John Boys (classicist)

John Boys (c. 1614–1661) was an English translator of Virgil.

John Boys was the son of John Boys (b. 1590) of Hoad Court, Blean, Kent, and nephew of

on his landing at Dover on 25 May 1660; but "he was prevented therein by reason [H]is [M]ajesty made no stay at all in that town," and he therefore sent Charles a copy of it.

Boys married Anne, daughter of Dr. William Kingsley, archdeacon of Canterbury, by whom he had three sons—Thomas, who died without issue; John, a colonel in the army, who died 4 September 1710; and Sir William Boys, M.D., who is stated to have died in 1744. Boys himself died in 1660–1, and was buried in the chancel of the church of Hoad.

Boys chiefly prided himself on his classical attainments. In 1661 he published two translations from Virgil's

, Clarendon's son. A translation of the third book of the Æneid in heroic verse occupies fifty-one pages, and is followed by "some few hasty reflections upon the precedent poem." Boys' enthusiasm for Virgil is boundless, but his criticism is rather childish.

References

attribution

• Lee, Sidney (1886). "Boys, John (1614?-1661)" . In Stephen, Leslie (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 06. London: Smith, Elder & Co. [Hasted's Kent, i. 565; Corser's Anglo-Poet. Collect, ii. 323-5; Brit. Mus. Cat.; Berry's Kentish Genealogies, p. 445.]