Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume III.djvu/76

70 BONNEK BONNEVAL named bishop of Hereford, but before his con- secration was translated to the see of London ; his commission from the king was dated in 1540. In 1547 he was sent as ambassador to the emperor Charles V. After the death of Henry, Bonner broke with the reformers, and, protesting against the measures of Oranmer, hesitated to take the oath of supremacy ; for this he was committed to the Fleet, but making submission was soon released. His continued hostility to the reformation drew upon him the displeasure of the privy council, before whom he was arraigned on charge of failing to fully comply with an order directing him to preach a sermon on the contested four points. For this, in October, 1549, he was deprived of his bishopric, and committed to the Marshalsea prison. Upon the accession of Queen Mary, in 1553, he was restored to his see, and became a prominent upholder of the persecutions which followed. He was appointed to perform the act of degradation upon Oranmer, against whom he had an old grudge, and executed this function with extreme insolence. The names of 125 persons are given who were executed for heresy in his diocese, and through his agency ; and 22 more whom he had condemned were saved only through the influence of Car- dinal Pole. When Elizabeth ascended the throne in 1558, she manifested a strong repug- nance to Bonner, but left him in possession of his see until the next year, when, upon his re- fusing to take the oath of supremacy, he was deposed, and again committed to the Marshal- sea prison, where he remained until his death. Even after ten years' confinement public feel- ing was still so bitter against him that he was buried at midnight for fear of a tumult. BONNER, Robert, an American journalist, born near Londonderry, Ireland, April 28, 1824. In 1839 he came to Hartford, Conn., where his uncle was a prosperous farmer, and entered the printing office of the Hartford " Courant " as an apprentice. Here he became a thorough printer, and laid the foundation of his subsequent fortune by extra work and rigid economy. He removed to New York in 1844, was employed upon the "Evening Mirror," and acted as correspondent of the Hartford " Courant," and of newspapers in Boston, Al- bany, and Washington. In 1851 he founded the "New York Ledger," by purchasing the business and establishment of the " Merchant's Ledger," a weekly commercial newspaper, which he transformed into a journal of current literature and popular fiction. His enterprise in the conduct of this paper, and especially his practice of advertising to an unprecedented extent, has given it an immense circulation, at times reaching 400,000 copies. Mr. Bonner is well known as the owner of the finest stable of trotting horses in the United States, which he never allows to take part in public races. BONNET, Charles, a Swiss naturalist and phi- losopher, born in Geneva, March 13, 1720, died there, May 20, 1793. He was educated for the law, but reading Pluche's account of the for- mica leo, he undertook to find this insect for himself. This search interested him in many other insects. He read other works, and made further observations, discovering several unde- scribed species, and becoming a naturalist of rare attainments at the age of 16. At 18 he communicated to Reaumur several interesting facts, and at 20 his discovery that several gen- erations of aphides are produced by a viviparous succession of females without the males, for which he was elected a corresponding member of the French academy of sciences. Learning of Trembley's experiments on the reproduction of certain polyps by bisection, Bonnet experi- mented, and discovered that certain so-called worms could be multiplied by the same pro- cess. He published these discoveries in his Traite d'insectologie (1745). In 1754 he pub- lished De V usage desfeuilles, treating upon vege- table physiology, and in 1762-'8 Considerations sur les corps organises, embodying his views on the origin and reproduction of organic forms of life. The failure of his sight drove him from the field of actual observation to that of specu- lative philosophy. His Essai de psychologie ap- peared in 1754, and his Essai analytique des facultes de Vdme in 1760. In his Contempla- tion de la nature (l764-'5) he tried to con- struct a chain of nature from the lowest organ- ism up to the Deity. His Palingenesie philo- sophique (1770) puts forth the idea that the souls of animals are immortal and rise pro- gressively in the scale of being. He published in 1771 Secnerches philosophiques sur les preuves du Christianisme, a defence of revela- tion. His complete works were published at Neufchatel, before his death, in 8 vols. 4to, and with illustrations, in 18 vols. 12mo. BONNEViL, Clande Alexandra, count de, a French soldier, born at Coussac, in Limousin, July 14, 1675, died in March, 1747. Being found unmanageable at the Jesuit college, he left it to enter the navy at the age of 12 years. He left this service in 1698 on account of a duel with the lieutenant of his vessel, and bought a commission in the guards, and afterward in a regiment of infantry. He served with Ven- d6me in Italy, where he displayed great cour- age and skill. Getting into trouble with the accounting officers and the minister of war, he wrote the latter an insulting letter and threw up his commission as colonel. After spending some time in Italy, he entered the service of Austria as a major general, and fought under Prince Eugene in several campaigns in Italy, France, and the Netherlands. While the nego- tiation of the treaty of Utrecht was in pro- gress he fought a duel with a Frenchman for denying that Louis XIV. aspired to universal monarchy, and another with a Prussian for maintaining the same thing. He afterward fought against the Turks, and was severely wounded at the battle of Peterwardein. Hav- ing gone to Paris in 1717 to sue for a pardon, he was induced by his mother to marry a