Bogan, Zachary

, a learned and pious writer of the seventeenth century, was the son of William Bogan, gentleman, and born at Little Hempston in Devonshire, about the feast of St. John the Baptist in the year 1625. He became a commoner of St. Alban hall under the tuition of Mr. Ralph Button in Michaelmas term in 1640. He was admitted a scholar of Corpus Christi college November the 26th the year following, and left the university when the city of Oxford was garrisoned for the king, and returned after the surrender of it to the parliament. October 21, 1646, he took the degree of bachelor of arts, and was elected probationer fellow of his college the year | following. November 19, 1650, he took the degree of master of arts, and became a retired and religious student, and distinguished in the university for his admirable skill in the tongues. At last, having contracted an ill habit of body by his intense application to his studies, he died September 1, 1659, and was interred in the middle of the north cloister belonging to Corpus Christi college, joining to the south side of the chapel there. “At that time and before,” Wood informs us, “the nation being very unsettled, and the university expecting nothing but ruin and dissolution, it pleased Mr. Began to give by his will to the city of Oxford five hundred pounds; whereas hud the nation been otherwise, he would have given that money to his college.” An original picture of him is to be seen in the guild-hall of the city of Oxford. Mr. Wood adds, that he was an excellent tutor, but a zealous puritan and in his Hist. & Antiq. Univers. Oxon. he gives him the character of vir studiosus et lingiiarum peritissimus, a studious person, and well skilled in the languages, in which opinion some learned foreigners who have read his works concur. He wrote, 1. Additions, in four books, to Francis Rous’s “Archaeologioc Atticae,” the fifth edition of which was published at Oxford, 1658, 4to. These additions relate to the customs of the ancient Greeks in marriages, burials, feasts, &c. at the close of which, Mr. Bogan, with great simplicity of manner, gives his reasons for undertaking the work: “The cords,” he says, “which drew me to do it (and drawn I was) were three, such as, twisted together, I could by no means break; viz. l.The importunity of my friend. 2. The necessity of the knowledge of ancient rites and customs for the understanding of authors. And, 3. the hopes which I had by employment (as by an issue) to divert my humour of melancholy another way. The causes why I did it no better are as many, viz. 1. Want of years and judgment, having done the most part of it in my Tyrocinium (when I took more delight in these studies) us appears by the number of the authors which I have cited. 2. Want of health. And, 3. want of time and leisure, being called away by occasions that might not be neglected, and by friends that could not be disobeyed. If yet I have given but little light, and my labour and oil be not all lost, I have as much as I desired myself, and thou hast no more than I owed thee.” 2. “A view of the Threats and Punishments recorded in Scripture | alphabetically composed, with some brief observations on sundry texts,” Oxford, 1653, 8vo. 3. “Meditations of the mirth of a Christian Life,” Oxford, 165:3, 8vo. 4. “Help to Prayer both extempore and by a set form as also to Meditation,” &c. Oxford, 1660, 12mo, published after the author’s death by Daniel Agas, fellow of Corpus Christi college. Our author also wrote a large and learned epistle to Mr. Edmund Dickenson, M. A. of Merlon college, prefixed to that gentleman’s book, emitled “Delphi Phcenicizantes, &c.” published at Oxford, 1655, in 8vo. And “Homerus Æfipo/Jw sive comparatio Homeri cum scriptoribus sacris quoad Normam loquendi.” In the preface he declares that it is not his intention to make any comparison between the sacred writers and their opinions and Homer, but only of their idioms and ways of speaking. To this book is added Hesiodus ’Opi^wv; wherein he shews how Hesiod expresses himself very much after the same manner %vith Homer, Oxford, 1658, 8vo. He designed likewise to publish a discourse concerning the Greek particles but he was prevented by sickness from completing it; and another treatise concerning the best use of the Greek and Latin poets. Freytag has bestowed an article on his treatise on Homer’s style. ¹