York Street, Covent Garden; dealing principally in the higher walks of literature, especially Greek and Latin classics, and works on the fine arts. By degrees he extended his grasp to every branch of literature (as may be seen in his memorable guinea catalogue of 1841), and then, after having carried retail bookselling to a higher pitch perhaps than it had ever reached before, embarked with great energy as a publisher. His first project in this department was a comprehensive series of sterling English literature, in compact but elegantly-printed volumes, in the old library form of demy 8vo; and his editions of Roscoe's Lorenzo de Medici and Leo X., which compress six quartos into three octavos, are as perfect examples as paper, print, and graphic illustrations can make them. But half-guinea volumes, however cheap in proportion to anything that had been previously produced, failed to enlist the sympathies of the multitude, and the speculation was necessarily abandoned. Immediately after this, quickened by some encroachments on his copyrights, he commenced, and followed out in rapid succession, his various well-known "Libraries," remarkable as being among the first examples in this country of high-class literature in an extremely cheap and attractive form. Under the various titles of the "Standard, Classical, Scientific, Antiquarian, Illustrated, Historical," and other "Libraries," these serials extend to nearly five hundred volumes, and entitle him to the warmest thanks of the reading multitude. Mr. Bohn is himself not unknown as an author. So far back as 1813 he translated from the German a two-volume novel called "Ferrandino;" and he has co-operated largely in his libraries. Schiller's Robbers, and several other of his dramatic pieces, as well as considerable portions of Goethe and Humboldt are translated by him; and he has edited Ockley's History of the Saracens, Grammont's Memoirs (adding a Life of Charles II.), Addison's works, the Handbook of Proverbs, Polyglot of Foreign Proverbs, and Fosteriana. He also wrote an appendix to his edition of Walton's Angler, and contributed the essays which form in fact the text of the useful treatise on Pottery and Porcelain, published in his Illustrated Library. Mr. Bohn is a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society; of the Society of Arts; of the Royal Society of Literature; of the Archæological Institute and Association; one of the council of the Horticultural Society of London, in whose proceedings he has taken an active part; foreign secretary to Lord Brougham's National Association for the promotion of Social Science; and honorary member of several foreign institutes. In 1851 he was elected chairman of the book department of the Great Exhibition, and in 1856 vice-president of the Brussels Congress of Free Trade.—E. W.
BOHN, Johann, or in Latin Bohnius, a German physician, born at Leipzig in 1640. In 1663 he travelled through Denmark, Holland, England, France, and Switzerland, to visit the principal universities; and in the year following that of his return, 1666, took his degree as doctor of medicine in his native place. In 1668, Bohn was appointed professor of anatomy in the university, and in 1691 stipendiary physician to the city of Leipzig; in 1670 he became dean of the faculty of medicine, and died in 1718. Bohn merits a high place in the history of medicine, from his having been the first to attack successfully the chemical system of physiology, inaugurated by François de le Boë. He proved by experiment that the bile contains no true alkali, and that the pancreatic juice is not acid, and denied the existence of a nervous fluid. In physiology he was a follower of Borelli, but without any servile imitation. He was aware that all the muscles are not under the influence of the "animal spirits;" in other words, he distinguished the voluntary and involuntary muscles, placing the heart in the first rank of the latter. Like François de le Boë, from whom he differed in so many other points, Bohn was most zealous in the propagation of the doctrine of the circulation of the blood, which he demonstrated by means of Boyle's machine at Pavia. Upon medical jurisprudence he was also a great authority; he was frequently consulted by various German tribunals, and has left several works upon this branch of medicine which are still regarded as valuable. Of these we may mention his treatise "De Renunciatione Vulnerum," &c., published at Leipzig in 1689, 1711, and 1755, and at Amsterdam in 1710; and his "Medicinæ forensis Specimina Tria," Leipzig, 1690, 1691, and 1692, in which he displays profound knowledge and great sagacity. Of his other writings the chief are "Exercitationes Physiologicæ xxvi.," published at Leipzig in 1668-1677; and "Circulus Anatomico-physiologicus," which contains all his ideas upon anatomy and physiology, and was published at Leipzig in 1680, and republished in 1686, 1697, and 1710. Bohn also published an edition of the works of Fabricius of Aquapendente, and of Bellini's Treatise De Urinis et Pulsibus. Before his death he is said to have caused all his papers, including the materials for a great work on medical jurisprudence, to be burned.—W. S. D.
BOHOMOLEC, Francis, a Polish author of the last century, who has left several dramatic and biographical works. He also translated La Harpe's Histoire Générale des Voyages. He died in 1790.—J. F. W.
BOHSE, Augustus, better known by the name of Talander, was one of the most distinguished authors and teachers of his day in Germany. He was born at Halle in 1661; and after studying law at Leipzig, he commenced teaching at Hamburg, and subsequently at Dresden and Leipzig. His reputation was now such as to attract the notice of the duke of Saxe Weissenfels, who gave him the direction of his theatre. He became professor at the university of Jena, and afterwards at Lignitz, where he continued till his death about 1735. He has left a considerable number of dramatic works, principally operettas.—J. F. W.
BATHORI, Alvalide, one of the most distinguished Arabian poets of his age, was born at Hierapolis about the year 821. He left his native city, and settled in Bagdad, where his reputation soon brought him into favour with the Caliph Motavakkel. He has left many poetical works, the principal being a collection called the "Divan." His verses were considered so harmonious that they were called "Chains of Gold." He died towards the end of the ninth century.—J. F. W.
BOHUN, Edmund, a voluminous political writer, born at Ringsfield in Suffolk. His father, Baxter Bohun, was lord of the manor of Westhall in that county. He was entered a fellow-commoner of Queen's college, Cambridge, in 1663, and resided there till 1666. In 1675 he was put into the commission of the peace for his native county, and, except during a part of the reign of James II., exercised the functions of a justice till about the commencement of the eighteenth century. Of his political pamphlets, which are very numerous, we may mention, "A Defence of the Declaration of King Charles, against a pamphlet entitled 'A Just and Modest Vindication of the Proceedings of the two last Parliaments,'" and "A Defence of Sir Robert Filmer against the Mistakes and Representations of Algernon Sydney, Esq.," &c. His other works are, "A Geographical Dictionary," London, 1688, and "The Great Historical, Geographical, and Poetical Dictionary," London, 1694.—J. S., G.
BOHUSZ, Xaverius, a Polish historian, born in 1746 in Lithuania. From Wilna, where he settled after making the tour of Europe, he was carried away to Siberia by the Russians, and returned to his country only after a long exile. His fame, which is considerable, rests on a work entitled, "Researches into the Antiquities, History, and Language of the Lithuanians," 1808. Died in 1825.—J. S., G.
BOIARDO, Matteo Maria, count of Scandiano, was born at the castle of Scandiano about the year 1434. His birthplace is about seven miles from Reggio at the foot of the Apennines. His father was the second count; his mother was of the Strozzi family of Ferrara. We are most concerned with Boiardo as a poet. In his own day his political character was not undistinguished. In 1469 he was one of the noblemen who, in the suite of the duke of Este, went to meet the emperor, Frederick III., on his way to Ferrara. In 1471 he accompanied Borso, marquis of Ferrara, to Rome, where he went to receive the title of duke. In 1472 Boiardo married a daughter of the house of Gonzaga. In 1473 he appeared among the noblemen who were deputed to escort to Ferrara, Eleanora, daughter of the king of Naples, who had married the duke. In 1478 he is said to have been governor of Reggio, and in 1481 capitano of Modena. In 1487 he returned to Reggio, of which he resumed the government, and died in 1494. Some Latin verses are preserved of a friend of Boiardo's, in which the poet is depicted in his character of magistrate. He is described as looking little at law-books, as indisposed to punish love offences, as fond of the fair sex, and as a great equestrian. One of the lawyers, writing about half a century after Boiardo's death, describes him as "plus componendis versibus, quam vindicandis facinoribus aptus." He is said to have had a fixed opinion that no crime ought to be punished with death. In Panizzi's edition of Boiardo's "Inamorato" we find large extracts from his smaller poems in Latin and Italian—
