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848 BOD-
resolution being carried, he contrived to get inserted in the
petition drawn up by the states the clause “ without war,”
which practically rendered all its other clauses nugatory.
While he thus resisted the clergy and nobility and their
dependents, he opposed the demand of the king to be
allowed to alienate the public lands and royal demesnes,
and had influence sufficient to get it refused, although the
chief deputies had been won over to assent to it. This
lost him the favour of the king, who wanted money on any
terms. His magnum opus—Les six livres de la Hepublique
(Paris, 1576)—passed through various editions in its
author’s lifetime, that of 1583 having as an appendix
L’apologie de Rene llerpin (Bodin himself). In 1586
he issued a Latin version, for the use chiefly of English
students of law and politics. It is the first elaborate
attempt in modern times to construct a system of political
science. “ From the time,” says Sir William Hamilton,
“ when Aristotle wrote his eight books of Politics, until
the time when Montesquieu wrote his thirty-one books on
The Spirit of Laws, the six books of the Republic of Bodinus
is the ablest and most remarkable treatise extant on the
philosophy of government and legislation ; and even until
the present day these three authors stand out as the great
political triumvirate.” Bodin was, of course, greatly
indebted to Aristotle for his knowledge of the working of
political causes, but he made use of what his illustrious
predecessor taught him in no servile way, and added much
from his own reflections, his large acquaintance with
history, and his vivid personal experience. The Republic
is a work of which it is quite impossible to give a brief
account, and as there have been many lengthened sum¬
maries of it, it may suffice to say that those to be found in
Hallam’s Lit. of Europe (vol. ii. 1st ed.), Heron’s History
of Jurisprudence, Lerminier’s Introduction a VHistoire du
D roit, and Bluntschli’s Geschichte des Staatsrechts, give a
good general view of its character, while that in Professor
Baudrillart’s J. Bodin et son Temps is so exceedingly care¬
ful and excellent that scarcely a thought of any value in
the original has escaped being indicated. With all his
breadth and liberality of mind Bodin was an exceedingly
credulous believer in witchcraft, the virtues of numbers, and
the power of the stars, and in 1580 he published the
Demonomanie des Borders, a work which is a most humbling
evidence that even the greatest men may not be exempt
from the most irrational prejudices of their age. Although
he was himself regarded by most of his contemporaries as
a sceptic, and by some as an atheist, he denounced all who
dared to doubt of sorcery, and zealously urged the burning
of witches and wizards. It might, perhaps, have gone
hard with himself if his counsel had been strictly followed,
as he confessed to have had from his thirty-seventh year a
friendly demon who, if properly invoked, touched his right
ear when he purposed doing what was wrong, and his left
when he meditated doing good. To the duke of Alen§on
Bodin owed several important preferments. In 1581 he
accompanied his patron as secretary when that prince came
over to England to seek the hand of Queen Elizabeth.
Here he had the pleasure of finding that the Republic was
studied at London and Cambridge, although in a barbarous
Latin translation. This was what determined him to
translate his work into Latin himself. The latter part of
Bodin’s life was spent at Laon, the inhabitants of which he
is said to have persuaded to declare for the League in 1589,
and for Henry IV. five years afterwards. He died of the
plague in that city in 1596, and was buried in the church
of the Carmelites. In the year during which he died there
appeared his Universale Naturae Theatrum, which was
translated into French by Fongerolles in the following year.
He left behind him a very famous MS., the Colloquium
Heptaplomeres de abditis rerum sublimium arcanis, which
-BOD
was published for the first time in a complete form by
Noack in 1857, although it had been previously studied by
others, e.g., Grotius, Huet, Manage, Diecmann, &c. It is
composed in the form of a conversation between seven
learned men—a Jew, a Mahometan, a Lutheran, a Zwinglian,
a Homan Catholic, an Epicurean, and a Theist. The con¬
clusion to which they are represented as coming is that
they will live together in charity and toleration, and cease
from further disputation as to religion.
Authorities.—The works of Bodin above mentioned ; H. Baud-
rillart, J. Bodin et son Temps (Paris, 1853) ; JN'. Planchenault,
Etudes sur Jean Bodin (Angers, 1858) ; and Thierry, History of the
Tiers Etat (Engl. Transl.) As to the political philosophy of Bodin,
see the works of Hallain, Heron, Lerminier, and Bluntschli, already
indicated; as to his political economy, Kautz, Geschichte der
National-Oekonomik, ii. 269-271; as to his ethical teaching, A.
Desjardins, Les Moralistes Francais du Seizicme Siede, ch. v.; and as
to his historical views, Flint’s Philosophy of History in Europe,
i. 69-76. (R. F.)
BODLEY, Sir Thomas, founder of the Bodleian library
at Oxford, was born at Exeter in 1544. When he was
about twelve years of age, his father, John Bodley, being
obliged to leave the kingdom on account of his Protestant
principles, settled with his family at Geneva, and continued
there till the death of Queen Mary. In that university,
then in its infancy, young Bodley studied under several
eminent professors. On the accession of Queen Elizabeth
he returned with his father to England, and was soon after
entered of Magdalen College, Oxford. In 1563 he took
the degree of bachelor of arts, and the year following was
admitted a fellow of Merton College. In 1565 he read a
Greek lecture in the hall of that college, took the degree of
master of arts the year after, and read natural philosophy
in the public schools. In 1569 he was one of the proctors
of the university, and for some time after officiated as
public orator. Quitting Oxford in 1576, he made the tour
of Europe; and on returning to his college after four years
absence he applied himself to historical and political
studies. He became gentleman-usher to Queen Elizabeth ;
and in 1585 he married Anne Ball, a widow lady of con¬
siderable fortune, whose father, named Carew, was of Bristol.
He was soon after sent as ambassador to the king of
Denmark, and to several German princes. He was next
despatched on a secret mission to France; and in 1588 he
went as ambassador to the United Provinces. On his
return to England in 1597, finding his preferment obstructed
by the jarring interests of Burleigh and Essex, he retired
from court, aud could never afterwards be prevailed on to
accept of any public employment. He now began the
foundation of the Bodleian library; and soon after the
accession of King James I. he received the honour of
knighthood. He died at his house in London, January 28,
1612, and was buried in the choir of Merton College
chapel, where a monument of black and white marble was
erected to him, on which stands his effigy in a scholar’s
gown, surrounded with books. Sir Thomas wrote his own
life to the year 1609, which, with the first draught of the
Statutes and his Letters, has been published from the
originals in the Bodleian library, by Hearn, under the title
of Reliquiae Bodleiance, or Authentic Remains of Sir
Thomas Bodley, London, 1793, 8vo. For a particular
account of the Bodleian library, see Libraries.
BODMIN, a parliamentary and municipal borough and
market-town of England, in the county of Cornwall, 235
miles from London, and 30 from Plymouth by rail. It
is situated between two hills, and consists of one narrow
but well-paved street, about a mile in length. The church
of St Petrock, which formerly belonged to the monastery
of that name, is a spacious building dating from 1472 ; and
the town-hall consists partly of remains of the convent of
the Grey Friars. A lunatic asylum, erected in 1866, the