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In 1576 he was chosen deputy to the states-general of Blois, by the tiers-etat of Vermandois, and ably contended for the rights of the people, and particularly opposed those who would have all the king’s subjects constrained to profess the Catholic religion, which we can easily suppose effectually prevented the king from being reconciled to him. He after this appears to have resided at Laon, where, in 1589, he persuaded that city to declare for the league, and at the same time wrote to the president Brisson, a letter severely reflecting on Henry III. but this fault he afterwards repaired by securing the allegiance of Laon to Henry IV. He died of the plague at Laon, in 1596, leaving a character more dubious than that of any man in his time, and the light thrown upon it in his works is certainly not of the most favourable kind. It may be said, that although toleration was a word not known in his time, he appears to have cherished some liberal notions on the subject, but, as to religious principles, he had so little steadiness, that he was by turns accounted, perhaps not always justly, a Protestant, Papist, Deist, Sorcerer, Jew, and Atheist; D'Aguessau, however, pronounces him a worthy magistrate, a learned author, and a good citizen. His first work was a commentary on Oppian’s “Cynogeticon,” Paris, 1549, 4to, in which he is supposed to have availed himself rather too freely of the notes of Turnebus. He then published an introduction to the study of history, under the title “Methodus ad facilem Historiarum cognitionem,” Paris, 1566, 4to, the principal fault of which is that it does not correspond with the title, being very desultory and immethodical. But that which procured him most reputation, was his six books on “The Republic,” a work equally immethodical with the other, and abounding in digressions and irrelevant matter, yet, for the time, an extraordinary collection of facts and reflections on political government. It was soon translated into other languages, and was read with much interest in an age when the principles of government were seldom discussed in books. When in England with the duke of Alenc,on, we are told that he found the English had made a Latin translation of it, bad enough, but, bad as it was, the subject of lectures at London and Cambridge. Bodin reports thus far himself; but that “it became a classic at Cambridge” has been supplied by his biographers, who were probably not aware that lectures on political government were then no part of Cambridge education, and if his book was explained and commented on there or at London, it must have been by individuals. In this work he introduces the influence of climate on the principles of government; and as Montesquieu has done the same, La Harpe, the French critic, terms Bodin’s book the “germ of the Spirit of Laws,” but this notion is far more ancient than either, and not indeed of much consequence, whether old or new. The first edition of these “Livres de la Republique” was printed at Paris, 1577, fol. and was followed by three' others, 1577, 1578, and 1580 but the edition of Lyons, 1593, and that of Geneva, 1600, are preferred, because they contain Bodin’s Treatise on Coins. He afterwards translated it into Latin, Paris, 1586, fol. an edition often reprinted, and more complete than the French, and several abridgements were published of it, both in Latin and French. His tables of law, entitled “Juris Universi Distributio,” were printed in 1578, and in the following year, his “”Demonomanie des Sorciers,“to which was annexed” A refutation of the book, de Lamiis,“of John Wier, physician to the duke of Cleves, who had undertaken to prove that the stories of witchcraft and sorcery have chiefly arisen from imposture or delusions of fancy. The literary character of Bodin, who defended this kind of superstition, incurred reproach, and he himself was suspected of being a magician. A work written by him, but never printed, and entitled” Heptaplomeron, sive de abditis rerum sublimium arcanis,“is said to have been an attack upon religion, and designed to invalidate the authority of revelation. By the seeming advantages which he gave in this work to the Jewish religion, he was suspected of being a convert to it; but it is more probable that he was a sceptic with regard to religion, and alike indifferent to all modes of faith. A little while before his death he published a Latin treatise, entitled” Theatrum Universae Naturae," in which he professes to pursue the causes and effects of things to their principles.

, a learned author, born at Lucca in 1612, became a member of the congregation of regular clerks, “de la Mere de Dieu.” He obtained a name in the literary world by an edition of the Koran, published at Padua in 1698, in 2 vols. folio, and entitled “Alcorani Textus universus, Arabice et Latine,” to which he subjoined notes, with a refutation, and a life of Mahomet. The argumentative part, however, is not always solid; the critics in Arabic have found several faults in the printing of that language; and the editor appears to be more versed in the Mussulman authors than in philosophy or theology. Maracci had a large share in the edition of the Arabic Bible printed at Rome in 1671, in 3 vols. folio; and was certainly very successful as a professor of Arabic, in the college della Sapienza. Innocent XI. respected his virtues and knowledge, chose him for his confessor, and would have raised him to the purple, had not his great modesty declined that honour. He died in 1700. Niceron recounts a long list of his works.