Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume II.djvu/793

 BODLEY Including a Plato from the isle of Patmos. In 1818 an exceedingly valuable collection of He- brew, Greek, and Arabic MSS., procured from Venice, was added, together with a portion of the famed library of Richard Heber (1834) ; and lastly, the rare books, MSS., and coins of Fran- cis Douce. The library is constantly increasing by donations, by copies of every work printed in the United Kingdom, to which it is entitled by the copyright law, as well as the books purchased from the fund left by Bodley, by fees received at matriculation, and by an annual payment of all persons (servitors excepted) who have the right of admission to the library. The library now contains about 300,000 printed volumes. BODLEY, Sir Thomas, the founder of the Bod- leian library, born in Exeter, March 2, 1544, died in Oxford, Jan. 28, 1612. At the age of 12 he went to Geneva with his father, and studied the ancient languages and divinity at the then newly founded university of that city. On the accession of Queen Elizabeth in 1558 he returned to England, entered the university of Oxford, became fellow of Merton college in 1564, and filled various offices in the university till 1576, when he commenced four years' foreign travel, After his return he was made gentleman usher to Queen Elizabeth, and in 1585 forfeited his fellowship by marriage. Queen Elizabeth employed him after this in various embassies to Denmark, Brunswick, Hesse, France, and the Hague. At the Hague, where he was admitted one of the council of state, he remained five years, but was again sent thither, not finally quitting Holland till 1597. From this time he abandoned the pub- lic service, and set about restoring the public library at Oxford. He was knighted on the accession of James I. His autobiography was published at Oxford in 1647. BOOMER, Georg, a Swiss mechanic, born at Zurich in December, 1786, died in June, 1864. Being apprenticed to a mechanic in Thurgau, he invented screw or cross wheels in 1803, and made important improvements in the ma- chinery for wool-spinning in 1805. He estab- lished himself at Kussnacht, where in 1808 he invented a cannon for firing bombs which ex- ploded when they struck. He settled in 1809 at St. Blasien in Baden, where he devoted him- self to the manufacture and improvement of firearms and industrial machinery. In 1824 he went to Manchester, England, where he applied many of his mechanical improvements. He constructed at Bolton an immense water wheel 61 feet in diameter, perfected locomo- tives, and during 20 years received more than 80 patents for machinery. In 1847 he estab- lished himself in Austria and engaged in build- ing railroads. BOOMER, Johann Jakob, a German scholar and literary reformer, born at Greiffensee, Switz- erland, July 9, 1698, died in Zurich, Jan. 2, 1783. In union with some other literary young men, he issued in 1721 a periodical en- BODONI 773 titled Digkurse der Jfaler, in which many Ger- man poets were severely criticised for their ser- vility to French models. He formed a Ger- man literary school based on national and an- cient standards, in opposition to the French school of Gottsched, with whom he carried on a protracted contest. He wrote poems and dramas, translated "Paradise Lost" and the " Dunciad," and published valuable editions of older German poets. He was for 50 years professor of history at Zurich. BODJIIX, the county town of Cornwall, Eng- land, 26 m. W. N. W. of Plymouth ; pop. of the municipal and parliamentary borough in 1871, 6,956. The town is built partly in a valley and partly on a hillside, and the streets are well paved and lighted with gas. The princi- pal church, rebuilt in 1472, has a massive tower. Adjoining the town are a race course and the ruins of the hospital of St. Lawrence. A great fair for sheep and cattle, which was among the privileges granted to the hospital by Elizabeth, is still held here annually ; and there are several other fairs for cattle and horses. The com- merce in wool is considerable. The origin of Bodmin (Cornish, Sostenna or Bosuenna, " the houses on the hill," also called Bosmana and Bodminian, " the abode of the monks ") is as- sociated with St. Petroc, who lived here and died in 564. His hermitage was occupied by Benedictine monks till 936, when King Athel- stan founded a priory near its site. Some por- tions of the priory still remain, and are used for secular purposes. In 981 the town was sacked by the Danes. In 1497 Perkin War- beck gathered here armed bands against Exe- ter. During the civil war it was taken by Fairfax in 1646. ISO 1 10 M, Glambattista, an Italian printer, born at Saluzzo, Feb. 16, 1740, died in Padua, Nov. 20, 1813. He learned the trade of printer with his father, and practised drawing and engrav- ing upon wood. At the age of 18 he was em- ployed as a compositor in the printing office of the propaganda at Rome, and there learned Hebrew and Arabic, and engraved punches for a new set of oriental types. In 1768 he took charge of the ducal printing establishment at Parma, and engraved a new series of Greek types, in imitation of those employed by the Italian printers of the 15th century. To these alphabets he soon added others, and in 1775 printed the Epithalamia Exotieu Linguii red- dita, a folio of 500 pages containing the alpha- bets of 100 languages, nine of which now ap- peared for the first time. In 1789 he printed the first edition of his Manuale tipografico, in folio, which contained descriptions of 100 cities, each printed in a different kind of type, and also specimens of Greek type, of which he then had 28 kinds, a number afterward in- creased to 45. An enlarged edition, partly prepared before his death, and continued by Luigi Orsi, appeared in 1818, in two large folio volumes, containing specimens of more than 250 alphabets, and is esteemed the most mag-