The emoluments of his office were not such as appear very dazzling to modern eyes. “Boethius, as president of the university,” says Dr Johnson, “enjoyed a revenue of forty Scottish marks, about two pounds four shillings and sixpence of sterling money. In the present age of trade and taxes, it is difficult even for the imagination so to raise the value of money, or so to diminish the demands of life, as to suppose four and forty shillings a year an honourable stipend; yet it was probably equal not only to the needs but to the rank of Boethius. The wealth of England was undoubtedly to that of Scotland more than five to one, and it is known that Henry the Eighth, among whose faults avarice was never reckoned, granted to Roger Ascham, as a reward of his learning, a pension of ten pounds a year.” But it is necessary to recollect that this was not the only preferment which Boece enjoyed: he was not only principal of King’s College, but was likewise a canon of Aberdeen, and rector of Tyrie in the same county. Under the date of July 14, 1527, we find a “grant to Maister Hector” of an annual pension of £50, to be paid by the sheriff of Aberdeen out of the king’s casualties; and on the 26th of July 1529 was issued a “precept for a lettre to Mr Hector Boys, professor of theology, of a pension of £50 Scots yearly, until the king promote him to a benefice of 100 marks Scots of yearly value; the said pension to be paid him by the customers of Aberdeen.” In 1533 and 1534, one-half of his pension was, however, paid by the king’s treasurer, and the other half by the comptroller; and as no payment subsequent to that of Whitsuntide 1534 has been traced in the treasurer’s accounts, he is supposed to have obtained his benefice soon after that period.

His earliest publication, the lives of the bishops of Aberdeen, appeared under the following title— Episcoporum Murthlacensium et Abeι∙donensium per Hectorem Boetium Vitoe. Impressa sunt hoec prelo Ascensiano ad Idus Maias anno Salutis, Μ.D.XXII., 4to. This little volume, which is of great rarity, was reprinted for the members of the Bannatyne Club— Hectoris Boetii Murthlacensium et Aberdonensνum Episcoporum Vitoe iterum in lucem editoe, Edin., 1825, 4to. Of this diocese the seat was originally at Murthlack, or Mortlach, in the county of Banff, but it was afterwards transferred to Aberdeen. His notices of the early prelates are necessarily brief and unsatisfactory, and the most interesting portion of the book is that which relates to his liberal patroD Bishop Elphinstone, of whoso private history and public services he has given a circumstantial detail, which occupies nearly one-third of the volume. Here we likewise find an account of the foundation and constitution of the college, together with some notices of its earliest members. His more famous work, the History of Scotland, was published after an interval of five years :— Scotorum Historioe a prima gentis origine cum aliarum et rerum et gentium illustratione non vulgari: proemissa epistola nuncupatoria, tabellisque amplissimis, et non poenitenda Isagoge, quee ab hujus tergo explicabitur diffusius. Quoe omnia impressa quidem sunt Iodoci Badii Ascensii typis et opera; impensis autem nobilis et proedocti viri Hectoris Boethii Deidonani, a quo sunt et condita et edita, fol. The title and colophon have no date, but the commendatory epistle by Alexander Lyon, precentor of the cathedral of Elgin, bears the 15th of March 1527. This edition contains seventeen books. Another edition, containing the eighteenth book and a fragment of the nineteenth, was published by Ferrerius, who has added an appendix of thirty-five pages; Paris, 1574, fol. Though published at Paris, the latter edition appears from the colophon to have been printed at Lausanne.

The composition of Boece’s history displays much ability; and if the style does not always reach the standard of ancient purity, it displays a certain vein of elegance which generally renders it attractive. The author’s love of his native country, and his anxiety to emblazon the heroic deeds of his countrymen, are conspicuous in every part of the work; nor must we leave unnoticed those aspirations after political freedom, by which he was honourably distinguished ata period when the human mind was so generally chained to the earth by the most slavish maxims of submission. It may be recorded as commendation instead of reproach, that his principles of polity have been represented as no better than those of Buchanan. Boece’s imagination was, however, stronger than his judgment: of the extent of the historian’s credulity, his narrative exhibits many unequivocal proofs; and if this circumstance admits of a sufficient excuse from the common propensity of the age in which he lived, his work presents strong indications of another fault, for which it is not so easy to find an apology. According to Bishop Lloyd, he put Fordun’s tales “into the form of an history, and pieced them out with a very good invention, that part in which he chiefly excelled.” (Lloyd’s Historical Account of Church Government in Great Britain and Ireland, pref.) He professes to have obtained from the monastery of Icolmkill, through the good offices of the earl of Argyll, and his brother the treasurer, certain original historians of Scotland, and among the rest Veremundus and Campbell, of whose writings not a single vestige is now to be found. In his dedication to the king, he is pleased to state that Veremundus, a Spaniard by birth, was archdeacon of St Andrews, and that he wrote in Latin a history of Scotland from the origin of the nation to the reign of Malcolm III., to whom he inscribed his work. According to Bishop Stillingfleet, whose opinion has been adopted by many other writers, these historians never existed except in Boece’s fertile imagination. His propensity to the marvellous was at an early period exposed in the following tetrastich of Leland :—

“Hectoris historici tot quot mendacia scripsit, Si vis ut numerem, lector amice, tibi, Me jubeas etiam fluctus numerare marinos, Et liquidi stellas connumerare poli.”

Lhuyd, who attacked him in different works, spoke of his fabrications with unsparing severity, nor did he experience much better treatment from Stanihurst, an Irish writer of considerable reputation. Of his merits as an historian a very unfavourable estimate was formed by Lord Hailes and Mr Pinkerton. But in the opinion of Wallace, a learned lawyer, his “elegant style and correct composition, not to add beautiful genius and finè fancy, are conclusive proofs that his understanding could not be inaccurate.” And, as Maitland, the editor of Bellenden’s translation of Boece’s history, has remarked, “in forming a final estimate of the literary character of Boece, we must bear in mind that, when scholar-craft in this country at least was rare, he was a scholar, and contributed, by reviving ancient learning, to dispel the gloom of the Middle Ages; and that, while the history of his country existed only in the rude page of the chroniclers who preceded him, or in the fading records of oYal tradition, he embodied it in narrative so interesting and language so beautiful, as to be worthy of a more refined age.”

Boece’s History of Scotland was translated into the Scottish lauguage by John Bellenden, archdeacon of Moray and canon of Boss. While the learned archdeacon was engaged in translating the work into prose, another individual was engaged in the more formidable task of translating it into verse. A copy of this metrical version, containing about 70,000 lines, is preserved in the library of the University of Cambridge; a leaf seems to be wanting at the beginning, and the manuscript has suffered some other mutilations. The name of the versifier does not appear, nor has it been ascertained from any other document; but we learn from the prologue that his labours, like those of Bellenden, were intended for the benefit of the young monarch. From the concluding lines, it is ascertained that he began his task in April 1531, and concluded it in September 1535. His verses are not distinguished by any considerable degree of energy or elegance, and the writer is chiefly to be commended for his perseverance.

In 1528, soon after the publication of his history, Boece took the degree of D.D. at Aberdeen; and on this occasion the magistrates voted him a present of a tun of wine when the new wines should arrive, or, according to his option, the sum of £20 to purchase a new bonnet. He appears to have survived till the year 1536; for on the 22d of November in that year, the king presented John Garden to the rectory of Tyrie, vacant by the death of “Mr Hector Boiss.” He died at Aberdeen, and, according to the most probable conjecture, he had then attained, or at least approached, the age of seventy.