Boston, John

, a monk of St. Edmund’s bury in the fourteenth century, and who is thought to have died in | 1410, was one of the first collectors of the lives of English writers, and the precursor of Leland, Bale, and Pitts. He searched indefatigably all the libraries of the kingdom, and wrote a catalogue of the authors, with short opinions of them. Archbishop Usher had the most curious ms copy of this book, which became afterwards Mr. Thomas Gale’s property. Wood mentions another smaller catalogue of his writing. He wrote also “Speculum ccenobitarum,” in which he gives the origin and progress of monachism; and a history of his own monastery. “De rebus cœnobii sui,” which last is lost, but the former was printed at Oxford 1722, 8vo, by Hall at the end of “Trivet. Annal.” ¹