Chapter 34 of 46 · 3916 words · ~20 min read

Part 34

BONNEVAL, CLAUDE ALEXANDRE, COMTE DE (1675-1747), French adventurer, known also as AHMED 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 Vendome, 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 Prie, 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.

The _Memoirs_ published under his name are spurious. See Prince de Ligne, _Memoire 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 title _The 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 title _The 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 the _Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society_ and _Geological Magazine_, he wrote several popular works on Alpine Regions, on English and Welsh scenery, as well as on theological subjects.

See _Geological Magazine_ for 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).

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. Brantome says that it was at Bonnivet's suggestion that the battle of 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 Brantome he was the successful rival of the king for the favours of Madame de Chateaubriand, and if we may believe him to have been--as is very probable--the hero of the fourth story of the _Heptameron_, Marguerite d'Angouleme had occasion to resist his importunities.

AUTHORITIES.--Bonnivet's correspondence in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris; memoirs of the time; complete works of Brantome, vol. iii., published by Ludovic Lalanne for the Societe 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 (or BUONONCINI), GIOVANNI BATTISTA (1672?-1750?), Italian musical composer, was the son of the composer Giovanni Maria Bononcini, best known as the author of a treatise entitled _Il 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 Ostilio_ and _Serse_, 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 in _Il 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 air _Vado ben spesso_, long attributed to Salvator Rosa, but really by Bononcini.

BONONIA (mod. _Bologna_), the chief town of ancient Aemilia (see AEMILIA, 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. 600-400 B.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, indice_ 1876-1900, s.v. "Bologna"). In 196 B.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 189 B.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 187 B.C. with Ariminum and Placentia, and on the road, constructed in the same year, to Arretium; while another road was made, perhaps in 175 B.C., to Aquilelia. It thus became the centre of the road system of north Italy. In 90 B.C. it acquired Roman citizenship. In 43 B.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 in _Notizie degli Scavi_, 1881, 162). After a fire in A.D. 53 the emperor Claudius made a subvention of 10 million sesterces (L1,087,500). 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 2 B.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 (about A.D. 1000), the total length of which must have been about 650 ft. and the width between the parapets 38-1/2 ft.

See E. Brizio in _Notizie degli Scavi_ (1896), 125, 450; (1897) 330; (1898) 465; (1902) 532. (T. As.)

BONPLAND, AIME JACQUES ALEXANDRE (1773-1858), French traveller and botanist, whose real name was GOUJAND, 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 in _Plantes equinoxiales_, &c. (Paris, 1808-1816). On returning to Paris he received a pension and the superintendence of the gardens at Malmaison, and published _Monographie des Melastomees_ (1806), and _Description 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 Muller, the future Swiss historian. In 1779 he was named the Bernese bailiff of Saanen or Gessenay (here he wrote his _Lettres pastorales sur une contree 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 Stael. 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 the _Recherches sur la nature et les lois de l'imagination_ (1807), and the _Etudes de l'homme, ou Recherches sur les facultes de penser et de sentir_ (1821), but he was better as an observer than as a philosopher.

Lives by A. Steinlen (Lausanne, 1860), by C. Morell (Winterthur, 1861), and by R. Willy (Bern, 1898). See also vol. xiv. of Sainte-Beuve's _Causeries du Lundi_. (W. A. B. C.)

BONUS (a jocular application of the Lat. _bonus_, for _bonum_, "a good thing"), a sum paid to shareholders in a joint-stock company, as an addition to the ordinary dividend, and generally given out of accumulated profits, or out of profits gained from exceptional transactions. As used by insurance companies, the word denotes the addition made to the amount of a policy by a distribution _pro rata_ of accumulated profits or surplus. In a more general sense, bonus is any payment or remuneration over and above what is due and promised.

BONZE (from Japanese _bonzo_, probably a mispronunciation of Chinese _fan sung_, "religious person"), the European name for the members of the Buddhist religious orders of Japan and China. The word is loosely used of all the Buddhist priests in those and the neighbouring countries.

BOOK, the common name for any literary production of some bulk, now applied particularly to a printed composition forming a volume, or, if in more than one volume, a single organic literary work. The word is also used descriptively for the internal divisions or sections of a comprehensive work.

The word "book" is found with variations of form and gender in all the Teutonic languages, the original form postulated for it being a strong feminine _Boks_, which must have been used in the sense of a writing-tablet. The most obvious connexion of this is with the old English _boc_, a beech tree, and though this is not free from philological difficulties, no probable alternative has been suggested.

As early as 2400 B.C., in Babylonia, legal decisions, revenue accounts, &c. were inscribed in cuneiform characters on clay tablets and placed in jars, arranged on shelves and labelled by clay tablets attached by straws. In the 7th century B.C. a library of literary works written on such tablets existed at Nineveh, founded by Sargan (721-705 B.C.). As in the case of the "Creation" series at the British Museum the narrative was sometimes continued from one tablet to another, and some of the tablets are inscribed with entries forming a catalogue of the library. These clay tablets are perhaps entitled to be called books, but they are out of the direct ancestry of the modern printed book with which we are here chiefly concerned. One of the earliest direct ancestors of this extant is a roll of eighteen columns in Egyptian hieratic writing of about the 25th century B.C. in the Musee de Louvre at Paris, preserving the maxims of Ptah-hetep. Papyrus, the material on which the manuscript (known as the Papyrus Prisse) is written, was made from the pith of a reed chiefly found in Egypt, and is believed to have been in use as a writing material as early as about 4000 B.C. It continued to be the usual vehicle of writing until the early centuries of the Christian era, was used for pontifical bulls until A.D. 1022, and occasionally even later; while in Coptic manuscripts, for which its use had been revived in the 7th century, it was employed as late as about A.D. 1250. It was from the name by which they called the papyrus, [Greek: bublos] or [Greek: biblos], that the Greeks formed [Greek: biblion], their word for a book, the plural of which (mistaken for a feminine singular) has given us our own word Bible. In the 2nd century B.C. Eumenes II., king of Pergamus, finding papyrus hard to procure, introduced improvements into the preparations of the skins of sheep and calves for writing purposes, and was rewarded by the name of his kingdom being preserved in the word _pergamentum_, whence our "parchment," by which the dressed material is known. In the 10th century the supremacy which parchment had gradually established was attacked by the introduction from the East of a new writing material made from a pulp of linen rags, and the name of the vanquished papyrus was transferred to this new rival. Paper-mills were set up in Europe in the 12th century, and the use of paper gained ground, though not very rapidly, until on the invention of printing, the demand for a cheap material for books, and the ease with which paper could be worked on a press, gave it a practical monopoly. This it preserved until nearly the end of the 19th century, when substances mainly composed of wood-pulp, esparto grass and clay largely took its place, while continuing, as in the transition from papyrus to linen-pulp, to pass under the same name (see PAPER).