home, with the reality, and wrote his satirical sonnets on "The

Decadence of the Portuguese Empire in Asia," and those addressed to

Affonso de Albuquerque and D. Joao de Castro. The irritation caused by

these satires, together with rivalries in love affairs, made it

advisable for him to leave Goa, and early in 1789 he obtained the post

of lieutenant of the infantry company at Damaun; but he promptly

deserted and made his way to Macao, where he arrived in July-August.

According to a modern tradition much of the _Lusiads_ had been written

there, and Bocage probably travelled to China under the influence of

Camoens, to whose life and misfortunes he loved to compare his own.

Though he escaped the penalty of his desertion, he had no resources and

lived on friends, whose help enabled him to return to Lisbon in the

middle of the following year.

Once back in Portugal he found his old popularity, and resumed his

vagabond existence. The age was one of reaction against the Pombaline

reforms, and the famous intendant of police, Manique, in his

determination to keep out French revolutionary and atheistic propaganda,

forbade the importation of foreign classics and the discussion of all

liberal ideas. Hence the only vehicle of expression left was satire,

which Bocage employed with an unsparing hand. His poverty compelled him

to eat and sleep with friends like the turbulent friar Jose Agostinho de

Macedo (q.v.), and he soon fell under suspicion with Manique. He became

a member of the New Arcadia, a literary society founded in 1790, under

the name of Elmano Sadino, but left it three years later. Though

including in its ranks most of the poets of the time, the New Arcadia

produced little of real merit, and before long its adherents became

enemies and descended to an angry warfare of words. But Bocage's

reputation among the general public and with foreign travellers grew

year by year. Beckford, the author of _Vathek_, for instance, describes

him as "a pale, limber, odd-looking young man, the queerest but perhaps

the most original of God's poetical creatures. This strange and

versatile character may be said to possess the true wand of enchantment

which at the will of its master either animates or petrifies." In 1797

enemies of Bocage belonging to the New Arcadia delated him to Manique,

who on the pretext afforded by some anti-religious verses, the _Epistola

a Marilia_, and by his loose life, arrested him when he was about to

flee the country and lodged him in the Limoeiro, where he spent his

thirty-second birthday. His sufferings induced him to a speedy

recantation, and after much importuning of friends, he obtained his

transfer in November from the state prison to that of the Inquisition,

then a mild tribunal, and shortly afterwards recovered his liberty. He

returned to his bohemian life and subsisted by writing empty _Elogios

Dramaticos_ for the theatres, printing volumes of verses and translating

the didactic poems of Delille, Castel and others, some second-rate

French plays and Ovid's _Metamorphoses_. These resources and the help of

brother Freemasons just enabled him to exist, and a purifying influence

came into his life in the shape of a real affection for the two

beautiful daughters of D. Antonio Bersane Leite, which drew from him

verses of true feeling mixed with regrets for the past. He would have

married the younger lady, D. Anna Perpetua (Analia), but excesses had

ruined his health. In 1801 his poetical rivalry with Macedo became more

acute and personal, and ended by drawing from Bocage a stinging

extempore poem, _Pena de Taliao_, which remains a monument to his powers

of invective. In 1804 the malady from which he suffered increased, and

the approach of death inspired some beautiful sonnets, including one

directed to D. Maria (_Marcia_), elder sister of Analia, who visited and

consoled him. He became reconciled to his enemies, and breathed his last

on the 21st of December 1805. His end recalled that of Camoens, for he

expired in poverty on the eve of the French invasion, while the singer

of the _Lusiads_ just failed to see the occupation of Portugal by the

duke of Alva's army. The gulf that divides the life and achievements of

these two poets is accounted for, less by difference of talent and

temperament than by their environment, and it gives an accurate measure

of the decline of Portugal in the two centuries that separate 1580 from

1805.

To Beckford, Bocage was "a powerful genius," and Link was struck by his

nervous expression, harmonious versification and the fire of his poetry.

He employed every variety of lyric and made his mark in all. His

roundels are good, his epigrams witty, his satires rigorous and

searching, his odes often full of nobility, but his fame must rest on

his sonnets, which almost rival those of Camoens in power, elevation of

thought and tender melancholy, though they lack the latter's scholarly

refinement of phrasing. So dazzled were contemporary critics by his

brilliant and inspired extemporizations that they ignored Bocage's

licentiousness, and overlooked the slightness of his creative output and

the artificial character of most of his poetry. In 1871 a monument was

erected to the poet in the chief square of Setubal, and the centenary of

his death was kept there with much circumstance in 1905.

The best editions of his collected works are those of I.F. da Silva,

with a biographical and literary study by Rebello da Silva, in 6 vols.

(Lisbon, 1853), and of Dr Theophilo Braga, in 8 vols. (Oporto,

1875-1876). See also I.F. da Silva _Diccionario Bibliographico

Portuguez_, vol. vi. pp. 45-53, and vol. xvi. pp. 260-264; Dr T.

Braga, _Bocage, sua vida e epoca litteraria_ (Oporto, 1902). A

striking portrait of Bocage by H.J. da Silva was engraved by

Bartolozzi, who spent his last years in Lisbon. (E. Pr.)

BOCAGE (from O. Fr. _boscage_, Late Lat. _boscum_, a wood), a French

topographical term applied to several regions of France, the commonest

characteristics of which are a granite formation and an undulating or

hilly surface, consisting largely of heath or reclaimed land, and dotted

with clumps of trees. The most important districts designated by the

word are (1) the Bocage of Normandy, which comprises portions of the

departments of Calvados, Manche and Orne; (2) the Bocage of Vendee,

situated in the departments of Vendee, Deux-Sevres, Maine-et-Loire, and

Loire-Inferieure.

BOCCACCIO, GIOVANNI (1313-1375), Italian author, whose _Decameron_ is

one of the classics of literature, was born in 1313, as we know from a

letter of Petrarch, in which that poet, who was born in 1304, calls

himself the senior of his friend by nine years. The place of his birth

is somewhat doubtful--Florence, Paris and Certaldo being all mentioned

by various writers as his native city. Boccaccio undoubtedly calls

himself a Florentine, but this may refer merely to the Florentine

citizenship acquired by his grandfather. The claim of Paris has been

supported by Baldelli and Tiraboschi, mainly on the ground that his

mother was a lady of good family in that city, where she met Boccaccio's

father. There is a good deal in favour of Certaldo, a small town or

castle in the valley of the Elsa, 20 m. from Florence, where the family

had some property, and where the poet spent much of the latter part of

his life. He always signed his name Boccaccio da Certaldo, and named

that town as his birthplace in his own epitaph. Petrarch calls his

friend Certaldese; and Filippo Villani, a contemporary, distinctly says

that Boccaccio was born in Certaldo.

Boccaccio, an illegitimate son, as is put beyond dispute by the fact

that a special licence had to be obtained when he desired to become a

priest, was brought up with tender care by his father, who seems to have

been a merchant of respectable rank. His elementary education he

received from Giovanni da Strada, an esteemed teacher of grammar in

Florence. But at an early age he was apprenticed to an eminent merchant,

with whom he remained for six years, a time entirely lost to him, if we

may believe his own statement. For from his tenderest years his soul was

attached to that "_alma poesis_," which, on his tombstone, he names as

the task and study of his life. In one of his works he relates that, in

his seventh year, before he had ever seen a book of poetry or learned

the rules of metrical composition, he began to write verse in his

childish fashion, and earned for himself amongst his friends the name of

"the poet." It is uncertain where Boccaccio passed these six years of

bondage; most likely he followed his master to various centres of

commerce in Italy and France. We know at least that he was in Naples and

Paris for some time, and the youthful impressions received in the latter

city, as well as the knowledge of the French language acquired there,

were of considerable influence on his later career. Yielding at last to

his son's immutable aversion to commerce, the elder Boccaccio permitted

him to adopt a course of study somewhat more congenial to the literary

tastes of the young man. He was sent to a celebrated professor of canon

law, at that time an important field of action both to the student and

the practical jurist. According to some accounts--far from authentic, it

is true--this professor was Cino da Pistoia, the friend of Dante, and

himself a celebrated poet and scholar. But, whoever he may have been,

Boccaccio's master was unable to inspire his pupil with scientific

ardour. "Again," Boccaccio says, "I lost nearly six years. And so

nauseous was this study to my mind, that neither the teaching of my

master, nor the authority and command of my father, nor yet the

exertions and reproof of my friends, could make me take to it, for my

love of poetry was invincible."

About 1333 Boccaccio settled for some years at Naples, apparently sent

there by his father to resume his mercantile pursuits, the canon law

being finally abandoned. The place, it must be confessed, was little

adapted to lead to a practical view of life one in whose heart the love

of poetry was firmly rooted. The court of King Robert of Anjou at Naples

was frequented by many Italian and French men of letters, the great

Petrarch amongst the number. At the latter's public examination in the

noble science of poetry by the king, previous to his receiving the

laurel crown at Rome, Boccaccio was present,--without, however, making

his personal acquaintance at this period. In the atmosphere of this gay

court, enlivened and adorned by the wit of men and the beauty of women,

Boccaccio lived for several years. We can imagine how the tedious duties

of the market and the counting-house became more and more distasteful

to his aspiring nature. We are told that, finding himself by chance on

the supposed grave of Virgil, near Naples, Boccaccio on that sacred spot

took the firm resolution of devoting himself for ever to poetry. But

perhaps another event, which happened some time after, led quite as much

as the first-mentioned occurrence to this decisive turning-point in his

life. On Easter-eve, 1341, in the church of San Lorenzo, Boccaccio saw

for the first time the natural daughter of King Robert, Maria, whom he

immortalized as Fiammetta in the noblest creations of his muse.

Boccaccio's passion on seeing her was instantaneous, and (if we may

accept as genuine the confessions contained in one of her lover's works)

was returned with equal ardour on the part of the lady. But not till

after much delay did she yield to the amorous demands of the poet, in

spite of her honour and her duty as the wife of another. All the

information we have with regard to Maria or Fiammetta is derived from

the works of Boccaccio himself, and owing to several apparently

contradictory statements occurring in these works, the very existence of

the lady has been doubted by commentators, who seem to forget that,

surrounded by the chattering tongues of a court, and watched perhaps by

a jealous husband, Boccaccio had all possible reason to give the

appearance of fictitious incongruity to the effusions of his real

passion. But there seems no more reason to call into question the main

features of the story, or even the identity of the person, than there

would be in the case of Petrarch's Laura or of Dante's Beatrice. It has

been ingeniously pointed out by Baldelli, that the fact of her descent

from King Robert being known only to Maria herself, and through her to

Boccaccio, the latter was the more at liberty to refer to this

circumstance,--the bold expression of the truth serving in this case to

increase the mystery with which the poets of the middle ages loved, or

were obliged, to surround the objects of their praise. From Boccaccio's

_Ameto_ we learn that Maria's mother was, like his own, a French lady,

whose husband, according to Baldelli's ingenious conjecture, was of the

noble house of Aquino, and therefore of the same family with the

celebrated Thomas Aquinas. Maria died, according to his account, long

before her lover, who cherished her memory to the end of his life, as we

see from a sonnet written shortly before his death.

The first work of Boccaccio, composed by him at Fiammetta's command, was

the prose tale, _Filocopo_, describing the romantic love and adventures

of Florio and Biancafiore, a favourite subject with the knightly

minstrels of France, Italy and Germany. The treatment of the story by

Boccaccio is not remarkable for originality or beauty, and the narrative

is encumbered by classical allusions and allegorical conceits. The style

also cannot be held worthy of the future great master of Italian prose.

Considering, however, that this prose was in its infancy, and that this

was Boccaccio's first attempt at remoulding the unwieldy material at his

disposal, it would be unjust to deny that _Filocopo_ is a highly

interesting work, full of promise and all but articulate power. Another

work, written about the same time by Fiammetta's desire and dedicated to

her, is the _Teseide_, an epic poem, and indeed the first heroic epic in

the Italian language. The name is chosen somewhat inappropriately, as

King Theseus plays a secondary part, and the interest of the story

centres in the two noble knights, Palemone and Arcito, and their wooing

of the beautiful Emelia. The _Teseide_ is of particular interest to the

student of poetry, because it exhibits the first example of the _ottava

rima_, a metre which was adopted by Tasso and Ariosto, and in English by

Byron in _Don Juan_. Another link between Boccaccio's epic and English

literature is formed by the fact of Chaucer having in the _Knight's

Tale_ adopted its main features.

Boccaccio's poetry has been severely criticized by his countrymen, and

most severely by the author himself. On reading Petrarch's sonnets,

Boccaccio resolved in a fit of despair to burn his own attempts, and

only the kindly encouragement of his great friend prevented the

holocaust. Posterity has justly differed from the author's sweeping

self-criticism. It is true, that compared with Dante's grandeur and

passion, and with Petrarch's absolute mastership of metre and language,

Boccaccio's poetry seems to be somewhat thrown into shade. His verse is

occasionally slip-shod, and particularly his epic poetry lacks what in

modern parlance is called poetic diction,--the quality, that is, which

distinguishes the elevated pathos of the recorder of heroic deeds from

the easy grace of the mere _conteur_. This latter feature, so charmingly

displayed in Boccaccio's prose, has to some extent proved fatal to his

verse. At the same time, his narrative is always fluent and interesting,

and his lyrical pieces, particularly the poetic interludes in the

_Decameron_, abound with charming gallantry, and frequently rise to

lyrical pathos.

About the year 1341 Boccaccio returned to Florence by command of his

father, who in his old age desired the assistance and company of his

son. Florence, at that time disturbed by civil feuds, and the silent

gloom of his father's house could not but appear in an unfavourable

light to one accustomed to the gay life of the Neapolitan court. But

more than all this, Boccaccio regretted the separation from his beloved

Fiammetta. The thought of her at once embittered and consoled his

loneliness. Three of his works owe their existence to this period. With

all of them Fiammetta is connected; of one of them she alone is the

subject. The first work, called _Ameto_, describes the civilizing

influence of love, which subdues the ferocious manners of the savage

with its gentle power. Fiammetta, although not the heroine of the story,

is amongst the nymphs who with their tales of true love soften the mind

of the huntsman. _Ameto_ is written in prose alternating with verse,

specimens of which form occur in old and middle Latin writings. It is

more probable, however, that Boccaccio adopted it from that sweetest and

purest blossom of medieval French literature, _Aucassin et Nicolette_,

which dates from the 13th century, and was undoubtedly known to him. So

pleased was Boccaccio with the idea embodied in the character of _Ameto_

that he repeated its essential features in the Cimone of his _Decameron_

(Day 5th, tale i.). The second work referred to is a poem in fifty

chapters, called _L'amorosa Visione_. It describes a dream in which the

poet, guided by a lady, sees the heroes and lovers of ancient and

medieval times. Boccaccio evidently has tried to imitate the celebrated

_Trionfi_ of Petrarch, but without much success. There is little organic

development in the poem, which reads like the _catalogue raisonne_ of a

picture gallery; but it is remarkable from another point of view. It is

perhaps the most astounding instance in literature of ingenuity wasted

on trifles; even Edgar Poe, had he known Boccaccio's puzzle, must have

confessed himself surpassed. For the whole of the _Amorosa Visione_ is

nothing but an acrostic on a gigantic scale. The poem is written, like

the _Divina Commedia_, in _terza rima_, and the initial letters of all

the triplets throughout the work compose three poems of considerable

length, in the first of which the whole is dedicated to Boccaccio's

lady-love, this time under her real name of Maria. In addition to this,

the initial letters of the first, third, fifth, seventh and ninth lines

of the dedicatory poem form the name of Maria; so that here we have the

acrostic in the second degree. No wonder that thus entrammelled the

poet's thought begins to flag and his language to halt. The third

important work written by Boccaccio during his stay at Florence, or soon

after his return to Naples, is called _L'amorosa Fiammetta_; and

although written in prose, it contains more real poetry than the

elaborate production just referred to. It purports to be Fiammetta's

complaint after her lover, following the call of filial duty, had

deserted her. Bitterly she deplores her fate, and upbraids her lover

with coldness and want of devotion. Jealous fears add to her torture,

not altogether unfounded, if we believe the commentators' assertion that

the heroine of _Ameto_ is in reality the beautiful Lucia, a Florentine

lady loved by Boccaccio. Sadly Fiammetta recalls the moments of former

bliss, the first meeting, the stolen embrace. Her narrative is indeed

our chief source of information for the incidents of this strange

love-story. It has been thought unlikely, and indeed impossible, that

Boccaccio should thus have become the mouthpiece of a real lady's real

passion for himself; but there seems nothing incongruous in the

supposition that after a happy reunion the poet should have heard with

satisfaction, and surrounded with the halo of ideal art, the story of

his lady's sufferings. Moreover, the language is too full of individual

intensity to make the conjecture of an entirely fictitious love affair

intrinsically probable. _L'amorosa Fiammetta_ is a monody of passion

sustained even to the verge of dulness, but strikingly real, and

therefore artistically valuable.

By the intercession of an influential friend, Boccaccio at last obtained

(in 1344) his father's permission to return to Naples, where in the

meantime Giovanna, grand-daughter of King Robert, had succeeded to the

crown. Being young and beautiful, fond of poetry and of the praise of

poets, she received Boccaccio with all the distinction due to his

literary fame. For many years she remained his faithful friend, and the

poet returned her favour with grateful devotion. Even when the charge of

having instigated, or at least connived at, the murder of her husband

was but too clearly proved against her, Boccaccio was amongst the few

who stood by her, and undertook the hopeless task of clearing her name

from the dreadful stain. It was by her desire, no less than by that of

Fiammetta, that he composed (between 1344 and 1350) most of the stories

of his _Decameron_, which afterwards were collected and placed in the

mouths of the Florentine ladies and gentlemen. During this time he also

composed the _Filostrato_, a narrative poem, the chief interest of

which, for the English reader, lies in its connexion with Chaucer. With

a boldness pardonable only in men of genius, Chaucer adopted the main

features of the plot, and literally translated parts of Boccaccio's

work, without so much as mentioning the name of his Italian source.

In 1350 Boccaccio returned to Florence, owing to the death of his

father, who had made him guardian to his younger brother Jacopo. He was

received with great distinction, and entered the service of the

Republic, being at various times sent on important missions to the

margrave of Brandenburg, and to the courts of several popes, both in

Avignon and Rome. Boccaccio boasts of the friendly terms on which he had

been with the great potentates of Europe, the emperor and pope amongst

the number. But he was never a politician in the sense that Dante and

Petrarch were. As a man of the world he enjoyed the society of the

great, but his interest in the internal commotions of the Florentine

state seems to have been very slight. Besides, he never liked Florence,

and the expressions used by him regarding his fellow-citizens betray

anything but patriotic prejudice. In a Latin eclogue he applies to them

the term "Batrachos" (frogs), by which, he adds parenthetically--_Ego

intelligo Florentinorum morem; loquacissimi enim sumus, verum in rebus

bellicis nihil valemus._ The only important result of Boccaccio's

diplomatic career was his intimacy with Petrarch. The first acquaintance

of these two great men dates from the year 1350, when Boccaccio, then

just returned to Florence, did all in his power to make the great poet's

short stay in that city agreeable. When in the following year the

Florentines were anxious to draw men of great reputation to their

newly-founded university, it was again Boccaccio who insisted on the

claims of Petrarch to the most distinguished position. He himself

accepted the mission of inviting his friend to Florence, and of

announcing to Petrarch at the same time that the forfeited estates of

his family had been restored to him. In this manner an intimate

friendship grew up between them to be parted only by death. Common

interests and common literary pursuits were the natural basis of their

friendship, and both occupy prominent positions in the early history of

that great intellectual revival commonly called the Renaissance.

During the 14th century the study of ancient literature was at a low ebb

in Italy. The interest of the lay world was engrossed by political

struggles, and the treasures of classical history and poetry were at the

mercy of monks, too lazy or too ignorant to use, or even to preserve

them. Boccaccio himself told that, on asking to see the library of the

celebrated monastery of Monte Cassino, he was shown into a dusty room

without a door to it. Many of the valuable manuscripts were mutilated;

and his guide told him that the monks were in the habit of tearing

leaves from the codices to turn them into psalters for children, or

amulets for women at the price of four or five _soldi_ apiece.

Boccaccio did all in his power to remove by word and example this

barbarous indifference. He bought or copied with his own hand numerous

valuable manuscripts, and an old writer remarks that if Boccaccio had

been a professional copyist, the amount of his work might astonish us.

His zealous endeavours for the revival of the all but forgotten Greek

language in western Europe are well known. The most celebrated Italian

scholars about the beginning of the 15th century were unable to read the

Greek characters. Boccaccio deplored the ignorance of his age. He took

lessons from Leone Pilato, a learned adventurer of the period, who had

lived a long time in Thessaly and, although born in Calabria, pretended

to be a Greek. By Boccaccio's advice Leone Pilato was appointed

professor of Greek language and literature in the university of

Florence, a position which he held for several years, not without great

and lasting benefit for the revival of classical learning. Boccaccio was

justly proud of having been intimately connected with the foundation of

the first chair of Greek in Italy. But he did not forget, in his

admiration of classic literature, the great poets of his own country. He

never tires in his praise of the sublime Dante, whose works he copied

with his own hand. He conjures his friend Petrarch to study the great

Florentine, and to defend himself against the charges of wilful

ignorance and envy brought against him. A life of Dante, and the

commentaries on the first sixteen cantos of the _Inferno_, bear witness

to Boccaccio's learning and enthusiasm.

In the chronological enumeration of our author's writings we now come to

his most important work, the _Decameron_, a collection of one hundred

stories, published in their combined form in 1353, although mostly

written at an earlier date. This work marks in a certain sense the rise

of Italian prose. It is true that Dante's _Vita Nuova_ was written

before, but its involved sentences, founded essentially on Latin

constructions, cannot be compared with the infinite suppleness and

precision of Boccaccio's prose. The _Cento Novelle Antiche_, on the

other hand, which also precedes the _Decameron_ in date, can hardly be

said to be written in artistic language according to definite rules of

grammar and style. Boccaccio for the first time speaks a new idiom,

flexible and tender, like the character of the nation, and capable of

rendering all the shades of feeling, from the coarse laugh of cynicism

to the sigh of hopeless love. It is by the name of "Father of Italian

Prose" that Boccaccio ought to be chiefly remembered.

Like most progressive movements in art and literature, Boccaccio's

remoulding of Italian prose may be described as a "return to nature." It

is indeed the nature of the Italian people itself which has become

articulate in the _Decameron_; here we find southern grace and elegance,

together with that unveiled _naivete_ of impulse which is so striking

and so amiable a quality of the Italian character. The undesirable

complement of the last-mentioned feature, a coarseness and indecency of

conception and expression hardly comprehensible to the northern mind,

also appears in the _Decameron_, particularly where the life and

conversation of the lower classes are the subject of the story. At the

same time, these descriptions of low life are so admirable, and the

character of popular parlance rendered with such humour, as often to

make the frown of moral disgust give way to a smile.

It is not surprising that a style so concise and yet so pliable so

typical and yet so individual, as that of Boccaccio was of enormous

influence on the further progress of a prose in a manner created by it.

This influence has indeed prevailed down to the present time, to an

extent beneficial upon the whole, although frequently fatal to the

development of individual writers. Novelists like Giovanni Fiorentino or

Franco Sacchetti are completely under the sway of their great model; and

Boccaccio's influence may be discerned equally in the plastic fulness of

Machiavelli and in the pointed satire of Aretino. Without touching upon

the individual merits of Lasca, Bandello and other novelists of the

_cinque-cento_, it may be asserted that none of them created a style

independent of their great predecessor. One cannot indeed but acquiesce

in the authoritative utterance of the Accademia della Crusca, which

holds up the _Decameron_ as the standard and model of Italian prose.

Even the Della Cruscan writers themselves have been unable to deprive

the language wholly of the fresh spontaneity of Boccaccio's manner,

which in modern literature we again admire in Manzoni's _Promessi

sposi_.

A detailed analysis of a work so well known as the _Decameron_ would be

unnecessary. The description of the plague of Florence preceding the

stories is universally acknowledged to be a masterpiece of epic grandeur

and vividness. It ranks with the paintings of similar calamities by

Thucydides, Defoe and Manzoni. Like Defoe, Boccaccio had to draw largely

on hearsay and his own imagination, it being almost certain that in 1348

he was at Naples, and therefore no eye-witness of the scenes he

describes. The stories themselves, a hundred in number, range from the

highest pathos to the coarsest licentiousness. A creation like the

patient Griselda, which international literature owes to Boccaccio,

ought to atone for much that is morally and artistically objectionable

in the _Decameron_. It may be said on this head, that his age and his

country were not only deeply immoral, but in addition exceedingly

outspoken. Moreover, his sources were anything but pure. Most of his

improper stories are either anecdotes from real life, or they are taken

from the _fabliaux_ of medieval French poets. On comparing the latter

class of stories (about one-fifth of the whole _Decameron_) with their

French originals, one finds that Boccaccio has never added to, but has

sometimes toned down the revolting ingredients. Notwithstanding this, it

cannot be denied that the artistic value of the _Decameron_ is greatly

impaired by descriptions and expressions, the intentional licentiousness

of which is but imperfectly veiled by an attempt at humour.

Boccaccio has been accused of plagiarism, particularly by French

critics, who correctly state that the subjects of many stories in the

_Decameron_ are borrowed from their literature. A similar objection

might be raised against Chaucer, Shakespeare, Goethe (in _Faust_), and

indeed most of the master minds of all nations. Power of invention is

not the only nor even the chief criterion of a great poet. He takes his

subjects indiscriminately from his own fancy, or from the consciousness

of his and other nations. Stories float about in the air, known to all

yet realized by few; the poet gathers their _disjecta membra_ into an

organic whole, and this he inspires and calls into life with the breath

of his genius. It is in this sense that Boccaccio is the creator of

those innumerable beautiful types and stories, which have since become

household words amongst civilized nations. No author can equal him in

these contributions to the store of international literature. There are

indeed few great poets who have not in some way become indebted to the

inexhaustible treasure of Boccaccio's creativeness. One of the greatest

masterpieces of German literature, Lessing's _Nathan the Wise_, contains

a story from Boccaccio (_Decameron_, Day 1st, tale iii.), and the list

of English poets who have drawn from the same source comprises, among

many others, the names of Chaucer, Lydgate, Dryden, Keats and Tennyson.

For ten years Boccaccio continued to reside in Florence, leaving the

city only occasionally on diplomatic missions or on visits to his

friends. His fame in the meantime began to spread far and wide, and his

_Decameron_, in particular, was devoured by the fashionable ladies and

gentlemen of the age. About 1360 he seems to have retired from the

turbulent scenes of Florence to his native Certaldo, the secluded charms

of which he describes with rapture. In the following year took place

that strange turning-point in Boccaccio's career which is generally

described as his conversion. It seems that a Carthusian monk came to him

while at Certaldo charged with a posthumous message from another monk of

the same order, to the effect that if Boccaccio did not at once abandon

his godless ways in life and literature his death would ensue after a

short time. It is also mentioned that the revelation to the friar on his

deathbed of a secret known only to Boccaccio gave additional import to

this alarming information. Boccaccio's impressionable nature was deeply

moved. His life had been far from virtuous; in his writings he had

frequently sinned against the rules of morality, and worse still, he had

attacked with bitter satire the institutions and servants of holy mother

church. Terrified by the approach of immediate death, he resolved to

sell his library, abandon literature, and devote the remainder of his

life to penance and religious exercise. To this effect he wrote to

Petrarch. We possess the poet's answer; it is a masterpiece of writing,

and what is more, a proof of tenderest friendship. The message of the

monk Petrarch is evidently inclined to treat simply as pious fraud,

without, however, actually committing himself to that opinion. "No monk

is required to tell thee of the shortness and precariousness of human

life. Of the advice received accept what is good; abandon worldly cares,

conquer thy passions, and reform thy soul and life of degraded habits.

But do not give up the studies which are the true food of a healthy

mind." Boccaccio seems to have acted on this valuable advice. His later

works, although written in Latin and scientific in character, are by no

means of a religious kind. It seems, however, that his entering the

church in 1362 is connected with the events just related.

In 1363 Boccaccio went on a visit to Naples to the seneschal Acciajuoli

(the same Florentine who had in 1344 persuaded the elder Boccaccio to

permit his son's return to Naples), who commissioned him to write the

story of his deeds of valour. On his arrival, however, the poet was

treated with shameful neglect, and revenged himself by denying the

possibility of relating any valorous deeds for want of their existence.

This declaration, it must be confessed, came somewhat late, but it was

provoked by a silly attack on the poet himself by one of the seneschal's

indiscreet friends.

During the next ten years Boccaccio led an unsettled life, residing

chiefly at Florence or Certaldo, but frequently leaving his home on

visits to Petrarch and other friends, and on various diplomatic errands

in the service of the Republic. He seems to have been poor, having spent

large sums in the purchase of books, but his independent spirit rejected

the numerous splendid offers of hospitality made to him by friends and

admirers. During this period he wrote four important Latin works--_De

Genealogia Deorum libri XV._, a compendium of mythological knowledge

full of deep learning; _De Montium, Silvarum, Lacuum, et Marium

nominibus liber_, a treatise on ancient geography; and two historical

books--_De Casibus Virorum et Feminarum Illustrium libri IX._,

interesting to the English reader as the original of John Lydgate's

_Fall of Princes_; and _De Claris Mulieribus_. To the list of his works

ought to be added _Il Ninfale Fiesolano_, a beautiful love-story in

verse, and _Il Corbaccio ossia Il Laberinto d'Amore_, a coarse satire on

a Florentine widow who had jilted the poet, written about 1355, not to

mention many eclogues in Latin and miscellaneous _Rime_ in Italian (the

latter collected by his biographer Count Baldelli in 1802).

In 1373 we find Boccaccio again settled at Certaldo. Here he was

attacked by a terrible disease which brought him to the verge of death,

and from the consequences of which he never quite recovered. But

sickness could not subdue his intellectual vigour. When the Florentines

established a chair for the explanation of the _Divina Commedia_ in

their university, and offered it to Boccaccio, the senescent poet at

once undertook the arduous duty. He delivered his first lecture on the

23rd of October 1373. The commentary on part of the _Inferno_, already

alluded to, bears witness of his unabated power of intellect. In 1374

the news of the loss of his dearest friend Petrarch reached Boccaccio,

and from this blow he may be said to have never recovered. Almost his

dying efforts were devoted to the memory of his friend; urgently he

entreated Petrarch's son-in-law to arrange the publication of the

deceased poet's Latin epic _Africa_, a work of which the author had been

far more proud than of his immortal sonnets to Laura.

In his last will Boccaccio left his library to his father confessor, and

after his decease to the convent of Santo Spirito in Florence. His small

property he bequeathed to his brother Jacopo. His own natural children

had died before him. He himself died on the 21st of December 1375 at

Certaldo, and was buried in the church of SS. Jacopo e Filippo of that

town. On his tombstone was engraved the epitaph composed by himself

shortly before his death. It is calm and dignified, worthy indeed of a

great life with a great purpose. These are the lines:--

"Hac sub mole jacent cineres ac ossa Joannis;

Mens sedet ante Deum, meritis ornata laborum

Mortalis vitae. Genitor Boccaccius illi;

Patria Certaldum; studium fuit alma poesis."

A complete edition of Boccaccio's Italian writings, in 17 vols., was

published by Moutier (Florence, 1834). The life of Boccaccio has been

written by Tiraboschi, Mazzuchelli, Count Baldelli (_Vita di

Boccaccio_, Florence, 1806), and others. In English the best biography

is Edward Hutton (1909.) The first printed edition of the _Decameron_

is without date, place or printer's name; but it is believed to belong

to the year 1469 or 1470, and to have been printed at Florence.

Besides this, Baldelli mentions eleven editions during the 15th

century. The entire number of editions by far exceeds a hundred. A

curious expurgated edition, authorized by the pope, appeared at

Florence, 1573. Here, however, the grossest indecencies remain, the

chief alteration being the change of the improper personages from

priests and monks into laymen. The best old edition is that of

Florence, 1527. Of modern reprints, that by Forfoni (Florence, 1857)

deserves mention. Manni has written a _Storia del Decamerone_ (1742),

and a German scholar, M. Landau, who published (Vienna, 1869) a

valuable investigation of the sources of the _Decameron_, subsequently

brought out in 1877 a general study of Boccaccio's life and works. An

interesting English translation of the _Decameron_ appeared in 1624,

under the title _The Model of Mirth, Wit, Eloquence and Conversation_.

(F. H.)