mical calculations, were more advantageous to the fame of others than to his own; but, as appeared also by the facility with which he could be induced to lend his astronomical instruments, of which, being a man of ample means, he had great store, it was his delight to further the interests of science, and be helpful to learned men whether his reputation kept company with theirs or not. Herschel's newly-discovered heavenly body, he was the first to suppose a planet, and not, as was believed for a time, a comet. One of the most dastardly acts of the revolutionary chiefs was that which deprived France of this amiable and accomplished scholar. He was executed in 1794.—J. S., G.
BOCHAT, Charles-Guillaume-Loys de, a Swiss historian, born at Lausanne in 1695; died in 1753. In 1716 he succeeded Barbeyrac as professor of natural law. He was appointed assessor in 1725, and in 1740 became controller-general of Lausanne. He designed a work on the origin of the Helvetii, but death prevented its execution. Among his works we may mention "Critical Memoirs intended to clear up some points in the ancient history of Switzerland," Lausanne, 1747-1749, 3 vols. 4to; "Two Dissertations on the Antiquities of Switzerland," in the Museum Helveticum; "Essay on Luther's Reformation."—J. G.
BOCHSA, Robert Nicolas Charles, a musician, was born at Montmedi in the department of the Meuse, August 9, 1789, and died at Sydney in Australia in 1855. His father, Charles, was oboist at the theatre of Lyons; subsequently went to Bourdeaux, settled at Paris about 1806, wrote many instrumental compositions in an extensive form and of some merit, and died in 1821. The son's natural aptitude for music was quickly developed. In his early childhood he played publicly on the pianoforte and on the flute with applause, and composed airs de ballet and other pieces of sufficient merit to be available at the theatre; and, before sixteen years of age, set to music the opera of Trajan, at which time also he applied himself successfully to the practice of the harp, which afterwards became his special instrument. When he went to Bourdeaux with his family, he studied composition with Franz Beck, a German musician of considerable attainments, who was born in 1731, wrote some sacred works, symphonies and quartettes, of merit, and died in 1809. While under him, young Bochsa wrote the music of a ballet and the oratorio of Le Deluge Universel. When he went to Paris he entered the conservatoire, where he continued the study of composition, first under Catel, and finally under Mehul. Here he received lessons on the harp of Nadermann and Marian; but, soon surpassing his instructors, the originality of his style and the brilliancy of his execution gained him a wide celebrity. He wrote very voluminously for this instrument, and illustrated in his compositions the many "new effects" of his own discovery, which, from time to time, his successive instruction-books explained. In 1813 he was appointed harpist to the Emperor Napoleon. In this year he wrote L'Heritier de Paimpal for the Opera Comique, and in 1814 Les Heritiers Micheux, to be represented before the allied sovereigns, and afterwards three other works for the same theatre—one of which, La Lettre de Change, was, in 1826, reproduced in London. He composed a Requiem for Louis XVI., which was performed with great solemnity in January, 1816, and about this time he was appointed harpist to Louis XVIII. and to the duke de Berri. He led at this time a life of great dissipation, the extravagant expense of which could not be met even by the large proceeds of his successes as an artist; he was thus tempted to commit a series of private and commercial forgeries, extending from September, 1816, to March, 1817, and he absconded from Paris to escape apprehension. By the French law, a criminal case may be tried even in the absence of the accused, and, accordingly, Bochsa was tried at the court of assize in Paris, February 17, 1818, was convicted "par contumace" on seven distinct charges, and condemned to forced labour for twelve years, to be branded with the letters T F, and fined 4000 francs. The trial was fully reported in the Moniteur of two days after, from which these particulars are taken. The clever harpist arrived in London in the height of the season, and produced here such effect by his playing as to bring his instrument into very general esteem, and he, consequently, received more applications for lessons from the circles of aristocracy and fashion than he had time to answer; and there was an extensive demand for his compositions and arrangements, which even his prolific pen could not more than satisfy. In speaking of him as a teacher of the harp, mention must not be omitted of his pupil, Eli Parish, who, under the name of Parish Alvars, obtained a just celebrity throughout Europe, surpassing in his performance every one that has handled the instrument. Mr. J. B. Chatterton, who was also taught by Bochsa, is the best living representative of his master's style. Of an enterprising and active disposition, Bochsa could never be content with the station of a fashionable music-master and an admired virtuoso; so in 1822 he undertook, jointly with Sir George Smart, the management of the so-called oratorios in the lenten season at Drury Lane, and in the following year, alternately at this theatre and Covent Garden, entirely on his own account. In the course of these performances he produced, with some additions, the Deluge, which he had written at Bourdeaux, two oratorios by Sir J. Stevenson and J. A. Wade, and Stadler's Jerusalem. With all this industry he met with no better success than former speculators in the same class of entertainments, and the failure of the oratorios served him as a pretext for bankruptcy, with a dividend of sevenpence in the pound. On the organization of the Royal Academy of Music, Bochsa, who was in constant intercourse with the nobility, was engaged, on the grounds of his experience of the conservatoire, to arrange the plan of its management. This he did with such skill, and he superintended its working with such activity, that the good effects of his administration are still spoken of with enthusiasm by the original students. His rare facility in writing, of which there are countless anecdotes, enabled him to adapt music with the utmost promptitude to the pupil's capacity, and thus to institute orchestral practice long before the beginners were able to execute any existing orchestral works. In 1826 Mr. Ayrton made the most ruthless attack, in the Harmonicon, upon Bochsa's character, supported by other journals, which he threatened to punish by an action at law. The Academy committee were compelled, by the flagrancy of the libel, to suspend his services, until it should be refuted by the result of the action; but they gave him at the same time so honourable a testimonial, that one cannot but suppose their own justification to have been the chief object in inditing it. In December, ten months after the first publication of the charge, Bochsa brought an indictment for libel against the proprietors of two newspapers—a legal process in which the plaintiff is not required to disprove that of which he has been accused; and in April, 1827, as his character remained unvindicated, he was formally dismissed from the Academy. Bochsa's marriage with the sister of the notorious Harriet Wilson added no little to the scandal against him, and, a memorial to this effect of the parents of some of the lady pupils, doubtless influenced his dismissal. In 1826 he commenced a series of oratorios at the King's Theatre, which were broken off on account of their non-success. Thus opened his connection with that establishment, which led to his appointment, on the retirement of Coccia, as musical director, which office he held from December, 1826, till the close of the theatre in 1836, when he was succeeded by Mr. Costa. The chief events of his jurisdiction were, the production of Rossini's Comte Ory, and the disgusting of the chief members of the orchestra, on whose consequent resignation some eminent foreign instrumentalists (among whom were Barret the oboist, and the late Baumann the fagottist) were engaged to replace them. During his direction, Bochsa wrote the music of a ballet. La Siége de Cytherée, and, some years afterwards, that of two others, Le Corsaire, and Beniowsky, which was excellently well fitted for its purpose. His annual concerts, and the oratorios he gave in 1834 at Drury Lane, were always remarkable for some ingenious device to render them interesting: thus at one he gave Beethoven's Symphonia Pastorale, illustrated with action,—at another, an epitome of the history of music from the time of the Greeks to the date of the performance,—at a third, his famous and very clever Voyage Musicale, with specimens of the music of all countries. His tours for many years, with a party, to give concerts throughout England, in which Mori the violinist was his equally active opponent, were admirably satirized in Egerton Webbe's series of papers, called Doing the Provinces.
In July, 1839, Bochsa gave his last concert in London, shortly after which he quitted England to direct the performances of Madame Anna Bishop, and, with that lady, visited every country in Europe (France excepted), returning to London in 1847, whence they proceeded to America to make the tour of the States, visited California, and crossed to Australia, where this remarkable man died of dropsy a few days after landing.—G. A. M.
BOCK, Friedrich Samuel, a distinguished German theologian and naturalist, born at Königsberg in 1716, became chap-
