member of the States-General, into French was published in 1778. His lawsuits with the company and the cost of publishing his books neary ruined him, for he had not been able to realise more than 30,000l. out of the fortune of 90,000l. which he had accumulated in India, owing' to his deportation, and he was glad, somewhere about 1778, to accept an other of the Empress Maria Theresa to enter the Austrian service. He was made a colonel at once and sent out to India to found establishments there for an Austrian East India Company. He founded six, and was on the way to lnake another fortune, when the death of Maria Theresa in 1780 ruined his hopes, for her son the Emperor Joseph refused to carry on her plans. After this he probably lived at Vienna till 1803, when he came to Paris to start some fresh speculative scheme, probably founded on his own knowledge of Austrian finances, for in the ‘Biographie des Contemporains' it is said that he was ruined by the outbreak of war with Austria, and according to the same authority he died a ruined man in a hospital in Paris in the same year.
[Biographie des Contemporains, 1836; Biographie Universelle (Michaud); Considerations on India Affairs, particularly respecting the Present State of Bengal and its Dependencies, by William Bolts, merchant and alderman or judge of the honourable the mayor’s court of Calcutta, 2 vols. 4to, 1772 and 1775; A View of the Rise, Progress, and Present State of the English Government in Bengal, including A Reply to the Misrepresentations of Mr. Bolts and other writers, by Harry Veralst, 4to, 1772.]
BOMELIUS, ELISEUS or LICIUS (d. 1574?), physician and astrologer, was the son of Henry Bomelius, a native of Bommel in Holland, who was from 1540 to 1559 Lutheran preacher at Wesel in Westphalia; was the author of several religious and historical books of wide repute, and died in 1570 at Duisburg. The Dutch original of ‘the summe of the holy Scripture and ordinarye of Christian teaching,’ published in London in 1548, is attributed to Henry Bomelius in the British Museum Catalogue. Henry Bomelius was a friend of Bishop Bale, who lived for some time at Wesel, and he contributed Latin verses in the author's praise to Bale's ‘Illustrium Maioris Britanniæ … Summarium’ (Wesel, 1548), and to his ‘Scriptorum … Catalogus’ (1557). Young Bomelius was said by his contemporaries to be a native of Wesel. Owing probably to Bale's advice, he was educated at Cambridge, where he proceeded to the degree of doctor of medicine. He was well received by the English reformers and contributed an ‘epigramma’ in Latin elegiacs to an edition of Thomas Becon's early works published in 1560. Henry Bennet, of Calais [q.v.] , in dedicating his ‘Life of Œcolampadius’ to James Blount, sixth Baron Mountjoy (30 Nov. 1561), praises Mountjoy for entertaining with ‘zealous affection Heliseus Bomelius, a German, who readeth unto your honour the liberal sciences, and whom Phillip Melancthon hath in familiar letters praysed highly for erudicion and godlynes.’ At a little later date Bomelius is said to have lived in the house of Lord Lumley. As a physician and astrologer Bomelius rapidly made a high reputation in London. ‘People,’ writes Strype (Life of Parker, ii. 1), ‘resorted to him to be cured of their sicknesses, having a wonderful confidence in him and in his magic.’ Sir William Cecil is said to have consulted Bomelius as to the queen's length of life, during one of the early negotiations for her marriage. ‘An almanacke and pronostication of master Elis Bomelius for ye yere of our lorde god 1567 autorysshed by my lorde of London [Edmund Grindal],’ is entered on the Stationers' register for 1566–7 (Arber's Transcript, i. 335). No copy of this book, which, according to Tanner, was published in 12mo, and dealt with the effects of two eclipses, is now known to be extant.
In 1567 Bomelius was arrested at the instance of Dr. Thomas Francis, president of the College of Physicians, for practising medicine without license of the college. He was lodged in the King's Bench prison. On 27 May 1567 he wrote to Cecil praying for an opportunity to expose Dr. Francis's ignorance of astronomy and Latin, and in succeeding letters to the lord treasurer he petitioned for his release. and for pecuniary assistance. On 3 May 1568 he supplicated at Oxford for incorporation as a doctor of medicine of Cambridge (Oxf. Register, Oxf. Hist. Soc. i. 270). Early in 1569 Bomelius's wife stated before the council of the College of Physicians that her husband had given due satisfaction for his offence to the queen and the lord treasurer, and petitioned for the council's consent to his liberation. The council demanded payment of a 20l. fine and 15l. costs, which Bomelius's poverty did not allow him to pay. On 2 June 1569 the council appears to have offered Bomelius his release on condition of his giving a bond of 100l. to abstain henceforth from the practice of medicine, but early in 1570 he would seem to have been still a prisoner, and his wife was in frequent communication with Archbishop Parker as to the conditions of his release.
