Page:Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography Volume 1.pdf/685

BOD enemie unto the Germans and their government in Hungarie." (Knolles' Hist. of the Turks; Rose.)—J. T.  BOD,, an eminent Hungarian scholar, was born at Felscho-Czernatow in Transylvania, in 1712. He was professor of Hebrew, and a profound theologian. He died in 1768, having left learned works in his native tongue. Amongst them are the "History of the Bible," and a Hungarian dictionary. He also wrote some treatises in Latin.—J. F. W.  BODARD DE TEZAY, , born at Bayeux in 1757; died at Paris in 1823. His early years were occupied altogether with poetry; in other words, he was what the world calls an idler. In 1792 he was employed in one of the public departments, and continued in subordinate government situations for many years. When M. Laumond was sent as consul to Smyrna, Bodard acted as vice-consul there. In some negotiations with the police, he is said to have conducted the affairs intrusted to him with intelligence and skill. During the French occupation of Naples he was what they called commissaire, or civil administrator; he was afterwards consul-general at Genoa—this terminated his official or diplomatic career. A number of works, chiefly dramatic, the names of which we need not give, were published by him between the years 1783 and 1790; and poems, one of which is an ode on electricity crowned at Caen, appear with his name, scattered through the French journals of the day.—J. A., D.  BODDAERT,, a Dutch physician and naturalist of the last century, was born in Zealand about the year 1730; and died toward the end of the century. He studied and took his degree at Leyden, and then established himself at Flushing. On the death of his intimate friend, Albert Schlosser of Amsterdam, in 1769, Boddaert continued the description of the most remarkable objects in his collection of natural history. Boddaert published translations of the "Elenchus-Zoophytorum" and "Miscellanea Zoologica" of Pallas into Dutch; and of the Natural History of the Teeth by John Hunter, into Latin and Dutch. He was also the author or translator of several other memoirs on various subjects in medicine and natural history.—W. S. D.  BODÆUS A STAPEL,, a Dutch botanist, died in 1636. He studied medicine at Leyden, and had Vorstius as his botanical instructor. After his death, his "Commentaries on Theophrastus" were published by his father.—J. H. B.  BODARD,, a French medical man and botanist, lived at the beginning of the present century. He took his degree at the university of Pisa, and afterwards practised as physician in the department of the Seine. Besides some medical memoirs, he wrote a "Course of Comparative Medical Botany;" "A View of Exotic Medicinal Plants;" "Monographs on Veronica Cymbalaria;" on "Chamomile;" on "Tussilago Petasites;" and on "Hypocarpogean Plants."—J. H. B.  BODE,, a German orientalist, born at Wernigerode in 1722, and died in 1796. He was a pupil of Steinmez at Kloster-Bergen, and of Hebenstreit at Leipzig, particularly distinguishing himself as a linguist under both these celebrated masters. In 1747 he began a course of lectures on the test of Scripture and on Hebrew grammar at Halle, whence he removed in 1754 to Helmstaedt, where he occupied the chair of oriental languages till his death in 1796. He published "Nov. Test, ex versione Æthiopici interpretis," 1752-55.  BODE,, a celebrated German astronomer, born at Hamburg in 1747; died at Berlin in 1826. Until his seventeenth year he shared with his father the management of a commercial academy in his native town, devoting his leisure with great ardour to the study of mathematics and astronomy. His first observations of astronomical phenomena were made with the help of a telescope of his own construction; and although until, in his nineteenth year, chance brought him acquainted with Professor Busch, who lent him his books and instruments, he possessed few advantages for the cultivation of his favourite science, at that age he could calculate with precision the courses and eclipses of the planets. In 1768 he published an elementary treatise, entitled "Anleitung zur Kenntniss des gestirnten Himmels," which had great success; and in the same year drew the attention of the scientific world by his dissertation on the expected transit of Venus, June 3, 1769. In August of that year he discovered, in the constellation Taurus, a comet, the return of which he calculated for the following October, thus making known the first example of a comet with a short period. Soon afterwards Frederick II. called him to Berlin, where he became a member of the Academy of Sciences. In 1724 appeared his Ephemerides of Berlin (Astronomische jahrbucher), the atlas of which, as it appeared in the second edition of the work, published in 1828, consisted of twenty sheets, on which were indicated the positions of no fewer than 17,240 stars. A very remarkable law of the planetary system, which, although it had previously engaged the attention of Kepler, is generally known under the name of this discoverer, may be thus stated: Taking as 4 the radius of the orbit of Mercury, we have for the radii of the other planetary orbits 4 + 3 (Venus), 4 + 2 × 3 (the Earth), 4 + 4 × 3 (Mars), 4 + 8 × 3 (Ceres), 4 + 16 × 3 (Jupiter), 4 + 32 × 3 (Saturn), 4 + 64 × 3 (Uranus); that is to say, as we recede from the sun in the planetary system, we find the intervals between the orbits double, or nearly double,—the interval, for example, between the orbits of the Earth and Mars nearly double of that which separates the orbits of Venus and the Earth, and the interval between the orbits of Saturn and Uranus nearly double of that observed between Jupiter and Saturn. The anomaly, which, on the first publication of Bode's law, presented itself in the enormous interval between Jupiter and Saturn, the discovery of the telescopic planets in the course of the present century has completely accounted for; and there now remains only one exception to be noted against the law of double intervals, namely, that the distance of Mercury from the orbit of Venus is almost equal to the whole of the two orbits of Venus and the Earth, while, by the theory under consideration, it ought to be no more than a half. In view of this difficulty, it has been proposed to give the law a slightly altered form; but to sacrifice its simplicity for the purpose of getting rid of a seeming anomaly, which, to say the most of it, is no more formidable than that which recent discoveries have reduced under rule, would seem to be wholly unnecessary. Bode for half a century was at the head of European astronomers. In honour of his patron, Frederic the Great, he gave the name of Friedrich's Ehre (Frederic's Glory) to a group of stars in the neighbourhood of Cepheus and Cassiopeia. Besides the works above mentioned, he published "Uranographia, or Great Celestial Atlas" (in Latin), Berlin, 1801, and "The Solar Planetary System," 1788. By the former work, an addition of upwards of 12,000 stars was made to older catalogues.—(Nouv. Biog. Univ.)—J. S., G. <section end="685H" /> <section begin="685I" />BODE,, a distinguished German translator, was born at Brunswick, January 16, 1730; and died at Weimar, December 13, 1793. His translations of the Sentimental Journey, 1763; Tristram Shandy, 1774; Tom Jones; the Vicar of Wakefield, &c., are indeed classical performances, and still enjoy a well-earned fame.—(See K. A. Böttiger, Bode's Literarisches Leben. Berlin, 1796.)—K. E. <section end="685I" /> <section begin="685J" />BODEGA Y QUADRA,, a Spanish navigator, whose name conjoined with that of Vancouver, has been attached to one of the largest islands on the American coast. Quadra and Vancouver's island, was born towards the middle of the eighteenth century. From an account of his voyages preserved in MS. in the library of the French marine, it appears that he had taken possession of the coast opposite the island about the year 1775, and in 1790 had founded Nootka. His death occurred at San Blas in 1794.—J. S., G. <section end="685J" /> <section begin="685K" />BODENSCHATZ,, a German orientalist, born at Rof in 1717; died in 1797. His knowledge of Jewish antiquities was remarkable, and he applied it ingeniously to the elucidation of the scriptures. He wrote "Kirchliche Verfassung der heutigen, sonderlich der Deutschen Juden," 1748-9, and a work in which he applied his knowledge of Jewish antiquities to the interpretation of the New Testament. <section end="685K" /> <section begin="685Zcontin" />* BODENSTEDT,, a German poet, born at Peine, kingdom of Hanover, April 22, 1819; was bred to the mercantile profession, but relinquished it in order to follow the poetical and literary bent of his mind. In 1840 he became domestic tutor to the family of Prince Galitzin at Moscow; and in 1844 undertook the management of an academy at Tiflis. He then visited Asia Minor, the Crimea, &c., and went home in 1846, where he became editor of the Austrian Lloyd at Trieste, and afterwards of the Weser-Zeitung at Bremen. He now lives at Munich. His poetical works are—"Gedichte;" "Die Lieder des Mirza-Schaffy," 5th ed.; "Ada, die Lesghierin;" "Demetrius, a historical tragedy," &c. Among his prose works rank first: "1001 Tag im Orient" (translated into English by Waddington, London, 1851), and "Die Völker des Kaukasus." He has also <section end="685Zcontin" />