BONN, the chief town of a circle of Rhenish Prussia, situated on the left bank of the Rhine, about 16 miles by rail S.S.E. of Cologne. The central part is mostly composed of very narrow streets, but the outskirts contain numerous fine buildings, and the general appearance from the river is rather attractive. There are five Roman Catholic and two Protestant churches, the most important of which is the Minster or St Cassius, an old building in the Transition style, surmounted by five towers. The town also possesses a “Rathhaus,” of modern erection, a courthouse, a hospital, a gymnasium, and a theatre. By the far the fiuest of its buildings, however, is its 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 the king 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 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 Catholic and another of Protestant theology; in 1873 it was attended by 752 students, ranking as eighth among the German universities. The library numbers upwards of 200,000 volumes; and the antiquarian museum contains a valuable collection of Roman relics discovered in the neighbourhood. A separate building for anatomical operations is situated in the extensive garden to the south of the ...

BONNE VAL, Claude Alexandre, Comte de, a celebrated French adventurer, known also as Achιnet Pasha, was the descendant of au old family of Limousin. He was born on the 14th July 1675 at Coussac, and at the age of thirteen joined the Royal Marine Corps. After three years he entered the Guards, whence he was transferred to the infantry regiment of Latour He served in the Italian campaigns under Catinat, Villeroi, and Vendome, and in the Netherlands under Luxembourg, giving proofs of iudomitable courage and great military ability. His insolent bearing towards Chamillard, minister of war, was made matter for a court-martial. He was condemned to death, but haviug foreseen this sentence, he saved himself by flight to Germany. Through the influence of Prince Eugene he obtained a command in the Austrian army, and fought with great bravery and distinction against France, and afterwards against Turkey. He was severely wounded at Peterwardein, and after his recovery paid a visit to Paris. The proceedings against him in France had been allowed to drop, and he married a daughter of Marshal de Biron, whom, however, he deserted after a week or two. He returned again 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, governor of 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 from the imperial domains. Bonueval, soon after his release, offered his services to ...

BONNER, or Boner, Edmund, an English prelate, notorious for his persecutions of the Protestants during the reign of Queen Mary, was born at Hanley in Worcestershire, about the end of the 15th century, and generally passed for the natural son of George Savage, a∙ priest who was the natural son of Sir John Savage of Clifton in tho same county. Strype in his Memorials of Cranmer, however, says he was positively assured that Bonner was the legitimate offspring of a poor man, who lived in a cottage long afterwards known as Boner’s place. About 1512 he entered as a student of Broadgate Hall (now Pembroke College), Oxford; and in 1519 he was admitted as bachelor of the canon and of the civil law. Having been admitted into orders, he obtained some preferment in the diocese of Worcester. In 1525 he took his degree as doctor, and attracted the notice and patronage of Wolsey. Bonner was with the cardinal at Cawood when he was arrested on charge of high treason. After the death of Wolsey he adopted Lutheran sentiments, and insinuated himself into the favour of Henry VIII., who made him one of his chaplains, and employed him in several embassies abroad. In 1532 he was sent to Rome with Sir Edward Carne, to answer for the king, who had been cited to appear in person or by proxy in regard to the divorce of Queen Catharine. In 1533, being again despatched to Pope Clement VII., then at Marseilles, to intimate Henry’s appeal to a future general council from the sentence pronounced against his divorce, he threatened the Pope with so much resolution, that his holiness talked of having him burned alive or thrown into a cauldron of melted lead. Clement did not foresee that the man whom he had thus menaced with the flames was destined to burn heretics in England in support of the very ...

BONNET, Charles, an eminent naturalist and philosophical writer, was born at Geneva on the 13th March 1720. The Bonnets, a French family whom the religious persecution in the 16 th century had driven into Switzerland, were accustomed to fill important posts in the Genevese Government; and young Charles Bonnet was expected to qualify himself to make use of the family influence by becoming a lawyer. But dry legal technicalities proved to be anything but attractive to his rich and imaginative mind, all the more that he found in the study of nature an employment which was not also a task. He made law his profession, but he never seems to have permitted it to interfere seriously with his favourite pursuits. The account of the ant-lion in Pluche’s Spectacle de la Nature, w hich he chanced to read in his sixteenth year, turned his attention in particular to the wonders of insect life. He procured Réaumur’s work on insects, and with the help of live specimens succeeded, after minute and patient investigation, in adding many observations to those of Réaumur and Pluche The result of two years’ labour he made known to Réaumur, who was naturally not a little surprised to find so much sagacity and power of research in a youth of eighteen In 1740 Bonnet communicated to the Academy of Sciences a paper containing a series of experiments establishing what is now termed parthenogenesis in aphides or tree-lice, which obtained for him the honour of being admitted a corresponding member of the academy. In 1741 he instituted a set of experiments respecting the reproduction of worms by fission; and in the following year he discovered that the respiration of caterpillars and butterflies is performed by pores, to which tho name of stigmata has since been given. In 1743 he was admitted ...

was a covering for the head, worn by the Jewish priests. Josephus says, that the bonnet worn by the private priests was composed of several rounds of linen cloth, turned in and sewed together, so as to appear like a thick linen crown. The whole was entirely covered with another piece of linen, which came down as low as their forehead, and concealed the deformity of the seams. See Exodus xxviii, 40. The high priest’s bonnet was not much different from that which has been described.

BONNIVARD, François de, the “prisoner of Chillon,” was born at Seyssel in 1496. Educated at Turin, he succeeded, in 1510, to the priory of St Victor, just outside the walls of Geneva, his uncle having resigned in his favour. Of ardent republican principles he espoused the cause of the Genevese against the duke of Savoy, who was seeking to assert the seignorial rights that had just been ceded to him by the prince bishop. In 1519, on the entrance of the duke into Geneva, Bonnivard was arrested and imprisoned for two years at Grolée. On his liberation he returned to his priory. In 1530, when travelling in the service of the republic, he was unfortunate enough to fall into the hands of robbers, who delivered him over once more to the duke of Savoy. His imprisonment in the castle of Chillon, which has been celebrated in Byron’s poem, lasted till 1536, when he was liberated by the combined force of the Bernese and Genevese. On his return to Geneva, which had now completely emancipated itself, he received the honours and rewards that were due to his patriotism, being made a member of the Council of Two Hundred, and endowed with a pension. He died about 1570, the precise date being uncertain. Bonnivard was the author of a history of Geneva, and left his books and manuscripts to the town.