James Boyer
Encyclopedia
The Reverend James Boyer (1736–1814) was the tyrannical headmaster of Christ’s Hospital from the years 1778 to 1799.
These turbulent years at the end of the 18th century were when three of the school's most famous students attended: Leigh Hunt
, Charles Lamb, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge
. Boyer’s personality was immortalized in the writing of all three authors. Hunt made several references to Boyer in his autobiography, Lamb wrote of him in his two famous essays concerning his time at Christ’s Hospital, and Coleridge referred to him his Biographia Literaria.
Through the work of these three authors in particular Boyer became infamous for his capricious and unpredictable brutality reminiscent of the dreaded Wackford Squeers in Nicholas Nickleby. Most famously, Boyer knocked one of Hunt’s teeth out by throwing a heavy copy of Homer at his head from across the room.
Lamb wrote this about the arbitrary violence of Boyer:
The arbitrary nature of Boyer’ tyranny is illustrated in a story Hunt tells of a boy referred to simply as C__ with whom the master took “every opportunity to be severe with him, nobody knew why.
Despite his tyrannical influence at Christ’s Hospital, Boyer is often credited with much of the achievement of the students at the school during this time there. Coleridge, in particular, praised Boyer’s influence concerning his approach to poetics.
According to Hunt, when Coleridge learned that Boyer was on his death-bed, he said “it was lucky that the cherubim who took him to heaven were nothing but faces and wings, or he would infallibly have flogged them by the way.”
These turbulent years at the end of the 18th century were when three of the school's most famous students attended: Leigh Hunt
Leigh Hunt
James Henry Leigh Hunt , best known as Leigh Hunt, was an English critic, essayist, poet and writer.-Early life:Leigh Hunt was born at Southgate, London, where his parents had settled after leaving the USA...
, Charles Lamb, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, Romantic, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla...
. Boyer’s personality was immortalized in the writing of all three authors. Hunt made several references to Boyer in his autobiography, Lamb wrote of him in his two famous essays concerning his time at Christ’s Hospital, and Coleridge referred to him his Biographia Literaria.
Through the work of these three authors in particular Boyer became infamous for his capricious and unpredictable brutality reminiscent of the dreaded Wackford Squeers in Nicholas Nickleby. Most famously, Boyer knocked one of Hunt’s teeth out by throwing a heavy copy of Homer at his head from across the room.
Lamb wrote this about the arbitrary violence of Boyer:
The arbitrary nature of Boyer’ tyranny is illustrated in a story Hunt tells of a boy referred to simply as C__ with whom the master took “every opportunity to be severe with him, nobody knew why.
Despite his tyrannical influence at Christ’s Hospital, Boyer is often credited with much of the achievement of the students at the school during this time there. Coleridge, in particular, praised Boyer’s influence concerning his approach to poetics.
According to Hunt, when Coleridge learned that Boyer was on his death-bed, he said “it was lucky that the cherubim who took him to heaven were nothing but faces and wings, or he would infallibly have flogged them by the way.”
Sources
- Autobiogrphy by Leigh Hunt, 2 volumes, E.P. Dutton & Company, New York, 1903.
- Biogrphia Literaria by Samuel Coleridge, Harper and Brothers, New York, 1884
- Everybody's Lamb by Charles Lamb, (A.C. Ward [ed.])G. Bell & Sons, London, 1933.