The son of a dissenting minister, Samuel Boyse studied at Dublin and Glasgow before adopting a literary career that took him to Edinburgh and London. He became a regular contributor to the Gentleman's Magazine where his poems appeared under the signatures "Alcaeus" and "Y." Boyse was patronized by Robert Walpole before falling upon desperate times. Although he was variously regarded as dissolute, mad, or both, Boyse's religious verse was admired and his poems were collected, reprinted, and eventually found a place in the collections of British Poets. He died of consumption in disputed circumstances.
TEXT RECORDS:
1737Stanzas occasion'd by reading Mr. Pope's Imitation of Horace, Book IV. Ode I.
1737The Olive: an Ode. In the Stanza of Spenser.
1738Part of Psalm XLII in imitation of the Style of Spencer.
1738The Olive, an Heroick Ode: Preface.
1740An Ode sacred to the Birth of the Marquis of Tavistock.
1740The Character and Speech of Cosroes the Mede: an Improvement of the Squire's Tale of Chaucer.
1741Cambuscan, or the Squire's Tale.
1741The Vision of Patience, an Allegorical Poem.
1743Albion's Triumph. An Ode.
1743To Mr. Urban, on the Conclusion of his Vol. XIII for the Year 1743. Ode.
1748Irene, an Heroic Ode in the Stanza of Spenser.
PUBLICATIONS:
Translations and poems written on several subjects. 1731.
Verses occasioned by seeing the palace and park of Dalkeith. 1732.
Verses sacred to the memory of the Right Honourable Charles Earl of Peterborough and Monmouth. 1735.
The tears of the muses: a poem sacred to the memory of the Right Honourable Anne, late Viscountess of Stormont. 1736.
The olive: an ode occasion'd by the auspicious success of his Majesty's counsels, in the stanza of Spencer. 1737.
The deity: a poem. 1739.
The Canterbury Tales modernized. Boyse and others, 1741.
The praise of peace: a poem in three cantos from the Dutch of Mr. Van Haren. 1742.
Albion's triumph. 1743.
An historical review of the transactions of Europe. 2 vols, 1747.
Impartial history of the late rebellion in 1745. 1748.
A demonstration of the existence of God [trans. Boyse]. 1749.
The tablature of Cebes. Trans. 1750.
The new pantheon: or the fabulous history of the heathen gods. 1753.
Poetical works. 1757, 1773, 1785.
PROFILE AND
ASSOCIATES:
Irish
Presbyterian
Dissenter
Glasgow University
poet
translator
Gentleman's Magazine
Grub-Street Journal
Edward Cave
Rev. James Hervey
Samuel Johnson
George Ogle
Robert Walpole
REFERENCE:
DNB; NCBEL.
Biographia Britannica (1747-66) 7:17*; Cibber-Shiels, Lives of the Poets (1753); "Account of the Life of Mr. Samuel Boyse" British Magazine 5 (November 1764) 557-61; "Account of the Life of Mr. Samuel Boyse" Annual Register 7 (1764) 54-58; "Life of Mr. Samuel Boyse" Universal Magazine 36 (May 1765) 262-65; "Memoirs of Samuel Boyse" Weekly Magazine or Edinburgh Amusement 33 (25 July 1776) 134-36; Gentleman's Magazine 49 (1779) 32; John Nichols, Select Collection of Poems (1780-82), "On the Folly and Misery of Profligacy in Literary Men" Westminster Magazine 13 (January 1785) 23-28; Three Letters by Boyse, European Magazine 13 (July 1788) 9; Bell's Fugitive Poetry (1789-97); Robert Anderson, British Poets (1795); "Of Samuel Boyse" Massachusetts Magazine 8 (November 1796) 923; Alexander Campbell, Introduction to the History of Poetry in Scotland (1798); Robert Southey, Specimens of Later English Poets (1807); "Samuel Boyse" Belfast Monthly Magazine 2 (April 1809) 277-80; Alexander Chalmers, English Poets (1810); Alexander Chalmers, General Biographical Dictionary (1812-17); John Nichols, Literary Anecdotes (1812-15); Richard Ryan, Biographia Hibernica (1819); Robert Watt, Bibliotheca Britannica (1824); John Holland, in Psalmists of Britain (1843); Allibone, Critical Dictionary of English Literature (1858-71; 1882); Alfred Webb, Compendium of Irish Biography (1878); O'Donoghue, Poets of Ireland (1912); John S. Crone, Concise Dictionary of Irish Biography (1928); R. H. Griffeth, "Boyse's Albion's Triumph" Texas University Studies 13 (1933) 84-94; Iolo A. Williams, "Poems on Several Occasions, 1757, a postscript" Book Collectors Quarterly 14 (1934) 73-76; Carlson, in The First Magazine (1938); Fairchild, in Religious Trends in English Poetry (1939); Dobree, OHEL (1959); Edward Hart, "Portrait of a Grub: Boyse" SEL 7 (1967) 415-25; Chadwyck-Healey English Poetry Database (1995).
COMMENTARY RECORDS
for Samuel Boyse:
BIOGRAPHY RECORDS
for Samuel Boyse:
AUTHOR AS CRITIC:
(commentary records)
1. | 1749 ca. Rev. James Hervey: Samuel Boyse to James Hervey, 1749 ca.; Collection of Letters of James Hervey (1760) 2:251. |