Boecler, John Henry

, an eminent German critic and historian, and counsellor to the emperor and to the elector of Mentz, was born in 1611, at Cronheim in Franconia, and was during a long life reputed one of the ablest men Germany had produced, particularly in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, in history, and political and legal knowledge. He was only twenty when thought worthy of being appointed professor of eloquence at Strasburgh, and in 1640 was made a canon of St. Thomas. Christina, queen of Sweden, invited him to Upsal in 1648, to be professor of eloquence, and the following year conferred on him the place of historiographer of Sweden, with a pension of eight hundred crowns, which she generously continued when his health obliged him to return to Strasburgh. He was then elected professor* of history at Strasburgh, and in | 1662 the elector of Mentz appointed him his counsellor. The year after, the emperor Ferdinand III. bestowed the' same honour upon him, with the title of count Palatine. Louis XIV. offered him a pension pf two thousand livres, but the court of Vienna, unwilling to lose him, induced him to decline it, and made up his loss by another pension of six hundred rix-dollars. Boeder, honoured and enriched by so many favours, pursued his studies with unremitting ardour, until his death in 1692. He published with notes or commentaries, editions of Herodian, Strasburgh, 1644, 8vo Suetonius, ibid. 1647, 4to Manilius, ibid. 1655, 4to Terence, ibid, 1657, 8vo Cornelius Nepos, Utrecht, 1665, 12mo; Polybius, 1666, 1670, 1681, 4to; part of Tacitus, Velleius Paterculus, Virgil, Herodotus, and Ovid. His other works were 1 “De Jure Galliae in Lotharingiam,” Strasburgh, 1663, 4to, a refutation of the treatise on the rights of the French king to Lorraine. 2. “Annotationes in Hippolytum a Lapide,” ibid. 1674, 4to, a refutation of the work entitled “De ratione status imperii Romano-Germanici,” by Chemnitz or James de Steinberg. 3. “Dissertatio de scriptoribus Graecis et Latinis, ab Homero usque ad initium XVI seculi,” ibid. 1674, 8vo, and reprinted by Gronovius in the tenth vol. of his Grecian antiquities. 4. “Bibliographia historico-politico-philologica,” 1677, 8vo. 5. “Historia Belli Sueco-Danici annis 1643 1645,” Stockholm, 1676, Strasburgh, 1679, 8vo. 6. “Historia universalis ab orbe comlito ad J. C. nativitatem,” ibid. 1680, 8vo, with a dissertation on the use of history. 7. “Notitia sacri imperii Romani,” ibid. 1681, 8vo. 8. An edition with notes and improvements, of Picolomini’s Latin history of Frederic III. ibid. 1685, fol. reprinted 1702. 9. “De rebus saeculi post Christum XVI. liber memorialis,” Kiel, 1697, 8vo: 10. “Historia universalis IV saeculorum post Christum,” 1699, 8vo, reprinted at Rostock, 4to, with a life of the author, by J. Theophilus Moller. 11. Various “Letters” in Jaski’s collection, Amsterdam, 1705, 12mo. 12. “Commentatio in Grotii librum de jure belli ac pacis,” Strasburgh, 1705, 1712, 4to. He was a most enthusiastic admirer of Grotius. 13. “Bibliographia critica,” Leipsic, 1715, 8vo, enlarged by J. Gottlieb Krause the former editions of this work were very defective. 14. “Dissertations, and smaller pieces,” published by J. Fabricius, ajt | Strasburgh, 1712, 4 vols. 4to, on history, politics, morals, criticism, many of them very valuable. ¹