Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 05.djvu/300

 gesting the puhlication of such a collection. In regard to 'Wits Theater' there is perfectly clear evidence that the editor was Robert Allott, who compiled 'England's Parnassus' [q. v.] A copy (preserved in the British Museum) of the 1599 edition of ' Wits Theater ' contains an epistle overlooked by bibliographers, in which Robert Allott dedicates to Bodenham this 'collection of the flowers of antiquities and histories.' The anthology, 'Belvedere, or the Garden of the Muses,' 1600, has a prefatory sonnet by 'A. M.' (Antony Munday ?), in which Bodenham is addressed as Art's lover, Learning's friend, First causer and collectour of these floures,

words which imply that Bodenham had suggested the compilation of such an anthology, and had himself collected some ma enals for the volume. 'Belvedere is of small interest, as the extracts are in most instances limited to a single couplet. The authors names are not annexed to the extracts, but a general list given at the beginning. A disparaging notice of 'Belvedere' occurs in an anonymous play, the 'Returne from Pernassus' (printed in 1606, but acted Elizabeth); nevertheless enjoyed some popularity, and in 1610 a second edition was issued under the title of 'The Garden of the Muses,' the first title, 'Belvedere,' being dropped. 'England's Helicon,' 1600, the most delightful of early poetical miscellanies, preserves the choicest lyrics of Breton, Barnfield, Lodge, 'the sheperd Toney,' and others. Here first appeared the full text of the pastoral song, 'Come live with me and be my love,' with the name of 'C. Marlowe' subscribed. The editor of the collection appears to have been 'A.B.,' who concludes his prefatory sonnet to Bodenham with these lines :— My paines heerein I cannot terme it great, But what-so-ere, my love (and all) is thine. Take love, take paines, take all remaines in me: And where thou art my hart still lives with thee.

Following the sonnet is a prose epistle by the same 'A. B.,' to 'his very loving friends, M. Nicholas Wanton and M. George Faucet,' in which the writer says : 'Helicon, though not as I could wish, yet in such good sort as time would permit, having past the pikes of the presse, comes now to Yorke to salute her rightful Patrone first, and next (as his deare friends and kindsmen) to offer you her kinde service.' The 'rightful Patrone' must be Bodenham. In the face of 'A. B.'s ' sonnet and epistle, it is strange that one authority after another should persist in saying that the editor of 'England's Helicon' was Bodenham. A second edition, containing nine additional pieces, appeared in 1614. A reprint of the second edition was published in 1812 under the editorship of Brydges and Haslewood, and a reprint of the first edition was included in Collier's 'Seven English Miscellanies,' 1867. Mr. W. J. Craig is preparing (1886) a new edition. Of Bodenham's life no particulars have been discovered.  BODKIN, WILLIAM HENRY (1791–1874), legal writer, son of Peter Bodkin, a member of a family long connected with the county of Galway, was born at Islington 4 Aug. 1791. His mother was a Sarah Gilbert of Lichfield. He was educated at the Islington Academy. He was married in 1812 to Sarah Sophia, eldest daughter of Peter Raymond Poland, of Winchester Hall, Highgate. In 1821 we find him hon. secretary to the Society for the Suppression of Mendacity. He was called in 1826 to the bar by the Honourable Society of Gray's Inn, of which society he afterwards became a bencher. For several years he went on the home circuit. He practised largely in criminal business at the Middlesex, Westminster, and Kentish sessions, and at the Central Criminal Court. He was made recorder of Dover in 1832. In the intervals of legal employment he busied himself, in his capacity of secretary to the Society for the Suppression of Mendacity, with the poor laws. He wished to encourage the systenatic giving of relief, but at the same time to extirpate the gross abuses to which the poor laws had been liable in his time. At the general election in 1841 he was returned to parliament in the conservative interest as the colleague of Mr. J. Stoddart Douglas in the representation of Rochester, defeating Lord Melgund, afterwards Earl of Minto. by a narrow majority of two votes. He was himself defeated by Twisden Hodges and Ralph Bernal [q. v.] at the next general election in 1847. He twice unsuccesstully contested the city of Rochester, having lost his seat through supporting Sir Robert Peel's free-trade measures. It is to Sir William Bodkin that the statute is due by which irremovable poor are made chargeable to the common fund of unions. Sir William's act was passed for one year only; but it has been continued and extended, and is, in fact, the foundation of the present system. In 1859 he was appointed assistant judge of the Middlesex sessions. In 