57. ANDREW DOWNES, D.D

Johnson, "monarch in letters;"

ANDREW DOWNES.

and by Milton, "chief of learned men in England;" and by foreigners, "the great dictator of learning of the English nation." His decisive testimony to Downes's ability was given from personal knowledge. Andrew Downes was one of the revising committee of twelve, composed of the principal members of each company, who met at London to prepare the copy for the press. This venerable Professor is spoken of as "one composed of Greek and industry." He bestowed much labor on Sir Henry Savile's celebrated edition of the works of Chrysostom, and many of the learned notes were furnished by him. "His pains were so inlaid" with that monument of erudition, that "both will be preserved together." He died, February 2nd, 1625, at the great age of eighty-one years.

JOHN BOIS.

This devoted scholar was a native of Nettlestead, in Suffolk, where he was born January 3rd, 1560. His father William Bois, a convert from papistry, was a pious minister, and a very learned man; and at the time of his death, was

Rector of West Stowe. His mother, Mirable Poolye, was a pious woman, and a great reader of the Bible in the older translations. He was the only child that grew up. He was carefully taught by his father; and at the age of five years, he had read the Bible in Hebrew. By the time he was six years old, he not only wrote Hebrew legibly, but in a fair and elegant character. Some of these remarkable manuscripts are still carefully preserved. This precocious scholar, who yet lived to a ripe and hale old age, was sent to school at Hadley, where he was a fellow-student with Bishop Overall. He was admitted to St. John's College, Cambridge, in 1575. He soon distinguished himself by his great skill in Greek, writing letters in that language to the Master and Senior Fellows, when he had been but half a year in College. Bois was a pupil to Dr. Downes, then chief lecturer on the Greek language, who took such delight in his promising disciple, that he treated him with great familiarity, even while he was a freshman. In addition to his lectures, which Dr. Downes read five times in the week, he took the youth to his chambers, where he plied him exceedingly. He there read with him twelve Greek authors, in verse and prose, the hardest that could be found.

JOHN BOIS.

both for dialect and phrase. It was a common practice with the young enthusiast to go to the University Library at four o'clock in the morning, and stay without intermission till eight in the evening.