In the notice of Sir Thomas Bodley contained in Prince's _Worthies of
Devon_, S. S. S. will find some particulars relating to his father, John
Bodley. Prince's account of Sir Thomas is "from a MS. on probable
grounds supposed to be his own handwriting, now in the custody of a
neighbour gentleman," (Walter Bogan of Gatcombe, near Totnes.) From
this it appears that John Bodley was long resident at Geneva--
"Where [says Sir Thomas], as far as I remember, the English church
consisted of some hundred persons. I was at that time of twelve
years of age, but through my father's cost and care sufficiently
instructed to become an auditor of Chevalerius in Hebrew, of
Beraldus in Greek, of Calvin and Beza in divinity, and of some
other professors in the university, which was then newly erected:
besides my domestical teachers in the house of Philibertus
Saracenus, a famous physician in that city, with whom I was
boarded, where Robertus Constantinus, that made the Greek Lexicon,
read Homer unto me."
There is, however, no mention of John Bodley's having been one of the
translators of the Bible.