(F. By.)
1Referring to the Japanese custom of employing a go-between to arrange a marriage.2These details are taken fromThe Bonin Islandsby Russell Robertson, formerly H.B.M. consul in Yokohama, who visited the islands in 1875.
1Referring to the Japanese custom of employing a go-between to arrange a marriage.
2These details are taken fromThe Bonin Islandsby Russell Robertson, formerly H.B.M. consul in Yokohama, who visited the islands in 1875.
BONITZ, HERMANN(1814-1888), German scholar, was born at Langensalza in Saxony on the 29th of July 1814. Having studied at Leipzig under G. Hermann and at Berlin under Böckh and Lachmann, he became successively teacher at the Blochmann institute in Dresden (1836), Oberlehrer at the Friedrich-Wilhelms gymnasium (1838) and the Graues Kloster (1840) in Berlin, professor at the gymnasium at Stettin (1842), professor at the university of Vienna (1849), member of the imperial academy (1854), member of the council of education (1864), and director of the Graues Kloster gymnasium (1867). He retired in 1888, and died on the 25th of July in that year at Berlin. He took great interest in higher education, and was chiefly responsible for the system of teaching and examination in use in the high schools of Prussia after 1882. But it is as a commentator on Plato and Aristotle that he is best known outside Germany. His most important works in this connexion are:Disputationes Platonicae Duae(1837);Platonische Studien(3rd ed., 1886);Observations Criticae in Aristotelis Libros Metaphysicos(1842);Observationes Criticae in Aristotelis quae feruntur Magna Moralia et Ethica Eudemia(1844);Alexandri Aphrodisiensis Commentarius in Libras Metaphysicos Aristotelis(1847);Aristotelis Metaphysica(1848-1849);Über die Kategorien des A.(1853);Aristotelische Studien(1862-1867);Index Aristotelicus(1870). Other works:Über den Ursprung der homerischen Gedichte(5th ed., 1881);Beiträge zur Erklärung des Thukydides(1854),des Sophokles(1856-1857). He also wrote largely on classical and educational subjects, mainly for theZeitschrift für die österreichischen Gymnasien.
A full list of his writings is given in the obituary notice by T. Gompertz in theBiographisches Jahrbuch für Altertumskunde(1890).
A full list of his writings is given in the obituary notice by T. Gompertz in theBiographisches Jahrbuch für Altertumskunde(1890).
BONIVARD, FRANÇOIS(1493-1570), the hero of Byron’s poem,The Prisoner of Chillon, was born at Seyssel of an old Savoyard family. Bonivard has been described as “a man of the Renaissance who had strayed into the age of the Reformation.” His real character and history are, however, widely different from the legendary account which was popularized by Byron. In 1510 he succeeded his uncle, who had educated him, as prior of the Cluniac priory of St Victor, close to Geneva. He naturally, therefore, opposed the attempts of the duke of Savoy, aided by his relative, the bishop of the city, to maintain his rights as lord of Geneva. He was imprisoned by the duke at Gex from 1519 to 1521, lost his priory, and became more and more anti-Savoyard. In 1530 he was again seized by the duke and imprisoned for four years underground, in the castle of Chillon, till he was released in 1536 by the Bernese, who then wrested Vaud from the duke. He had been imprisoned for political reasons, for he did not become a Protestant till after his release, and then found that his priory had been destroyed in 1534. He obtained a pension from Geneva, and was four times married, but owing to his extravagances was always in debt. He was officially entrusted in 1542 with the task of compiling a history of Geneva from the earliest times. In 1551 his MS. of theChroniques de Genève(ending in 1530) was submitted to Calvin for correction, but it was not published till 1831. The best edition is that of 1867. The work is uncritical and partial, but is his best title to fame.
BONN,a town of Germany, in the Prussian Rhine province, on the left bank of the Rhine, 15 m. S. by E. from Cologne, on the main line of railway to Mainz, and at the junction of the lines to the Eifel and (by ferry) to the right bank of the Rhine. Pop. (1885) 35,989; (1905) 81,997. The river is here crossed by a fine bridge (1896-1898), 1417 ft. in length, flanked by an embankment 2 m. long, above and parallel with which is the Coblenzer-strasse, with beautiful villas and pretty gardens reaching down to the Rhine. The central part of the town is composed of narrow streets, but the outskirts contain numerous fine buildings, and the appearance of the town from the river is attractive. There are six Roman Catholic and two Protestant churches, the most important of which is the Münster (minster), an imposing edifice of grey stone, in the Romanesque and Transition styles, surmounted by five towers, of which the central, rising to a height of 315 ft., is a landmark in the Rhine valley. The church dates from the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries, was restored in 1875 and following years and in 1890-1894 was adorned with paintings. Among other churches are the Stiftskirche (monasterial church), rebuilt 1879-1884; the Jesuitenkirche (1693); the Minoritenkirche (1278-1318), the Herz Jesu-kirche (1862) and the Marienkirche (1892). There is also a synagogue, and the university chapel serves as an English church. The town also possesses a town hall situate on the market square and dating from 1737, a fine block of law-court buildings, several high-grade schools and a theatre.
By far the finest of the buildings, however, is the famous university, which occupies the larger part of the southern frontage of the town. The present establishment only dates from 1818, and owes its existence to King Frederick William III. of Prussia; but as early as 1786 the academy which had been founded about nine years before was raised by Archbishop Maximilian Frederick of Cologne to the rank of a university, and continued to exercise its functions till 1794, when it was dissolved by the last elector. The building now occupied by the university was originally the electoral palace, constructed about 1717 out of the materials of the old fortifications. It was remodelled after the town came into Prussian possession. There are five faculties in the university—a legal, a medical, and a philosophic, and one of Roman Catholic and another Protestant theology. The library numbers upwards of 230,000 volumes; and the antiquarian museum contains a valuable collection of Roman relics discovered in the neighbourhood. Connected with the university are also physiological, pathological and chemical institutes, five clinical departments and a laboratory. An academy of agriculture, with a natural history museum and botanic garden attached, is established in the palace of Clemensruhe at Poppelsdorf, which is reached by a fine avenue about a mile long, bordered on both sides by a double row of chestnut trees. A splendid observatory, long under the charge of Friedrich Wilhelm Argelander, stands on the south side of the road. The Roman Catholic archiepiscopal theological college, beautifully situated on an eminence overlooking the Rhine, dates from 1892.
Beethoven was born in Bonn, and a statue was erected to him in the Münster-platz in 1845. B.G. Niebuhr is buried in the cemetery outside of the Sterntor, where a monument was placed to his memory by Frederick William IV. Here are also the tombs of A.W. von Schlegel, the diplomatist Christian Karl von Bunsen, Robert Schumann, Karl Simrock, E.M. Arndt and Schiller’s wife. The town is adorned with a marble monument commemorating the war of 1870-71, a handsome fountain, and a statue of the Old Catholic bishop Reinkens. In 1889 a museum of Beethoven relics was opened in the house in which the composer was born. There are further a municipal museum, arranged in a private house since 1882, an academic art museum (1884), with some classic originals, a creation of F.G. Welcker, and the provincial museum, standing near the railway station, which contains a collection of medieval stone monuments and works of art, besides a small picture gallery.
One of the most conspicuous features of Bonn, viewed from the river, is the pilgrimage (monastic) church of Kreuzberg (1627), behind and above Poppelsdorf; it has a flight of 28 steps, which pilgrims used to ascend on their knees. “Der alte Zoll,” commanding a magnificent view of the Siebengebirge, is the only remaining bulwark of the old fortifications, the Sterntor having been removed in order to open up better communication with the rapidly increasing western suburbs and the terminus of the light railway to Cologne.
But for its university Bonn would be a place of comparatively little importance, its trade and commerce being of moderate dimensions. Its principal industries are jute spinning and weaving, and the manufacture of porcelain, flags, machinery and beer, and it has some trade in wine. There are considerable numbers of foreign residents, notably English, attracted by the natural beauty of the place and by the educational facilities it affords.
Bonn (BonnaorCastra Bonnensia), originally a town of the Ubii, became at an early period the site of a Roman military settlement, and as such is frequently mentioned by Tacitus. It was the scene, inA.D.70, of a battle in which the Romans were defeated by Claudius Civilis, the valiant leader of the Batavians. Greatly reduced by successive barbarian inroads, it was restored about 359 by the emperor Julian. In the centuries that followed the break-up of the Roman empire it again suffered much from barbarian attacks, and was finally devastated in 889 by bands of Norse raiders who had sailed up the Rhine. It was again fortified by Konrad von Hochstaden, archbishop of Cologne (1238-1261), whose successor, Engelbert von Falkenburg (d. 1274), driven out of his cathedral city by the townspeople, established himself here (1265); from which time until 1794 it remained the residence of the electors of Cologne. During the various wars that devastated Germany in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, the town was frequently besieged and occupied by the several belligerents, but continued to belong to the electors till 1794, when the French took possession of it. At the peace of Lunéville they were formally recognized in their occupation; but in 1815 the town was made over by the congress of Vienna to Prussia. The fortifications had been dismantled in 1717.
See F. Ritter,Entstehung der drei ältesten Städte am Rhein: Köln, Bonn und Mainz(Bonn, 1851); H. von Sybel,Die Gründung der Universität Bonn(1868); andFührer von Hesse(10th ed., 1901).
See F. Ritter,Entstehung der drei ältesten Städte am Rhein: Köln, Bonn und Mainz(Bonn, 1851); H. von Sybel,Die Gründung der Universität Bonn(1868); andFührer von Hesse(10th ed., 1901).
BONNAT, LÉON JOSEPH FLORENTIN(1833- ), French painter, was born at Bayonne on the 20th of June 1833. He was educated in Spain, under Madrazo at Madrid, and his long series of portraits shows the influence of Velasquez and the Spanish realists. In 1869 he won a medal of honour at Paris, where he became one of the leading artists of his day, and in 1888 he became professor of painting at the École des Beaux Arts. In May 1905 he succeeded Paul Dubois as director. His vivid portrait-painting is his most characteristic work, but his subject pictures, such as the “Martyrdom of St Denis” in the Panthéon, are also famous.
BONNE-CARRÈRE, GUILLAUME DE(1754-1825), French diplomatist, was born at Muret in Languedoc on the 13th of February 1754. He began his career in the army, but soon entered the diplomatic service under Vergennes. A friend of Mirabeau and of Dumouriez, he became very active at the Revolution, and Dumouriez re-established for him the title of director-general of the department of foreign affairs (March 1792). He remained at the ministry, preserving the habits of the diplomacy of the old régime, until December 1792, when he was sent to Belgium as agent of the republic, but he was involved in the treason of Dumouriez and was arrested on the 2nd of April 1793. To justify himself, he published an account of his conduct from the beginning of the Revolution. He was freed from prison in July 1794. Napoleon did not trust him, and gave him only some unimportant missions. After 1815 Bonne-Carrère retired into private life, directing a profitable business in public carriages between Paris and Versailles.
BONNER, EDMUND(1500?-1569), bishop of London, was perhaps the natural son of George Savage, rector of Davenham, Cheshire, by Elizabeth Frodsham, who was afterwards married to Edmund Bonner, a sawyer of Hanley in Worcestershire. This account, which was printed with many circumstantial details by Strype (Eccles. Mem.III. i. 172-173), was disputed by Strype’s contemporary, Sir Edmund Lechmere, who asserted on not very satisfactory evidence (ib. Annals, I. ii. 300)that Bonner was of legitimate birth. He was educated at Broadgates Hall, now Pembroke College, Oxford, graduating bachelor of civil and canon law in June 1519. He was ordained about the same time, and admitted D.C.L. in 1525. In 1529 he was Wolsey’s chaplain, and he was with the cardinal at Cawood at the time of his arrest. Subsequently he was transferred, perhaps through Cromwell’s influence, to the service of the king, and in January 1532 he was sent to Rome to obstruct the judicial proceedings against Henry in the papal curia. In October 1533 he was entrusted with the unmannerly task of intimating to Clement VII., while he was the guest of Francis I. at Marseilles, Henry’s appeal from the pope to a general council; but there seems to be no good authority for Burnet’s story that Clement threatened to have him burnt alive. For these and other services Bonner had been rewarded by the grant of several livings, and in 1535 he was made archdeacon of Leicester.
Towards the end of that year he was sent to further what he called “the cause of the Gospel” (Letters and Papers, 1536, No. 469) in North Germany; and in 1536 he wrote a preface to Gardiner’sDe vera Obedientia, which asserted the royal, denied the papal, supremacy, and was received with delight by the Lutherans. After a brief embassy to the emperor in the spring of 1538, Bonner superseded Gardiner at Paris, and began his mission by sending Cromwell a long list of accusations against his predecessor (ib. 1538, ii. 144). He was almost as bitter against Wyatt and Mason, whom he denounced as a “papist,” and the violence of his conduct led Francis I. to threaten him with a hundred strokes of the halberd. He seems, however, to have pleased his patron, Cromwell, and perhaps Henry, by his energy in seeing the king’s “Great” Bible in English through the press in Paris. He was already king’s chaplain; his appointment at Paris had been accompanied by promotion to the see of Hereford, and before he returned to take possession he was translated to the bishopric of London (October 1539).
Hitherto Bonner had been known as a somewhat coarse and unscrupulous tool of Cromwell, a sort of ecclesiastical Wriothesley, He is not known to have protested against any of the changes effected by his masters; he professed to be no theologian, and was wont, when asked theological questions, to refer his interrogators to the divines. He had graduated in law, and not in theology. There was nothing in the Reformation to appeal to him, except the repudiation of papal control; and he was one of those numerous Englishmen whose views were faithfully reflected in the Six Articles. He became a staunch Conservative, and, apart from his embassy to the emperor in 1524-1543, was mainly occupied during the last years of Henry’s reign in brandishing the “whip with six strings.”
The accession of Edward VI opened a fresh and more creditable chapter in Bonner’s career. Like Gardiner, he could hardly repudiate that royal supremacy, in the establishment of which he had been so active an agent; but he began to doubt that supremacy when he saw to what uses it could be put by a Protestant council, and either he or Gardiner evolved the theory that the royal supremacy was in abeyance during a royal minority. The ground was skilfully chosen, but it was not legally nor constitutionally tenable. Both he and Gardiner had in fact sought fresh licences to exercise their ecclesiastical jurisdiction from the young king; and, if he was supreme enough to confer jurisdiction, he was supreme enough to issue the injunctions and order the visitation to which Bonner objected. Moreover, if a minority involved an abeyance of the royal supremacy in the ecclesiastical sphere, it must do the same in the temporal sphere, and there could be nothing but anarchy. It was on this question that Bonner came into conflict with Edward’s government. He resisted the visitation of August 1547, and was committed to the Fleet; but he withdrew his opposition, and was released in time to take an active part against the government in the parliament of November 1547. In the next session, November 1548-March 1549, he was a leading opponent of the first Act of Uniformity and Book of Common Prayer. When these became law, he neglected to enforce them, and on the 1st of September 1549 he was required by the council to maintain at St Paul’s Cross that the royal authority was as great as if the king were forty years of age. He failed to comply, and after a seven days’ trial he was deprived of his bishopric by an ecclesiastical court over which Cranmer presided, and was sent to the Marshalsea. The fall of Somerset in the following month raised Bonner’s hopes, and he appealed from Cranmer to the council. After a struggle the Protestant faction gained the upper hand, and on the 7th of February 1550 Bonner’s deprivation was confirmed by the council sitting in the Star Chamber, and he was further condemned to perpetual imprisonment.
He was released by Mary’s accession, and was at once restored to his see, his deprivation being regarded as invalid and Ridley as an intruder. He vigorously restored Roman Catholicism in his diocese, made no difficulty about submitting to the papal jurisdiction which he had forsworn, and in 1555 began the persecution to which he owes his fame. His apologists explain that his action was merely “official,” but Bonner was one of those who brought it to pass that the condemnation of heretics to the fire should be part of his ordinary official duties. The enforcement of the first Book of Common Prayer had also been part of his official duties; and the fact that Bonner made no such protest against the burning of heretics as he had done in the former case shows that he found it the more congenial duty. Tunstal was as good a Catholic as Bonner; he left a different repute behind him, a clear enough indication of a difference in their deeds.
On the other hand, Bonner did not go out of his way to persecute; many of his victims were forced upon him by the council, which sometimes thought that he had not been severe enough (seeActs of the P.C. 1554-1556, pp. 115, 139;1556-1558, pp. 18, 19, 216, 276). So completely had the state dominated the church that religious persecutions had become state persecutions, and Bonner was acting as an ecclesiastical sheriff in the most refractory district of the realm. Even Foxe records instances in which Bonner failed to persecute. But he hadno mercy for a fallen foe; and he is seen at his worst in his brutal jeers at Cranmer, when he was entrusted with the duty of degrading his former chief. It is a more remarkable fact that, in spite of his prominence, neither Henry VIII. nor Mary should ever have admitted him to the privy council. He seems to have been regarded by his own party as a useful instrument, especially in disagreeable work, rather than as a desirable colleague.
On her accession Elizabeth refused to allow him to kiss her hand; but he sat and voted in the parliament and convocation of 1559. In May he refused to take the oath of supremacy, acquiring like his colleagues consistency with old age. He was sent to the Marshalsea, and a few years later was indicted on a charge of praemunire on refusing the oath when tendered him by his diocesan, Bishop Horne of Winchester. He challenged the legality of Horne’s consecration, and a special act of parliament was passed to meet the point, while the charge against Bonner was withdrawn. He died in the Marshalsea on the 5th of September 1569, and was buried in St George’s, Southwark, at midnight to avoid the risk of a hostile demonstration.
SeeLetters and Papers of Henry VIII.vols. iv.-xx.;Acts of the Privy Council(1542-1569);Lords’ Journals, vol. i.; Wilkins’Concilia; Foxe’sActs and Monuments, ed. Townsend; Burnet, ed. Pocock; Strype’s Works; Gough’sIndex to Parker Soc. Publ.; S.R. Maitland’sEssays on the Ref.; Froude’s and R.W. Dixon’sHistories; Pollard’sCranmerandEngland under Somerset; other authorities cited inDict. Nat. Biogr.
SeeLetters and Papers of Henry VIII.vols. iv.-xx.;Acts of the Privy Council(1542-1569);Lords’ Journals, vol. i.; Wilkins’Concilia; Foxe’sActs and Monuments, ed. Townsend; Burnet, ed. Pocock; Strype’s Works; Gough’sIndex to Parker Soc. Publ.; S.R. Maitland’sEssays on the Ref.; Froude’s and R.W. Dixon’sHistories; Pollard’sCranmerandEngland under Somerset; other authorities cited inDict. Nat. Biogr.
(A. F. P.)
BONNET, CHARLES(1720-1793), Swiss naturalist and philosophical writer, was born at Geneva on the 13th of March 1720, of a French family driven into Switzerland by the religious persecution in the 16th century. He made law his profession, but his favourite pursuit was the study of natural science. The account of the ant-lion in N.A. Pluche’sSpectacle de la nature, which he read in his sixteenth year, turned his attention to insect life. He procured R.A.F. de Réaumur’s work on insects, and with the help of live specimens succeeded in adding many observations to those of Réaumur and Pluche. In 1740 Bonnet communicated to the academy of sciences a paper containing a series of experiments establishing what is now termed parthenogenesis inaphidesor tree-lice, which obtained for him the honour of being admitted a corresponding member of the academy. In 1741 he began to study reproduction by fusion and the regeneration of lost parts in the freshwater hydra and other animals; and in the following year he discovered that the respiration of caterpillars and butterflies is performed by pores, to which the name ofstigmatahas since been given. In 1743 he was admitted a fellow of the Royal Society; and in the same year he became a doctor of laws—his last act in connexion with a profession which had ever been distasteful to him.
His first published work appeared in 1745, entitledTraité d’insectologie, in which were collected his various discoveries regarding insects, along with a preface on the development of germs and the scale of organized beings. Botany, particularly the leaves of plants, next attracted his attention; and after several years of diligent study, rendered irksome by the increasing weakness of his eyesight, he published in 1754 one of the most original and interesting of his works,Recherches sur l’usage des feuilles dans les plantes; in which among other things he advances many considerations tending to show (as has quite recently been done by Francis Darwin) that plants are endowed with powers of sensation and discernment. But Bonnet’s eyesight, which threatened to fail altogether, caused him to turn to philosophy. In 1754 hisEssai de psychologiewas published anonymously in London. This was followed by theEssai analytique sur les facultés de l’âme(Copenhagen, 1760), in which he develops his views regarding the physiological conditions of mental activity. He returned to physical science, but to the speculative side of it, in hisConsidérations sur les corps organisés(Amsterdam, 1762), designed to refute the theory of epigenesis, and to explain and defend the doctrine of pre-existent germs. In hisContemplation de la nature(Amsterdam, 1764-1765; translated into Italian, German, English and Dutch), one of his most popular and delightful works, he sets forth, in eloquent language, the theory that all the beings in nature form a gradual scale rising from lowest to highest, without any break in its continuity. His last important work was thePalingénésie philosophique(Geneva, 1769-1770); in it he treats of the past and future of living beings, and supports the idea of the survival of all animals, and the perfecting of their faculties in a future state.
Bonnet’s life was uneventful. He seems never to have left Switzerland, nor does he appear to have taken any part in public affairs except for the period between 1752 and 1768, during which he was a member of the council of the republic. The last twenty five years of his life he spent quietly in the country, at Genthod, near Geneva, where he died after a long and painful illness on the 20th of May 1793. His wife was a lady of the family of De la Rive.
They had no children, but Madame Bonnet’s nephew, the celebrated H.B. de Saussure, was brought up as their son.
Bonnet’s philosophical system may be outlined as follows. Man is a compound of two distinct substances, mind and body, the one immaterial and the other material. All knowledge originates in sensations; sensations follow (whether as physical effects or merely as sequents Bonnet will not say) vibrations in the nerves appropriate to each; and lastly, the nerves are made to vibrate by external physical stimulus. A nerve once set in motion by a particular object tends to reproduce that motion; so that when it a second time receives an impression from the same object it vibrates with less resistance. The sensation accompanying this increased flexibility in the nerve is, according to Bonnet, the condition of memory. When reflection—that is, the active element in mind—is applied to the acquisition and combination of sensations, those abstract ideas are formed which, though generally distinguished from, are thus merely sensations in combination only. That which puts the mind into activity is pleasure or pain; happiness is the end of human existence. Bonnet’s metaphysical theory is based on two principles borrowed from Leibnitz—first, that there are not successive acts of creation, but that the universe is completed by the single original act of the divine will, and thereafter moves on by its own inherent force; and secondly, that there is no break in the continuity of existence. The divine Being originally created a multitude of germs in a graduated scale, each with an inherent power of self-development. At every successive step in the progress of the universe, these germs, as progressively modified, advance nearer to perfection; if some advanced and others did not there would be a gap in the continuity of the chain. Thus not man only but all other forms of existence are immortal. Nor is man’s mind alone immortal; his body also will pass into the higher stage, not, indeed, the body he now possesses, but a finer one of which the germ at present exists within him. It is impossible, however, to reach absolute perfection, because the distance is infinite. In this final proposition Bonnet violates his own principle of continuity, by postulating an interval between the highest created being and the Divine. It is also difficult to understand whether the constant advance to perfection is performed by each individual, or only by each race of beings as a whole. There seems, in fact, to be an oscillation between two distinct but analogous doctrines—that of the constantly increasing advancement of the individual in future stages of existence, and that of the constantly increasing advancement of the race as a whole according to the successive evolutions of the globe.
Bonnet’s complete works appeared at Neuchâtel in 1779-1783, partly revised by himself. An English translation of certain portions of thePalingénésie philosophiquewas published in 1787, under the title,Philosophical and Critical Inquiries concerning Christianity. See also A. Lemoine,Charles Bonnet(Paris, 1850); the duc de Caraman,Charles Bonnet, philosophe et naturaliste(Paris, 1859); Max Offner,Die Psychologie C. B.(Leipzig, 1893); Joh. Speck, inArch. f. Gesch. d. Philos.x. (1897), xi. (1897), pp. 58 foll., xi. (1898) pp. 1-211; J. Trembley,Vie privée et littéraire de C. B.(Bern, 1794).
Bonnet’s complete works appeared at Neuchâtel in 1779-1783, partly revised by himself. An English translation of certain portions of thePalingénésie philosophiquewas published in 1787, under the title,Philosophical and Critical Inquiries concerning Christianity. See also A. Lemoine,Charles Bonnet(Paris, 1850); the duc de Caraman,Charles Bonnet, philosophe et naturaliste(Paris, 1859); Max Offner,Die Psychologie C. B.(Leipzig, 1893); Joh. Speck, inArch. f. Gesch. d. Philos.x. (1897), xi. (1897), pp. 58 foll., xi. (1898) pp. 1-211; J. Trembley,Vie privée et littéraire de C. B.(Bern, 1794).
BONNET(from Lat.bonetum, a kind of stuff, then the cap made of this stuff), originally a soft cap or covering for the head,the common term in English till the end of the 17th century; this sense survives in Scotland, especially as applied to the cap known as a “glengarry.” The “bonnet” of a ship’s sail now means an additional piece laced on to the bottom, but it seems to have formerly meant a piece laced to the top, the term “to vail the bonnet” being found at the beginning of the 16th century to mean “strike sail” (from the Fr.avaler), to let down. In modern times “bonnet” has come to be used of a type of head-covering for women, differentiated from “hat” by fitting closely to the head and often having no brim, but varying considerably in shape according to the period and fashion. The term, by a natural extension, is also applied to certain protective devices, as in a steam-engine or safety-lamp, or in slang use to a gambler’s accomplice, a decoy.
BONNEVAL, CLAUDE ALÉXANDRE,Comte de(1675-1747), French adventurer, known also asAhmed Pasha, was the descendant of an old family of Limousin. He was born on the 14th of July 1675, and at the age of thirteen joined the Royal Marine Corps. After three years he entered the army, in which he rose to the command of a regiment. He served in the Italian campaigns under Catinat, Villeroi and Vendôme, and in the Netherlands under Luxemburg, giving proofs of indomitable courage and great military ability. His insolent bearing towards the minister of war was made matter for a court-martial (1704). He was condemned to death, but saved himself by flight to Germany. Through the influence of Prince Eugene he obtained a general’s command in the Austrian army, and fought with great bravery and distinction against France, and afterwards against Turkey. He was present at Malplaquet, and was severely wounded at Peterwardein. The proceedings against him in France were then allowed to drop, and he visited Paris, and married a daughter of Marshal de Biron. He returned, however, after a short time to the Austrian army, and fought with distinction at Belgrade. He might now have risen to the highest rank, had he not made himself disagreeable to Prince Eugene, who sent him as master of the ordnance to the Low Countries. There his ungovernable temper led him into a quarrel with the marquis de Prié, Eugene’s deputy governor in the Netherlands, who answered his challenge by placing him in confinement. A court-martial was again held upon him, and he was condemned to death; but the emperor commuted the sentence to one year’s imprisonment and banishment. Bonneval, soon after his release, offered his services to the Turkish government, professed the Mahommedan faith, and took the name of Ahmed. He was made a pasha, and appointed to organize and command the artillery. He rendered valuable services to the sultan in his war with Russia, and with the famous Nadir Shah. As a reward he received the governorship of Chios, but he soon fell under the suspicion of the Porte, and was banished for a time to the shores of the Black Sea. He was meditating a return to Europe and Christianity when he died at Constantinople on the 23rd of March 1747.
TheMemoirspublished under his name are spurious. See Prince de Ligne,Mémoire sur le comte de Bonneval(Paris, 1817); and A. Vandal,Le Pacha Bonneval(Paris, 1885).
TheMemoirspublished under his name are spurious. See Prince de Ligne,Mémoire sur le comte de Bonneval(Paris, 1817); and A. Vandal,Le Pacha Bonneval(Paris, 1885).
BONNEVILLE, BENJAMIN L. E.(1795-1878), American military engineer and explorer, was born in France about 1795. He emigrated to the United States in early youth, and graduated at the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1815. He was engaged in the construction of military roads in the south-west, and became a captain of infantry in 1825. In 1831-1836, having obtained leave of absence from the army, he conducted, largely on his own responsibility, an exploring expedition to the Rocky Mountains, proceeding up the Platte river through parts of the later states of Colorado and Wyoming into the Great Salt Lake basin and thence into California. After being absolutely cut off from civilization for several years, and having his name struck from the army list, he returned with an interesting and valuable account of his adventures, which was edited and amplified by Washington Irving and published under the titleThe Rocky Mountains: or Scenes, Incidents, and Adventures in the Far West; from the Journal of Captain Benjamin L.E. Bonneville of the Army of the United States(2 vols., 1837), subsequent editions bearing the titleThe Adventures of Captain Bonneville, U.S.A., in the Rocky Mountains and the Far West.Bonneville became a major in 1845, and was breveted lieutenant-colonel for gallantry in the battles of Contreras and Churubusco during the Mexican War. He became a colonel in 1855, commanded the Gila river expedition against the Apaches in 1857, and from 1858 to 1861 commanded the department of New Mexico. He was retired in 1861, but served during the Civil War as recruiting officer and commandant of barracks at St Louis, Missouri, receiving the brevet rank of brigadier-general in 1865. He died at Fort Smith, Arkansas, on the 12th of June 1878. The extinct glacial lake which once covered what is now north-western Utah has been named in his honour.
BONNEY, THOMAS GEORGE(1833- ), English geologist, eldest son of the Rev. Thomas Bonney, master of the grammar school at Rugeley, was born in that town on the 27th of July 1833. Educated at Uppingham and St John’s College, Cambridge, he graduated as 12th wrangler in 1856, and was ordained in the following year. From 1856 to 1861 he was mathematical master at Westminster school, and geology was pursued by him only as a recreation, mainly in Alpine regions. In 1868 he was appointed tutor at St John’s College and lecturer in geology. His attention was specially directed to the study of the igneous and metamorphic rocks in Alpine regions and in various parts of England, in the Lizard, at Salcombe, in Charnwood Forest, in Wales and the Scottish Highlands. In 1877 he was chosen professor of geology in University College, London. He became secretary and afterwards president of the Geological Society (1884-1886), secretary of the British Association (1881-1885), president of the Mineralogical Society and of the Alpine Club. He was also in 1887 appointed honorary canon of Manchester. His purely scientific works are:Cambridgeshire Geology(1875);The Story of our Planet(1893);Charles Lyell and Modern Geology(1895);Ice Work, Past and Present(1896);Volcanoes(1899). In addition to many papers published in theQuarterly Journal of the Geological SocietyandGeological Magazine, he wrote several popular works on Alpine Regions, on English and Welsh scenery, as well as on theological subjects.
SeeGeological Magazinefor September 1901 (with bibliography).
SeeGeological Magazinefor September 1901 (with bibliography).
BONNIER, ANGE ELISABETH LOUIS ANTOINE(1749-1799), French diplomatist, was a member of the Legislative Assembly and of the Convention, where he voted with the majority. During the Directory he was charged with diplomatic missions, first to Lille and then to the congress of Rastadt (October 1797), where the negotiations dragged wearily along and were finally broken. On the 28th of April 1799 the plenipotentiaries on leaving Rastadt were assailed at the gates of the town by Hungarian hussars, probably charged to secure their papers. Bonnier and one of his colleagues, Claude Roberjot, were killed. The other, Jean Debry, was wounded.
See Huefer,Der Rastadtergesandtenmord(Bonn, 1896).
See Huefer,Der Rastadtergesandtenmord(Bonn, 1896).
BONNIVET, GUILLAUME GOUFFIER,Seigneur de(c.1488-1525), French soldier, was the younger brother of Artus Gouffier, seigneur de Boisy, tutor of Francis I. of France. Bonnivet was brought up with Francis, and after the young king’s accession he became one of the most powerful of the royal favourites. In 1515 he was made admiral of France. In the imperial election of 1519 he superintended the candidature of Francis, and spent vast sums of money in his efforts to secure the votes of the electors, but without success. He was the implacable enemy of the constable de Bourbon and contributed to his downfall. In command of the army of Navarre in 1521, he occupied Fuenterrabia and was probably responsible for its non-restoration and for the consequent renewal of hostilities. He succeeded Marshal Lautrec in 1523 in the command of the army of Italy and entered the Milanese, but was defeated and forced to effect a disastrous retreat, in which the chevalier Bayard perished. He was one of the principal commanders of the army which Francis led into Italy at the end of 1524, and died at the battle of Pavia on the 24th of February 1525. Brantôme says that it was at Bonnivet’s suggestion that the battleof Pavia was fought, and that, seeing the disaster he had caused, he courted and found death heroically in the fight. In spite of his failures as a general and diplomatist, his handsome face and brilliant wit enabled him to retain throughout his life the intimacy and confidence of his king. He was a man of licentious life. According to Brantôme he was the successful rival of the king for the favours of Madame de Châteaubriand, and if we may believe him to have been—as is very probable—the hero of the fourth story of theHeptameron, Marguerite d’Angoulême had occasion to resist his importunities.
Authorities.—Bonnivet’s correspondence in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; memoirs of the time; complete works of Brantôme, vol. iii., published by Ludovic Lalanne for the Société de l’Histoire de France (1864 seq.). See also Ernest Lavisse,Histoire de France, vol. v., by H. Lemonnier (1903-1904).
Authorities.—Bonnivet’s correspondence in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; memoirs of the time; complete works of Brantôme, vol. iii., published by Ludovic Lalanne for the Société de l’Histoire de France (1864 seq.). See also Ernest Lavisse,Histoire de France, vol. v., by H. Lemonnier (1903-1904).
BONOMI, GIUSEPPI(1739-1808), English architect, was born at Rome on the 19th of January 1739. After attaining a considerable reputation in Italy, he came in 1767 to England, and finally settled in practice there. He was the innocent cause of the retirement of Sir Joshua Reynolds from the presidency of the Royal Academy. Sir Joshua wished him to become a full Academician, regarding him as a fitting occupant of the then vacant chair of perspective. But the majority of the Academicians were opposed to this suggestion, and Bonomi was elected an associate only, and that merely by the president’s casting vote. Bonomi was largely responsible for the revival of classical architecture in England. His most famous work was the Italian villa at Roseneath, Dumbartonshire, designed for the duke of Argyll. In 1804 he was appointed honorary architect to St Peter’s at Rome. He died in London on the 9th of March 1808.
His son,Giuseppi Bonomi(1796-1878), studied art in London at the Royal Academy, and became a sculptor, but is best known as an illustrator of the leading Egyptological publications of his day. From 1824 to 1832 he was in Egypt, making drawings of the monuments in the company of Burton, Lane and Wilkinson. In 1833 he visited the mosque of Omar, returning with detailed drawings, and from 1842 to 1844 was again in Egypt, attached to the Prussian government exploration expedition under Lepsius. He assisted in the arrangement of the Egyptian court at the Crystal Palace in 1853, and in 1861 was appointed curator of the Soane Museum. He died on the 3rd of March 1878.
BONONCINI(orBuononcini),GIOVANNI BATTISTA(1672?-1750?), Italian musical composer, was the son of the composer Giovanni Maria Bononcini, best known as the author of a treatise entitledIl Musico Prattico(Bologna, 1673), and brother of the composer Marc’ Antonio Bononcini, with whom he has often been confused. He is said to have been born at Modena in 1672, but the date of his birth must probably be placed some ten years earlier. He was a pupil of his father and of Colonna, and produced his first operas,Tullo OstilioandSerse, at Rome in 1694. In 1696 he was at the court of Berlin, and between 1700 and 1720 divided his time between Vienna and Italy. In 1720 he was summoned to London by the Royal Academy of Music, and produced several operas, enjoying the protection of the Marlborough family. About 1731 it was discovered that he had a few years previously palmed off a madrigal by Lotti as his own work, and after a long correspondence he was obliged to leave the country. He remained for several years in France, and in 1748 was summoned to Vienna to compose music in honour of the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. He then went to Venice as a composer of operas, and nothing more is known of his life.
Bononcini’s rivalry with Handel will always ensure him immortality, but he was in himself a musician of considerable merit, and seems to have influenced the style, not only of Handel but even of Alessandro Scarlatti. Either he or his brother (our knowledge of the two composers’ lives is at present not sufficient to distinguish their works clearly) was the inventor of that sharply rhythmical style conspicuous inIl Trionfo di Camilla(1697), the success of which at Naples probably induced Scarlatti to adopt a similar type of melody. It is noticeable in the once popular air of Bononcini,L’esperto nocchiero, and in the airVado ben spesso, long attributed to Salvator Rosa, but really by Bononcini.
BONONIA(mod.Bologna), the chief town of ancient Aemilia (seeAemilia, Via), in Italy. It was said by classical writers to be of Etruscan origin, and to have been founded, under the name Felsina, from Perusia by Aucnus or Ocnus. Excavations of recent years have, however, led to the discovery of some 600 ancient Italic (Ligurian?) huts, and of cemeteries of the same and the succeeding (Umbrian) periods (800-600?B.C.), of which the latter immediately preceded the Etruscan civilization (c. 600-400B.C.). An extensive Etruscan necropolis, too, was discovered on the site of the modern cemetery (A. Zannoni,Scavi della Certosa, Bologna, 1876), and others in the public garden and on the Arnoaldi Veli property (Notizie degli Scavi, indice1876-1900,s.v.“Bologna”). In 196B.C., when the town first appears in history, it was already in the possession of the Boii, and had probably by this time changed its name, and in 189B.C.it became a Roman colony. After the conquest of the mountain tribes, its importance was assured by its position on the Via Aemilia, by which it was connected in 187B.C.with Ariminum and Placentia, and on the road, constructed in the same year, to Arretium; while another road was made, perhaps in 175B.C., to Aquilelia. It thus became the centre of the road system of north Italy. In 90B.C.it acquired Roman citizenship. In 43B.C.it was used as his base of operations against Decius Brutus by Mark Antony, who settled colonists here; Augustus added others later, constructing a new aqueduct from the Letta, a tributary of the Rhenus, which was restored to use in 1881 (G. Gozzadini inNotizie degli Scavi, 1881, 162). After a fire inA.D.53 the emperor Claudius made a subvention of 10 million sesterces (£1,087,500). Bononia seems, in fact, to have been one of the most important cities of ancient Italy, as Bologna is of modern Italy. It was able to resist Alaric in 410 and to preserve its existence during the general ruin. It afterwards belonged to the Greek exarchate of Ravenna. Of remains of the Roman period, however, there are none above ground, though various discoveries have been made from time to time within the city walls, the modern streets corresponding more or less, as it seems, with the ancient lines. Remains of the bridge of the Via Aemilia over the Rhenus have also been found— consisting of parts of the parapets on each side, in brick-faced concrete which belong to a restoration, the original construction (probably by Augustus in 2B.C.) having been in blocks of Veronese red marble—and also of a massive protecting wall slightly above it, of late date, in the construction of which a large number of Roman tombstones were used. The bed of the river was found to have risen at least 20 ft. since the collapse of this bridge (aboutA.D.1000), the total length of which must have been about 650 ft. and the width between the parapets 38½ ft.
See E. Brizio inNotizie degli Scavi(1896), 125, 450; (1897) 330; (1898) 465; (1902) 532.
See E. Brizio inNotizie degli Scavi(1896), 125, 450; (1897) 330; (1898) 465; (1902) 532.
(T. As.)
BONPLAND, AIMÉ JACQUES ALEXANDRE(1773-1858), French traveller and botanist, whose real name wasGoujand, was born at La Rochelle on the 22nd of August 1773. After serving as a surgeon in the French army and studying under J.N. Corvisart at Paris, he accompanied A. von Humboldt during five years of travel in Mexico, Colombia and the districts bordering on the Orinoco and Amazon. In these explorations he collected and classified about 6000 plants till then mostly unknown in Europe, which he afterwards described inPlantes équinoxiales, &c. (Paris, 1808-1816). On returning to Paris he received a pension and the superintendence of the gardens at Malmaison, and publishedMonographie des Mélastomées(1806), andDescription des plantes rares de Navarre(1813). In 1816 he set out, taking with him various European plants, for Buenos Aires, where he was elected professor of natural history, an office which he soon quitted in order to explore central South America. While journeying to Bolivia he was arrested in 1821, by command of Dr Francia, the dictator of Paraguay, who detained him until 1831. On regaining liberty he resided at San Borga in the province of Corrientes, until his removal in 1853 to Santa Anna, where he died on the 4th of May 1858.
BONSTETTEN, CHARLES VICTOR DE(1745-1832), Swiss writer, an excellent type of a liberal patrician, more French than Swiss, and a good representative of the Gallicized Bern of the 18th century. By birth a member of one of the great patrician families of Bern, he was educated in his native town, at Yverdon, and (1763-1766) at Geneva, where he came under the influence of Rousseau and of Charles Bonnet, and imbibed liberal sentiments. Recalled to Bern by his father, he was soon sent to Leiden, and then visited (1769) England, where he became a friend of the poet Gray. After his father’s death (1770) he made a long journey in Italy, and on his return to Bern (1774) entered political life, for which he was unfitted by reason of his liberal ideas, which led him to patronize and encourage Johannes Müller, the future Swiss historian. In 1779 he was named the Bernese bailiff of Saanen or Gessenay (here he wrote hisLettres pastorales sur une contrée de la Suisse, published in German in 1781), and in 1787 was transferred in a similar capacity to Nyon, from which post he had to retire after taking part (1791) in a festival to celebrate the destruction of the Bastille. From 1795 to 1797 he governed (for the Swiss Confederation) the Italian-speaking districts of Lugano, Locarno, Mendrisio and Val Maggia, of which he published (1797) a pleasing description, and into which he is said to have introduced the cultivation of the potato. The French revolution of 1798 in Switzerland drove him again into private life. He spent the years 1798 to 1801 in Denmark, with his friend Fredirika Brun, and then settled down in 1803 in Geneva for the rest of his life. There he enjoyed the society of many distinguished persons, among whom was (1809-1817) Madame de Staël. It was during this period that he published his most celebrated work,L’Homme du midi et l’homme du nord(1824), a study of the influence of climate on different nations, the north being exalted at the expense of the south. Among his other works are theRecherches sur la nature et les lois de l’imagination(1807), and theÉtudes de l’homme, ou Recherches sur les facultés de penser et de sentir(1821), but he was better as an observer than as a philosopher.