Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Bohemia" to "Borgia, Francis" / Volume 4, Slice 2 Papyras Classics

← Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Bohemia" to "Borgia, Francis" / Volume 4, Slice 2

Chapter 4

Volume IV Slice II Bohemia to Borgia, Francis (part 3)

Napoleon was equally dissatisfied with his brother’s conduct as lieutenant-general of France, while he himself was conducting the campaign of 1814 in the east of France. On the 30th of March, Joseph empowered Marmont to make a truce with the assailants of Paris if they should be in overpowering strength. On the surrender of the capital Joseph at once retired. The part which he played during the Hundred Days (1815) was also insignificant. It is strange that, four days after Waterloo, Napoleon should have urged him to inspirit the Chamber of Deputies with a view to a national resistance (Lettres nouvelles de Napoléon). In point of fact Joseph did little beyond seeking to further the emperor’s plans of escape to America. After the surrender of his brother to the captain of H.M.S. “Bellerophon” at Rochefort, Joseph went to the United States. Settling in Bordentown, New Jersey, he adopted the title of comte de Survilliers, and sought to promote plans for the rescue of his brother from St Helena. In 1830 he pleaded, but unsuccessfully, for the recognition of the claims of the duke of Reichstadt (king of Rome) to the French throne. He afterwards visited England, and for a time resided at Genoa and Florence. In the latter city, the cradle of his race, he died on the 28th of July 1844. In person he somewhat resembled Napoleon, but utterly lacked his strength and energy. He was fitted for an embassy or judgeship, but was too mild, supine and luxurious for the tasks thrust upon him by his brother. Yet his correspondence and memoirs prove that he retained for Napoleon warm feelings of affection.

Of the many works dealing with Joseph Bonaparte we may cite Baron A. du Casse, Mémoires et correspondance politique et militaire du roi Joseph (10 vols., Paris, 1854), and Les Rois frères de Napoléon (1883); J.S.C. Abbott, History of Joseph Bonaparte (New York, 1869); G. Bertin, Joseph Bonaparte in America; Joseph Bonaparte jugé par ses contemporains (anon.); the Memoirs of Count Miot de Melito (translation, edited by General Fleischmann, 2 vols., 1881); R.M. Johnston, The Napoleonic Empire in Southern Italy (2 vols., with an excellent bibliography, London, 1904); Correspondence of Napoleon with Joseph Bonaparte (2 vols., New York, 1856); Baron A. du Casse, Histoire des ... traités de Mortfontaine, de Lunéville et d’Amiens, &c. (1855-1857); F. Masson, Napoléon et sa famille (4 vols., Paris, 1889-1900).

II. Lucien (1775-1840), prince of Canino, was born at Ajaccio on the 21st of May 1775. He followed his elder brothers to the schools of Autun and Brienne. At that time he wished to enter the French army, but, being debarred by defective sight, was destined for the church, and with this aim in view went to the seminary at Aix in Provence (1786). His excitable and volatile disposition agreed ill with the discipline of the place, and on the outbreak of the Revolution in 1789 he eagerly espoused the democratic and anti-clerical movement then sweeping over France. On returning to Corsica he became the leading speaker in the Jacobin club at Ajaccio. Pushing even Napoleon to more decided action, Lucien urged his brothers to break with Paoli, the leader of the more conservative party, which sought to ally itself with England as against the regicide republic of France. He headed a Corsican deputation which went to France in order to denounce Paoli and to solicit aid for the democrats; but, on the Paolists gaining the upper hand, the Bonapartes left the island and joined Lucien at Toulon. In the south of France he worked hard for the Jacobinical cause, and figured as “Brutus” in the Jacobin club of the small town of St Maximin (then renamed Marathon). There on the 4th of May 1794 he married Mlle Catherine Boyer, though he was a minor and had not the consent of his family—an act which brought him into a state almost approaching disgrace and penury. The coup d’état of Thermidor (July 28, 1794) compelled the young disciple of Robespierre hurriedly to leave St Maximin, and to accept a small post at St Chamans. There he was arrested and imprisoned for a time until Napoleon’s influence procured his release, and further gained for him a post as commissioner in the French army campaigning in Germany. Lucien soon conceived a dislike for a duty which opened up no vista for his powers of oratory and political intrigue, and repaired to Corsica. In the hope of being elected a deputy of the island, he refused an appointment offered by Napoleon in the army of Egypt in 1798. His hopes were fulfilled, and in 1798 he entered the Council of Five Hundred at Paris. There his vivacious eloquence brought him into prominence, and he was president of that body on the eventful day of the 19th of Brumaire (November 10) 1799, when Napoleon overthrew the national councils of France at the palace of St Cloud. The refusal of Lucien to put the vote of outlawry, for which the majority of the council clamoured, his opportune closing of the sitting, and his appeal to the soldiers outside to disperse les représentants du poignard, turned the scale in favour of his brother.

By a strange irony this event, the chief event of Lucien’s life, was fatal to the cause of democracy of which he had been the most eager exponent. In one of his earlier letters to his brother Joseph, Lucien stated that he had detected in Napoleon “an ambition not altogether egotistic but which surpassed his love for the general weal; ... in case of a counter-revolution he would try to ride on the crest of events.” Napoleon having by his help triumphed over parliamentary institutions in France, Lucien’s suspicion of his brother became a dominant feeling; and the relations between them became strained during the period of the consulate (1799-1804). He accepted office as minister of the interior, but was soon deprived of it owing to political and personal differences with the First Consul. In order to soften the blow, Napoleon appointed him ambassador to the court of Madrid (November 1800). There again Lucien displeased his brother. France and Spain were then about to partition Portugal, and the Spanish forces were beginning to invade that land, when the court of Lisbon succeeded, owing (it is said) to the free use of bribes, in inducing Godoy, the Spanish minister, and Lucien Bonaparte to sign the preliminaries of peace on the 6th of June 1801 at Badajoz. The First Consul, finding his plans of seizing Lisbon frustrated, remonstrated with his brother, who thereupon resigned his post, and returned to Paris, there taking part in the opposition which the Tribunate offered to some of Napoleon’s schemes. Lucien’s next proceeding completed the breach between the two brothers. His wife had died in 1800; he became enamoured of a Mme Jouberthou in the early summer of 1802, made her his mistress, and finally, despite the express prohibition of the First Consul, secretly married her at his residence of Plessis (on October 23, 1803). At that time Napoleon was pressing Lucien for important reasons of state to marry the widow of the king of Etruria, and on hearing of his brother’s action he ordered him to leave French territory. Lucien departed for Italy with his wife and infant son, after annoying Napoleon by bestowing on her publicly the name of Bonaparte. He also charged Joseph never to try to reconcile Napoleon to him.

For some years he lived in Italy, chiefly at Rome, showing marked hostility to the emperor. In December 1807 the latter sought to come to an arrangement by which Lucien would take his place as a French prince, provided that he would annul his marriage. This step Lucien refused to take; and after residing for some time at his estate of Canino, from which he took the papal title of prince of Canino, he left for America. Captured by a British ship, he was taken to Malta and thence to England, where he resided under some measure of surveillance up to the peace of 1814. Returning to Rome, he offered Napoleon his help during the Hundred Days (1815), stood by his side at the “Champ de Mai” at Paris, and was the last to defend his prerogatives at the time of his second abdication. He spent the rest of his life in Italy, and died at Rome on the 29th of June 1840. His family comprised four sons and six daughters. He wrote an epic, Charlemagne, ou l’Église délivreé (2 vols., 1814), also La Vérité sur les Cent Jours and Memoirs, which were not completed.

For sources see T. Jung, Lucien Bonaparte et ses mémoires (3 vols., Paris, 1882-1883); an anonymous work, Le Prince Lucien Bonaparte et sa famille (Paris, 1888); F. Masson, Napoléon et sa famille (4 vols., Paris, 1897-1900), and H. Houssaye, ”1815” (3 vols., Paris, 1899-1905).

III. Marianne Elisa (1777-1820) was born at Ajaccio on the 3rd of January 1777. Owing to the efforts of her brothers she entered the establishment of St Cyr near Paris as a “king’s scholar.” On its disruption by the revolutionists in 1792 Napoleon took charge of her and brought her back to Ajaccio. She shared the fortunes of the family in the south of France, and on the 5th of May 1797 married Felix Bacciochi, a well-connected Corsican. In 1805, after the foundation of the French empire, Napoleon bestowed upon her the principality of Piombino and shortly afterwards Lucca; in 1808 her importunities gained for her the grand duchy of Tuscany. Bacciochi being almost a nullity, her pride and ability had a great influence on the administration and on Italian affairs in general. Her relations with Napoleon were frequently strained; and in 1813-1814 she abetted Murat in his enterprises (see Murat). After her brother’s fall she retired, with the title of countess of Compignano, first to Bologna and afterwards to Santo Andrea near Trieste, where she died on the 6th of August 1820.

See J. Turquan, Les Sœurs de Napoléon (Paris, 1896); P. Marmothan, Élisa Bonaparte (Paris, 1898); E. Rodocanachi, Élisa Bonaparte en Italie (Paris, 1900); F. Masson, Napoléon et sa famille (4 vols., Paris, 1897-1900).

IV. Louis (1778-1846) was born at Ajaccio on the 2nd of September 1778. His elder brother Napoleon supervised his education with much care, gaining for him scholarships to the royal military schools of France, and during the time when the elder brother was a lieutenant in garrison at Auxonne Louis shared his scanty fare. In 1795 Napoleon procured for him admission to the military school at Châlons, and wrote thus of the boy:—“I am very pleased with Louis; he fulfils my hopes; intelligence, warmth, good health, talent, good address, kindness—he possesses all these qualities.” Louis went through the Italian campaign of 1796-97 with Napoleon and acted as his aide-de-camp in Egypt in 1798-99. In 1802 the First Consul married him to Hortense Beauharnais, a forced union which led to most deplorable results. In 1804 Louis was raised to the rank of general, and entered the council of state in order to perfect his knowledge of administrative affairs. In the next year he became governor of Paris and undertook various military and administrative duties.

After the victory of Austerlitz (December 2, 1805) Napoleon began to plan the formation of a ring of states surrounding, and in close alliance with, the French empire. He destined Louis for the throne of Holland, and proclaimed him king of that country on the 6th of June 1806. From the first the emperor reproached him with being too easy with his subjects and with courting popularity too much. The increasing rigour of the continental system brought the two brothers to an open rupture. Their relations were embittered by a violent jealousy which Louis conceived against his wife. In 1808 the emperor offered Louis the throne of Spain then vacant; but on Louis refusing to accept it the honour went to Joseph. The dispute between Louis and the emperor continued. In the latter part of 1809 Napoleon virtually resolved to annex Holland, in order to stop the trade which the Dutch secretly carried on with England. At the close of the year Louis went to Paris, partly in order to procure a divorce from Hortense and partly to gain better terms for Holland. He failed in both respects. In January 1810 Napoleon annexed the island of Walcheren, alleging that Louis had not done his share in defending the interests of France at the time of the British Walcheren expedition (1809). The French troops also occupied Breda and Bergen-op-Zoom. Louis gave way on all the points in dispute; but his acquiescence only postponed the crisis. After the collapse of negotiations with Great Britain in the spring of 1810, the emperor again pressed Louis hard, and finally sent French troops against the Dutch capital. Thereupon Louis, despairing of offering resistance, fled from his kingdom and finally settled at Töplitz in Bohemia. On the 9th of July 1810 Napoleon annexed Holland to the French empire. Louis spent the rest of his life separated from his wife, and in 1815 gained the custody of his elder son. He lived chiefly at Rome, concerning himself with literary and philosophic studies and with the fortunes of his sons. Their devotion to the national and democratic cause in Italy in 1830-1831 gave him much pleasure, which was overclouded by the death of the elder, Napoleon Louis, in the spring campaign of 1831 in the Romagna. The failure of his other son, Charles Louis Napoleon (afterwards Napoleon III.), to wrest the French crown from Louis Philippe by the attempts at Strassburg and Boulogne also caused him much disappointment. He died on the 25th of July 1846 and was buried at St Leu. Under more favourable conditions Louis would have gained a name for kindness and philanthropy, proofs of which did indeed appear during his reign in Holland and gained him the esteem of his subjects; but his morbid sensitiveness served to embitter his relations both of a domestic and of a political nature and to sour his own disposition. His literary works are unimportant. His sons were Napoleon Charles (1802-1807), Napoleon Louis (1804-1831), and Charles Louis Napoleon (1808-1873), afterwards emperor of the French as Napoleon III. (q.v.).

The chief works on the life and reign of Louis are le comte de Saint-Leu, Documents historiques et reflexions sur le gouvernement de Hollande 3 vols., 2nd ed., Paris, 1820); F. Rocquain, Napoleon Ier et le Roi Louis, d’après les documents conservés aux archives nationales (Paris, 1875); Baron A. du Casse, Les Rois frères de Napoléon (Paris, 1883); A Garnier, La Cour de Hollande sous le règne de Louis Bonaparte, par un auditeur (Paris and Amsterdam, 1823); T. Jorissen, Napoléon 1′er et le roi de Hollande (1806-1813) d’après des documents authentiques et inedits (Paris and The Hague, 1868); V. Loosjes, Louis Bonaparte, Koning van Holland (Amsterdam, 1888); L. Wichers, De Regeering van Koning Lodewijk Napoleon (1806-1810) (Utrecht, 1892); F. Masson, Napoléon et sa famille (4 vols., Paris, 1897-1900).

V. Marie Pauline (1780-1825), the gayest and most beautiful member of the family, was born at Ajaccio on the 20th October 1780. At seventeen years of age she married General Leclerc, a staff officer of Napoleon, and accompanied him to St Domingo, where he died of yellow fever in 1802. Returning to Paris she espoused Prince Camillo Borghese (August 23, 1803) and went to reside with him in Rome. She soon tired of him, returned to Paris and gratified her whims in ways that caused some scandal. In 1806 she received the title of duchess of Guastalla. Her offhand treatment of the new empress, Marie Louise, in 1810 led to her removal from court. Nevertheless in 1814 she repaired with “Madame Mère” to Elba, and is said to have expressed a wish to share Napoleon’s exile in St Helena. She died in 1825 of cancer. Canova’s statue of her as Venus reclining on a couch is well known.

See J. Turquan, Les Sœurs de Napoléon: les princesses Élisa, Pauline et Caroline (Paris, 1896); F. Masson, Napoléon et sa famille (4 vols., Paris, 1897-1900).

VI. Maria Annunciata Caroline (1782-1839) was born at Ajaccio on the 25th of March 1782. Early in 1800 she married Joachim Murat, whose interests she afterwards advanced with all the power of her ambitious and intriguing nature. He became governor of Paris, marshal of France (1804), grand duke of Berg and of Cleves (1806), lieutenant of the emperor in Spain (1808), and early in the summer of that year king of Naples. The distance of this capital from Paris displeased Caroline; her relations with Napoleon became strained, and she associated herself with the equivocal movements of her husband in 1814-1815. Before his tragic end at Pizzo on the 13th of October 1815, she had retired to Austrian territory and was placed under some measure of restraint. Finally she lived at Trieste with her sister Elisa. She died on the 18th of May 1839.

See J. Turquan, Caroline Murat, reine de Naples (Paris, 1899); F. Masson, Napoléon et sa famille (4 vols., Paris, 1897-1900). See also under Murat, Joachim.

VII. Jerome (1784-1860) was born at Ajaccio on the 15th of November 1784; he shared the fortunes of the family in the early years of the French Revolution, was then educated at Juilly and was called to the side of his brother, then First Consul of France, in 1800. Many stories are told illustrating his impetuous but affectionate nature. While in the Consular Guard he fought a duel with the younger brother of General Davout and was wounded. Soon afterwards he was transferred to the navy and cruised in the West Indies, until, when blockaded by a British cruiser, he left his ship and travelled through the United States. At Baltimore he fell in love with Miss Elizabeth Patterson, and, though a minor, married her. This disregard of discipline and of the laws of France greatly annoyed Napoleon; and when in 1805 Jerome brought his wife to Europe, the emperor ordered her to be excluded from his states. Jerome vainly sought to bend his brother’s will in an interview at Alexandria. In May 1805 he received command of a small squadron in the Mediterranean, while his wife proceeded to Camberwell, where she gave birth to a son. In November Jerome sailed in a squadron commanded by Admiral Willaumez, which was to ravage the West Indies; but it was scattered by a storm. After damaging British commerce in the North Atlantic, Jerome reached France with his ship in safety in August 1806. Napoleon made him a prince of France, and gave him command of a division of South Germans in the campaign of 1806. After Jena, Jerome received the surrender of several Prussian towns. An imperial decree having annulled the Patterson marriage, the emperor united Jerome to the princess Catherine of Württemberg; and in pursuance of the terms of the treaty of Tilsit (July 7, 1807) raised him to the throne of the new kingdom of Westphalia. There Jerome, though frequently rebuked by the emperor, displayed his fondness for luxury, indulged in numerous amours and ran deeply into debt. In some respects his kingdom benefited by the connexion with France. Feudalism was abolished; the Code Napoléon was introduced; the Jews were freed from repressive laws; and education received some impulse in its higher departments. But the unpopularity of Jerome’s rule was shown by the part taken by the peasants in the abortive rising headed by Baron Wilhelm von Dörnberg and other Westphalian officers in April 1809. Despite heavy taxation, the state debt increased greatly; and the sending of a contingent to Russia in 1812 brought the state to the verge of bankruptcy. In the early part of that campaign Jerome was entrusted with an important movement which might have brought the southern Russian army into grave danger; on his failure (which was probably due to his lack of energy) the emperor promptly subjected him to the control of Marshal Davout, and Jerome returned to Cassel. In 1813, on the fall of the Napoleonic régime in Germany, Jerome retired to France, and in 1814 spent some time in Switzerland and at Trieste. Returning to France in 1815, he commanded a division on the French left wing at Waterloo and attacked Hougomont with great pertinacity. On Napoleon’s second abdication Jerome proceeded to Württemberg, was threatened with arrest unless he gave up his wife and child, and was kept under surveillance at Goppingen; finally he was allowed to proceed to Augsburg, and thereafter resided at Trieste, or in Italy or Switzerland. His consort died in 1835. He returned to France in 1847, and after the rise of Louis Napoleon to power, became successively governor of the Invalides, marshal of France and president of the senate. He died on the 24th of June 1860. His children were Jerome Napoleon (see XIV.), Mathilde (see XII.) and Napoleon Joseph Charles Paul (born in 1822); the last was afterwards known as Prince Napoleon (see XI. below) and finally became the heir to the fortunes of the Napoleonic dynasty.

The chief works relating to Jerome Bonaparte are: Baron Albert du Casse, Mémoires et correspondance du roi Jérôme et de la reine Cathérine (7 vols., Paris, 1861-1866) and Les Rois frères de Napoléon (1883); M.M. Kaisenberg, Konig Jerome Napoleon; W.T.R. Saffell, The Bonaparte-Patterson Marriage; August von Schlossberger, Briefwechsel der Konigin Katharina und des Konigs Jerome von Westfalen mit Konig Friedrich von Württemberg (Stuttgart, 1886-1887), supplemented by du Casse in Corresp. inédite de la reine Cathérine de Westphalie (Paris, 1888-1893); A. Martinet, Jérôme Napoléon, roi de Westfalie (Paris, 1902); P.W. Sergeant, The Burlesque Napoleon (1905); F. Masson, Napoléon et sa famille (4 vols., Paris, 1897-1900).

(J. Hl. R.)

The fortunes of the Bonaparte family may be further followed under the later biographies of its leading members, mainly descendants of Lucien (II. above) and Jerome (VII. above).

VIII. Charles Lucien Jules Laurent (1803-1857), prince of Canino, son of Lucien Bonaparte, was a scientist rather than a politician. He married his cousin, Zénaïde Bonaparte, daughter of Joseph, in 1822. At the age of twenty-two he began the publication of an American Ornithology (4 vols., Philadelphia, 1825-1833), which established his scientific reputation. A series of other works in zoology followed: Iconographia della fauna Italica (3 vols., Rome, 1832-1841), Catalogo metodico degli uccelli europei (1 vol., Bologna, 1842), Catalogo metodico dei pesci europei (1 vol., Naples, 1845, 4to), Catalogo metodico dei mammiferi europei (1 vol., Milan, 1845), Telachorum tabula analytica (Neufchatel, 1838). He was elected honorary member of the academy of Upsala in 1833, of that of Berlin in 1843, and correspondent of the Institute of France in 1844. Towards 1847 he took part in the political agitation in Italy, and presided over scientific congresses, notably at Venice, where he declared himself in favour of the independence of Italy and the expulsion of the Austrians. He entered the Junto of Rome in 1848 and was elected deputy by Viterbo to the national assembly. The failure of the revolution forced him to leave Italy in July 1849. He gained Holland, then France, where he turned again to science. His principal works were, Conspectus systematis ornithologiae, mastozologiae, erpetologiae et amphibologiae, Ichthyologiae (Leiden, 1850), Tableau des oiseaux-mouches (Paris, 1854), Ornithologie fossile (Paris, 1858). Eight children survived him: Joseph Lucien Charles Napoleon, prince of Canino (1824-1865), who died without heirs; Lucien Louis Joseph Napoleon, born in 1828, who took holy orders in 1853 and became a cardinal in 1868; Julie Charlotte Zénaïde Pauline Laetitia Désirée Bartholomée, who married the marquis of Roccagiovine; Charlotte Honorine Josephine, who married Count Primoli; Marie Désirée Eugénie Josephine Philomène, who married the count Campello; Auguste Amélie Maximilienne Jacqueline, who married Count Gabrielli; Napoleon Charles Grégoire Jacques Philippe, born in 1839, who married the princess Ruspoli, by whom he had two daughters; and Bathilde Aloyse Léonie, who married the comte de Cambacérès. The branch is now extinct.

IX. Louis Lucien (1813-1891), son of Lucien Bonaparte, was born at Thorngrove, Worcestershire, England, on the 4th of January 1813. He passed his youth in England, not going to France until 1848, when, after the revolution, he was elected deputy for Corsica on the 28th of November 1848; his election having been invalidated, he was returned as deputy for the Seine in June 1849. He sat in the right of the Legislative Assembly, but had no direct part in the coup d’état of his cousin on the 2nd of December 1851. Napoleon III. named him senator and prince, but he took hardly any part in politics during the Second Empire, and after the proclamation of the Third Republic in 1870 he withdrew to England. There he busied himself with philology, and published notably some works on the Basque language: Grammaire basque, Remarques sur plusieurs assertions concernant la langue basque (1876), Observations sur le basque Fontarabie (1878). He died on the 3rd of November 1891, leaving no children.

X. Pierre Napoleon (1815-1881), son of Lucien Bonaparte, was born at Rome on the 12th of September 1815. He began his life of adventure at the age of fifteen, joining the insurrectionary bands in the Romagna (1830-1831); was then in the United States, where he went to join his uncle Joseph, and in Colombia with General Santander (1832). Returning to Rome he was taken prisoner by order of the pope (1835-1836). He finally took refuge in England. At the revolution of 1848 he returned to France and was elected deputy for Corsica to the Constituent Assembly. He declared himself an out-and-out republican and voted even with the socialists. He pronounced himself in favour of the national workshops and against the loi Falloux. His attitude contributed greatly to give popular confidence to his cousin Louis Napoleon (Napoleon III.), of whose coup d’état on the 2nd of December 1851 he disapproved; but he was soon reconciled to the emperor, and accepted the title of prince. The republicans at once abandoned him. From that time on he led a debauched life, and lost all political importance. He turned to literature and published some mediocre poems. In January 1870 a violent incident brought him again into prominence. As the result of a controversy with Paschal Grousset, the latter sent him two journalists to provoke him to a duel. Pierre Bonaparte took them personally to account, and during a violent discussion he drew his revolver and killed one of them, Victor Noir. This crime greatly excited the republican press, which demanded his trial. The High Court acquitted him, and criticism then fell upon the government. Pierre Bonaparte died in obscurity at Versailles on the 7th of April 1881. He had married the daughter of a Paris working-man, Justine Eleanore Ruffin, by whom he had, before his marriage, two children: (1) Roland Napoleon, born on the 19th of May 1858, who entered the army, was excluded from it in 1886, and then devoted himself to geography and scientific explorations; (2) Jeanne, wife of the marquis de Vence.

XI. Napoleon Joseph Charles Paul, commonly known as Prince Napoleon, or by the sobriquet of “Plon-Plon,” (1822-1891), was the second son of Jerome Bonaparte, king of Westphalia, by his wife Catherine, princess of Württemberg, and was born at Trieste on the 9th of September 1822. He soon rendered himself popular by his advanced democratic ideas, which he expressed on all possible occasions. After the French revolution of 1848 he was elected to the National Assembly as a representative of Corsica, and (his elder brother, Jerome Napoleon Charles, dying in 1847) assumed the name of Jerome. Notwithstanding his ostensible opposition to the coup d’état of 1851, he was designated, upon the establishment of the Empire, as successor to the throne if Napoleon III. should die childless, and received a liberal dotation, but was allowed no share in public affairs. Privately he professed himself the representative of the Napoleonic tradition in its democratic aspect, and associated mainly with men of advanced political opinions. At court he represented the Liberal party against the empress Eugénie. In 1854 he took part in the Crimean campaign as general of division. His conduct at the battle of the Alma occasioned imputations upon his personal courage, but they seem to have been entirely groundless. Returning to France he undertook the chief direction of the National Exhibition of 1855, in which he manifested great capacity. In 1858 he was appointed minister for the Colonies and Algeria, and his administration aroused great hopes, but his activity was diverted into a different channel by his sudden marriage in January 1859 with the princess Marie Clotilde of Savoy, daughter of Victor Emmanuel, a prelude to the war for the liberation of Italy. In this war Prince Napoleon commanded the French corps that occupied Tuscany, and it was expected that he would become ruler of the principality, but he refused to exert any pressure upon the inhabitants, who preferred union with the Italian kingdom. The next few years were chiefly distinguished by remarkable speeches which displayed the prince in the unexpected character of a great orator. Unfortunately his indiscretion equalled his eloquence: one speech (1861) sent him to America to avoid a duel with the duke d’Aumale; another (1865), in which he justly but intemperately protested against the Mexican expedition, cost him all his official dignities. Nevertheless he was influential in effecting the reform by which in 1869 it was sought to reconcile the Empire with Liberal principles. The fatal war of 1870 was resolved upon during his absence in Norway, and was strongly condemned by him. After the first disasters he undertook an ineffectual mission to Italy to implore the aid of his father-in-law; and after the fall of the Empire lived in comparative retirement until in 1879 the death of Napoleon III.’s son, the Prince Imperial (see XIII. below), made him direct heir to the Napoleonic succession. His part as imperial pretender was unfortunate and inglorious: his democratic opinions were unacceptable to the imperial party, and before his death he was virtually deposed in favour of his son Prince Napoleon Victor, who, supported by Paul de Cassagnac and others, openly declared himself a candidate for the throne in 1884. He died at Rome on the 17th of March 1891. In the character of his intellect, as in personal appearance, he bore an extraordinary resemblance to the first Napoleon, possessing the same marvellous lucidity of insight, and the same gift of infallibly distinguishing the essential from the non-essential. He was a warm friend of literature and art, and in a private station would have achieved high distinction as a man of letters.

His eldest son, Prince Napoleon Victor Jérome Frédéric (b. 1862), became at his death the recognized head of the French Bonapartist party. The second son, Prince Louis Napoleon, an officer in the Russian army, showed a steadier disposition, and was more favoured in some monarchist quarters; in 1906 he was made governor of the Caucasus.

XII. Mathilde Letitia Wilhelmine (1820-1904), daughter of Jerome, and sister of Prince Napoleon (XI.), was born at Trieste on the 20th of May 1820; after being almost betrothed to her cousin Louis Napoleon, in 1840 she was married to Prince Anatole Demidov. His conduct, however, led to a separation within five years, and the tsar Nicholas compelled him to make Princess Mathilde a handsome allowance. After the election of Louis Napoleon to the presidency of the republic she took up her residence in Paris, and did the honours of the Élysée till his marriage. She continued to live in Paris, having great influence as a friend and patron of men of art and letters, till her death on the 2nd of January 1904.

XIII. Napoleon Eugene Louis Jean Joseph (1856-1879), Prince Imperial, only son of the emperor Napoleon III. and the empress Eugénie, was born at Paris on the 16th of March 1856. He was a delicate boy, but when the war of 1870 broke out his mother sent him to the army, to win popularity for him, and the government journals vaunted his bravery. After the first defeats he had to flee from France with the empress, and settled in England at Chislehurst, completing his military education at Woolwich. On the death of his father on the 9th of January 1873 the Imperialists proclaimed him Napoleon IV., and he became the official Pretender. He was naturally inactive, but he was influenced by his mother on the one hand, and by the Bonapartist leaders in France on the other. They thought that he should win his crown by military prestige, and he was persuaded to attach himself as a volunteer to the English expedition to Zululand in February 1879. It was a blunder to have allowed him to go, and the blunder ended in a tragedy, for while out on a reconnaissance with a few troopers they were surprised by Zulus, and the Prince Imperial was killed (June 1, 1879). His body was brought back to England, and buried at Chislehurst.

XIV. The Bonapartes of Baltimore are a branch of the family settled in America, descended from Jerome Bonaparte (VII.) by his union with Elizabeth (b. 1785), daughter of William Patterson, a Baltimore merchant, probably descended from the Robert Paterson who was the original of Sir Walter Scott’s “Old Mortality.” The marriage took place at Baltimore on the 24th of December 1803, but it was greatly disliked by Napoleon, who refused to recognize its legality. However, it was valid according to American law, and Pope Pius VII. refused to declare it void. Nevertheless Jerome was forced by his brother to separate himself from his wife, whom he had brought to Europe, and after a stay in England Madame Patterson, or Madame Bonaparte, as she was usually called, returned to Baltimore. She died in 1879. Jerome’s only child by this marriage was Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte (1805-1870), who was born in England, but resided chiefly in Baltimore, and is said to have shown a marked resemblance to his uncle, the great emperor. He was on good terms with Jerome, who for some time made him a large allowance, and father and son occasionally met. His elder son, also called Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte (1832-1893), entered the French army, with which he served in the Crimea and in Italy.

Charles Joseph Bonaparte (b. 1851), younger son of the first Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte, and a grandson of Jerome, king of Westphalia, attained a distinguished place in American politics. Born at Baltimore on the 9th of June 1851 and educated at Harvard University, he became a lawyer in 1874 and has been president of the National Municipal League and has filled other public positions. He was secretary of the navy in President Roosevelt’s cabinet from July 1905 to December 1906, and then attorney-general of the United States until March 1909.


Derived, it is supposed, from the nickname “Plomb-plomb,” or “Craint-plomb” (fear-lead), given him by his soldiers in the Crimea.


BONAR, HORATIUS (1808-1889), Scottish Presbyterian divine, was born in Edinburgh on the 19th of December 1808, and educated at the high school and university of his native city. After a term of mission work at Leith, he was appointed parish minister of Kelso in 1837, and at the Disruption of 1843 became minister of the newly formed Free Church, where he remained till 1866, when he went to the Chalmers memorial church, Edinburgh. He had in 1853 received the D.D. degree from Aberdeen University, and in 1883 he was moderator of the general assembly of his church. He died on the 31st of July 1889. Bonar was a prolific writer of religious literature, and edited several journals, including the Christian Treasury, the Presbyterian Review and the Quarterly Journal of Prophecy; but his best work was done in hymnology, and he published three series of Hymns of Faith and Hope between 1857 and 1866 (new ed., 1886). Nearly every modern hymnal contains perhaps a score of his hymns, including “Go, labour on,” “I heard the voice of Jesus say,” “Here, O my Lord, I see Thee face to face,” “When the weary, seeking rest.”

See Horatius Bonar, D.D., a Memorial (1889).


BONAVENTURA, SAINT (John of Fidanza), Franciscan theologian, was born in 1221 at Bagnarea in Tuscany. He was destined by his mother for the church, and is said to have received his cognomen of Bonaventura from St Francis of Assisi, who performed on him a miraculous cure. He entered the Franciscan order in 1243, and studied at Paris possibly under Alexander of Hales, and certainly under Alexander’s successor, John of Rochelle, to whose chair he succeeded in 1253. Three years earlier his fame had gained for him permission to read upon the Sentences, and in 1255 he received the degree of doctor. So high was his reputation that in the following year he was elected general of his order. It was by his orders that Roger Bacon was interdicted from lecturing at Oxford, and compelled to put himself under the surveillance of the order at Paris. He was instrumental in procuring the election of Gregory X., who rewarded him with the titles of cardinal and bishop of Albano, and insisted on his presence at the great council of Lyons in the year 1274. At this meeting he died.

Bonaventura’s character seems not unworthy of the eulogistic title, “Doctor Seraphicus,” bestowed on him by his contemporaries, and of the place assigned to him by Dante in his Paradiso. He was formally canonized in 1482 by Sixtus IV., and ranked as sixth among the great doctors of the church by Sixtus V. in 1587. His works, as arranged in the Lyons edition (7 vols., folio), consist of expositions and sermons, filling the first three volumes; of a commentary on the Sentences of Lombardus, in two volumes, celebrated among medieval theologians as incomparably the best exposition of the third part; and of minor treatises filling the remaining two volumes, and including a life of St Francis. The smaller works are the most important, and of them the best are the famous Itinerarium Mentis ad Deum, Breviloquium, De Reductione Artium ad Theologiam, Soliloquium, and De septem itineribus aeternitatis, in which most of what is individual in his teaching is contained.

In philosophy Bonaventura presents a marked contrast to his great contemporaries, Thomas Aquinas and Roger Bacon. While these may be taken as representing respectively physical science yet in its infancy, and Aristotelian scholasticism in its most perfect form, he brings before us the mystical and Platonizing mode of speculation which had already to some extent found expression in Hugo and Richard of St Victor, and in Bernard of Clairvaux. To him the purely intellectual element, though never absent, is of inferior interest when compared with the living power of the affections or the heart. He rejects the authority of Aristotle, to whose influence he ascribes much of the heretical tendency of the age, and some of whose cardinal doctrines—such as the eternity of the world—he combats vigorously. But the Platonism he received was Plato as understood by St Augustine, and as he had been handed down by the Alexandrian school and the author of the mystical works passing under the name of Dionysius the Areopagite. Bonaventura accepts as Platonic the theory that ideas do not exist in rerum natura, but as thoughts of the divine mind, according to which actual things were formed; and this conception has no slight influence upon his philosophy. Like all the great scholastic doctors he starts with the discussion of the relations between reason and faith. All the sciences are but the handmaids of theology; reason can discover some of the moral truths which form the groundwork of the Christian system, but others it can only receive and apprehend through divine illumination. In order to obtain this illumination the soul must employ the proper means, which are prayer, the exercise of the virtues, whereby it is rendered fit to accept the divine light, and meditation which may rise even to ecstatic union with God. The supreme end of life is such union, union in contemplation or intellect and in intense absorbing love; but it cannot be entirely reached in this life, and remains as a hope for futurity. The mind in contemplating God has three distinct aspects, stages or grades—the senses, giving empirical knowledge of what is without and discerning the traces (vestigia) of the divine in the world; the reason, which examines the soul itself, the image of the divine Being; and lastly, pure intellect (intelligentia), which, in a transcendent act, grasps the Being of the divine cause. To these three correspond the three kinds of theology—theologia symbolica, theologia propria and theologia mystica. Each stage is subdivided, for in contemplating the outer world we may use the senses or the imagination; we may rise to a knowledge of God per vestigia or in vestigiis. In the first case the three great properties of physical bodies—weight, number, measure,—in the second the division of created things into the classes of those that have merely physical existence, those that have life, and those that have thought, irresistibly lead us to conclude the power, wisdom and goodness of the Triune God. So in the second stage we may ascend to the knowledge of God, per imaginem, by reason, or in imagine, by the pure understanding (intellectus); in the one case the triple division—memory, understanding and will,—in the other the Christian virtues—faith, hope and charity,—leading again to the conception of a Trinity of divine qualities—eternity, truth and goodness. In the last stage we have first intelligentia, pure intellect, contemplating the essential being of God, and finding itself compelled by necessity of thought to hold absolute being as the first notion, for non-being cannot be conceived apart from being, of which it is but the privation. To this notion of absolute being, which is perfect and the greatest of all, objective existence must be ascribed. In its last and highest form of activity the mind rests in the contemplation of the infinite goodness of God, which is apprehended by means of the highest faculty, the apex mentis or synderesis. This spark of the divine illumination is common to all forms of mysticism, but Bonaventura adds to it peculiarly Christian elements. The complete yielding up of mind and heart to God is unattainable without divine grace, and nothing renders us so fit to receive this gift as the meditative and ascetic life of the cloister. The monastic life is the best means of grace.

Bonaventura, however, is not merely a meditative thinker, whose works may form good manuals of devotion; he is a dogmatic theologian of high rank, and on all the disputed questions of scholastic thought, such as universals, matter, the principle of individualism, or the intellectus agens, he gives weighty and well-reasoned decisions. He agrees with Albertus Magnus in regarding theology as a practical science; its truths, according to his view, are peculiarly adapted to influence the affections. He discusses very carefully the nature and meaning of the divine attributes; considers universals to be the ideal forms pre-existing in the divine mind according to which things were shaped; holds matter to be pure potentiality which receives individual being and determinateness from the formative power of God, acting according to the ideas; and finally maintains that the intellectus agens has no separate existence. On these and on many other points of scholastic philosophy the Seraphic Doctor exhibits a combination of subtilty and moderation which makes his works peculiarly valuable.

Editions.—7 vols., Rome, 1588-1596; 7 vols., Lyons, 1668; 13 vols., Venice, 1751 ff.; by A.C. Peltier, 15 vols., Paris, 1863 ff.; 10 vols., Rome, 1882-1892. K.J. Hefele edited the Breviloquium and the Itin. Mentis (3rd ed., Tübingen, 1862); two volumes of selections were issued by Alix in 1853-1856.

Literature.—W.A. Hollenberg, Studien zu Bonaventura (1862); F. Nitzsch, art. in Herzog-Hauck, Realencyk. für prot. Theol., where a list of monographs is given, to which add one by De Chévancé (1899).

(R. Ad.; X.)


BONCHAMPS, CHARLES MELCHIOR ARTUS, Marquis de (c. 1760-1793), Vendéan leader, was born at Jouverteil, Anjou. He gained his first military experience in the American War of Independence, and on his return to France was made a captain of grenadiers in the French army. He was a staunch upholder of the monarchy, and at the outbreak of the French Revolution resigned his command and retired to his château at St Florent. In the spring of 1793 he was chosen leader by the insurgents of the Vendée, and to his counsels may be attributed in great measure the success of the peasants’ arms. He was present at the taking of Bressuire, Thouars and Fontenay, at which last place he was wounded; but dissensions among their leaders weakened the insurgents, and at the bloody battle of Cholet (October 1793) the Vendéans sustained a severe defeat and Bonchamps was mortally wounded. He died the next day. It is said that his last act was the pardoning of five thousand republican prisoners, whom his troops had sworn to kill in revenge for his death. A statue of him by David d’Angers stands in the church of St Florent.


BOND, SIR EDWARD AUGUSTUS (1815-1898), English librarian, was born at Hanwell on the 31st of December 1815, the son of a schoolmaster. He was educated at Merchant Taylors’ school, and in 1832 obtained a post in the public record office. In 1838 he became an assistant in the manuscript department of the British Museum, where he attracted the notice of his chief, Sir Frederick Madden, the most eminent palaeographer of his day, and in 1852 he was made Egerton librarian. In 1856 he became assistant keeper of MSS., and in 1867 was promoted to the post of keeper. His work in reorganizing the manuscript department was of lasting value, and to him is due the classified catalogue of MSS., and the improved efficiency and punctuality of publication of the department. In 1878 he was appointed principal librarian. Under his supervision were erected the new buildings of the “White Wing,” which provide accommodation for prints, drawings, manuscripts and newspapers, and the purchase of the Stowe MSS. was concluded while he remained in office. He founded, in conjunction with Sir E. Maunde Thompson, the Palaeographical Society, and first made classical palaeography an exact science. He was made LL.D. of Cambridge in 1879, created C.B. in 1885, and K.C.B. the day before his death on the 2nd of January 1898. He was the editor of four volumes of facsimiles of Anglo-Saxon charters from 679 to the Conquest, The Speeches in the Trial of Warren Hastings (1859-1861), and a number of other interesting historic documents.


BOND, in English law, an obligation by deed. Its design is to secure that the obligor, i.e. the person giving the bond, will either pay a sum of money, or do or refrain from doing some act; and for this purpose the obligor binds himself in a penalty to the obligee, with a condition added that, if the obligor pays the sum secured—which is usually half the penalty—or does or refrains from doing the specified act, the bond shall be void: otherwise it shall remain in full force. This condition is known as the defeasance because it defeats or undoes the bond. The form of a common money bond runs as follows:—

Know All Men by these presents that I, A.B. (name, address and description of obligor), am bound to C.D. (name, address and description of obligee) in the sum of £[2000] to be paid to the said (obligee), his executors, administrators or assigns or to his or their attorney or attorneys, for which payment I bind myself by these presents. Sealed with my seal. Dated this day of 19 .

The condition of the above-written bond is such that if the above A.B., his heirs, executors or administrators, shall on the day of pay to the above-named C.D., his heirs, executors, administrators or assigns the sum of £[1000], with interest for the same from the date of the above-written bond at the rate of per cent per annum without any deduction, then the above-written bond shall be void: otherwise the bond shall remain in full force.

Signed, sealed and delivered
by the above-named A.B.
in the presence of (witness)

Recitals are frequently added to explain the circumstances under which the bond is given.

If the condition is not performed, i.e. if the obligor does not pay the money by the day stipulated, or do or refrain from doing the act provided for, the bond becomes forfeit or absolute at law, and charges the obligor and his estate (see Conveyancing Act 1881, s. 59). In old days, when a bond was forfeit, the whole penalty was recoverable at law and payment post diem could not be pleaded to an action on it, but the court of chancery early interposed to prevent oppression. It held the penalty of a bond to be the form, not the substance of it, a pledge merely to secure repayment of the sum bona fide advanced, and would not permit a man to take more than in conscience he ought, i.e. in case of a common money bond, his principal, interest and expenses. This equitable relief received statutory recognition by an act of 1705, which provided that, in case of a common money bond, payment of the lesser sum with interest and costs shall be taken in full satisfaction of the bond. An obligee of a common money bond can, since the date of the Judicature Act, obtain summary judgment under O. xiv. (R.S.C. 1883) by specially endorsing his writ under O. iii. R. 6.

Bonds were, however, and still are given to secure performance of a variety of matters other than the payment of a sum of money at a fixed date. They may be given and are given, for instance, to guarantee the fidelity of a clerk, of a rent collector, or of a person in an office of public trust, or to secure that an intended husband will settle a sum on his wife in the event of her surviving him, or that a building contract shall be carried out, or that a rival business shall not be carried on by the obligor except within certain limits of time and space. The same object can often be attained—and more conveniently attained—by a covenant than by bond, and covenants have in the practice of conveyancers largely superseded bonds, but there are cases where security by bond is still preferable to security by covenant. Thus under a bond to secure an annuity, if the obligor makes default, judgment may be entered for the penalty and stand as security for the future payments without the necessity of bringing a fresh action for each payment. In cases of bonds with special conditions, such as those instanced above, the remedy of the obligee for breach of the condition is prescribed by an act of 1696, the procedure under which is preserved by the Judicature Act (O. xxii. R. 1, O. xiii. R. 14). The obligee assigns the particular breaches of which he complains, damages in respect of such breaches are assessed, and, on payment into court by the obligor of the amount of such damages, the court enters a stay of execution. A difficulty which has much exercised and still exercises the courts is to determine, in these cases of special conditions, whether the sum for which the bond is given is a true penalty or only liquidated damages. There is nothing to prevent the parties to a bond from agreeing the damages for a breach, and if they have done so, the court will not interfere, as it will in the case of a penalty. The leading case on the subject is Kemble v. Farren (1829; 6 Bing. 148).

Bonds given to secure the doing of anything which is contrary to the policy of the law are void. Such, for instance, is a bond given to a woman for future cohabitation (as distinguished from past cohabitation), or a marriage brocage bond, that is, a bond given to procure a marriage between parties. (See the matrimonial agency case, Hermann v. Charlesworth, 1905, 2 K.B. 123). It was not without design that Shakespeare laid the scene of Shylock’s suit on Antonio’s bond in a Venetian court; the bond would have had short shrift in an English court.

Post Obit Bonds.—A post obit bond is one given by an expectant heir or legatee, payable on or after the death of the person from whom the obligor has expectations. Such a bond, if the obligee has exacted unconscionable terms, may be set aside.

Bottomry Bonds.—A bottomry bond is a contract of hypothecation by which the owner of a ship, or the master as his agent, borrows money for the use of the ship to meet some emergency, e.g. necessary repairs, and pledges the ship (or keel or bottom of the ship, partem pro toto) as security for repayment. If the ship safely accomplishes her voyage, the obligee gets his money back with the agreed interest: if the ship is totally lost, he loses it altogether.

Lloyd’s Bonds.—Lloyd’s bonds are instruments under the seal of a railway company, admitting the indebtedness of the company to the obligee to a specified amount for work done or goods supplied, with a covenant to pay him such amount with interest on a future day. They are a device by which railway companies were enabled to increase their indebtedness without technically violating their charter. The name is derived from the counsel who settled the form of the bond.

Debenture Bonds.—Debenture bonds are bonds secured only by the covenant of the company without any floating or fixed charge on the assets. (See Debentures and Debenture Stock.)

Recognizance.—A recognizance differs from a bond in being entered into before a court of record and thereby becoming an obligation of record.

Heritable bond is a Scots law term, meaning a bond for money, joined with a conveyance of land, and held by a creditor as security for his debt.

For goods “in bond” see Bonded Warehouse.

(E. Ma.)


This word, meaning “that which binds,” is a phonetic variant of “band,” and is derived from the Teutonic root seen in bindan, to bind; it must be distinguished from the obsolete “bond,” meaning originally a householder. In the laws of Canute this word is used as equal to the Old English ceorl (see Churl), and thus, as the churl’s position became less free after the Norman Conquest, the “bond” approximated to the “villein,” and still later to the “serf.” The word is in Old English bonda, and appears in “husband” (q.v.), and is derived from the root of the verb búa, to dwell, to have a house, the Latin colere, and thus in origin is cognate with German Bauer and English “boor.” The transition in meaning to the idea of serfdom, and hence to slavery, is due to an early confusion with “bond,” from “bind.” The same wrong connexion appears in the transition of meaning in “bondage,” properly “tenure in villeinage,” but now used as synonymous with “slavery.” A trace of the early meaning still survives in “bondager” (q.v.).


BONDAGER, a word meaning generally a servant, but specially used in the south of Scotland and Northumberland as the term for a female outworker whom a married farm-labourer, living in a cottage attached to the farm, undertakes as a condition of his tenancy to supply for field-labour, sometimes also to board and lodge. The origin of the system was a dearth of field-labour.


BONDE, GUSTAF, Count (1620-1667), Swedish statesman. He is remarkable for being the persistent advocate of a pacific policy at a time when war on the slightest provocation was the watchword of every Swedish politician. Even the popular Polish adventure of Charles X. was strenuously opposed by Bonde, though when once it was decided upon he materially assisted the king to find the means for carrying it on. He was also in favour of strict economy coupled with the recovery of the royal domains which had fallen into the hands of the nobles, though his natural partiality for his fellow-peers came out clearly enough when in 1655 he was appointed a member of Charles X.’s land-recovery commission. In 1659 he succeeded Herman Fleming as lord high treasurer, and was one of the council of regency appointed to govern Sweden during the minority of Charles XI. In 1661 he presented to the senate a plan which aimed at rendering Sweden altogether independent of foreign subsidies, by a policy of peace, economy and trade-development, and by further recovery of alienated estates. His budget in the following year, framed on the same principles, subsequently served as an invaluable guide to Charles XI. Bonde’s extraordinary tenacity of purpose enabled him for some years to carry out his programme, despite the opposition of the majority of the senate and his co-regents, who preferred the more adventurous methods of the chancellor Magnus de la Gardie, ultimately so ruinous to Sweden. But the ambition of the oligarchs, and the fear and jealousy of innumerable monopolists who rose in arms against his policy of economy, proved at last too strong for Bonde, while the costly and useless expedition against Bremen in 1665, undertaken contrary to his advice, completed the ruin of the finances. In his later years Bonde’s powers of resistance were weakened by sickness and mortification at the triumph of reckless extravagance, and he practically retired from the government some time before his death.

See Martin Veibull, Sveriges Storhetstid (Stockholm, 1881).


BONDED WAREHOUSE, a warehouse established by the state, or by private enterprise, in which goods liable to duty are lodged until the duty upon them has been paid. Previous to the establishment of bonded warehouses in England the payment of duties on imported goods had to be made at the time of importation, or a bond with security for future payment given to the revenue authorities. The inconveniences of this system were many; it was not always possible for the importer to find sureties, and he had often to make an immediate sale of the goods, in order to raise the duty, frequently selling when the market was depressed and prices low; the duty, having to be paid in a lump sum, raised the price of the goods by the amount of the interest on the capital required to pay the duty; competition was stifled from the fact that large capital was required for the importation of the more heavily taxed articles; there was also the difficulty of granting an exact equivalent drawback to the exporter, on goods which had already paid duty. To obviate these difficulties and to put a check upon frauds on the revenue, Sir Robert Walpole proposed in his “excise scheme” of 1733, the system of warehousing, so far as concerned tobacco and wine. The proposal, however, was very unpopular, and it was not till 1803 that the system was actually adopted. By an act of that year imported goods were to be placed in warehouses approved by the customs authorities, and importers were to give “bonds” for payment of duties when the goods were removed. It was from this that the warehouses received the name of “bonded” or “bonding.” The Customs Consolidation Act 1853 dispensed with the giving of bonds, and laid down various provisions for securing the payment of customs duties on goods warehoused. These provisions are contained in the Customs Consolidation Act 1876, and the amending statutes, the Customs and Inland Revenue Act 1880, and the Revenue Act 1883. The warehouses are known as “king’s warehouses,” and by s. 284 of the act of 1876 are defined as “any place provided by the crown or approved by the commissioners of customs, for the deposit of goods for security thereof, and the duties due thereon.” By s. 12 of the same act the treasury may appoint warehousing ports or places, and the commissioners of customs may from time to time approve and appoint warehouses in such ports or places where goods may be warehoused or kept, and fix the amount of rent payable in respect of the goods. The proprietor or occupier of every warehouse so approved (except existing warehouses of special security in respect of which security by bond has hitherto been dispensed with), or some one on his behalf, must, before any goods be warehoused therein, give security by bond, or such other security as the commissioners may approve of, for the payment of the full duties chargeable on any goods warehoused therein, or for the due exportation thereof (s. 13). All goods deposited in a warehouse, without payment of duty on the first importation, upon being entered for home consumption, are chargeable with existing duties on like goods under any customs acts in force at the time of passing such entry (s. 19). The act also prescribes various rules for the unshipping, landing, examination, warehousing and custody of goods, and the penalties on breach. The system of warehousing has proved of great advantage both to importers and purchasers, as the payment of duty is deferred until the goods are required, while the title-deeds, or warrants, are transferable by endorsement.

While the goods are in the warehouse (“in bond”) the owner may subject them to various processes necessary to fit them for the market, such as the repacking and mixing of tea, the racking, vatting, mixing and bottling of wines and spirits, the roasting of coffee, the manufacture of certain kinds of tobacco, &c., and certain specific allowances are made in respect of waste arising from such processes or from leakage, evaporation and the like.


BONDU, a French protectorate in West Africa, dependent on the colony of Senegal. Bondu lies between the Faleme river and the upper course of the Gambia, that is between 13° and 15° N., and 12° and 13° W. The country is an elevated plateau, with hills in the southern and central parts. These are generally unproductive, and covered with stunted wood; but the lower country is fertile, and finely clothed with the baobab, the tamarind and various valuable fruit-trees. Bondu is traversed by torrents, which flow rapidly during the rains but are empty in the dry season, such streams being known in this part of West Africa as marigots. The inhabitants are mostly Fula, though the trade is largely in the hands of Mandingos. The religion and laws of the country are Mahommedan, though the precepts of that faith are not very rigorously observed. Mungo Park, the first European traveller to visit the country, passed through Bondu in 1795, and had to submit to many exactions from the reigning prince. The royal residence was then at Fatteconda; but when Major W. Gray, a British officer who attempted to solve the Niger problem, visited Bondu in 1818 it had been removed to Bulibani, a small town, with about 3000 population, surrounded by a strong clay wall. In August 1845 the king of Bondu signed a treaty recognizing French sovereignty over his country. The treaty was disregarded by the natives, but in 1858 Bondu came definitely under French control. The country has since enjoyed considerable prosperity (see Senegal).

See A. Rançon, Le Bondou: étude de géographie et d’histoire soudaniennes de 1681 à nos jours (Bordeaux, 1894).


BONE, HENRY (1755-1834), English enamel painter, was born at Truro. He was much employed by London jewellers for small designs in enamel, before his merits as an artist were well known to the public. In 1800 the beauty of his pieces attracted the notice of the Royal Academy, of which he was then admitted as an associate; in 1811 he was made an academician. Up to 1831 he executed many beautiful miniature pieces of much larger size than had been attempted before in England; among these his eighty-five portraits of the time of Queen Elizabeth, of different sizes, from 5 by 4 to 13 by 8 in. are most admired. They were disposed of by public sale after his death. His Bacchus and Ariadne, after Titian, painted on a plate, brought the great price of 2200 guineas.


BONE (a word common in various forms to Teutonic languages, in many of which it is confined to the shank of the leg, as in the German Bein), the hard tissue constituting the framework of the animal skeleton. For anatomy see Skeleton and Connective Tissues.

Bone Diseases and Injuries.—The more specific diseases affecting the bones of the human body are treated under separate headings; in this article inflammation of bone and fractures are dealt with.

Ostitis (ὀστέον, bone), or inflammation of bone, may be acute or chronic. Acute ostitis is one of the most serious diseases which can be met with in young people. It is due to the cultivation of virulent germs in the delicate growing tissue of the bone and in the marrow. Another name for it is septic osteomyelitis, which has the advantage of expressing the cause as well as the exact seat (μυελός, marrow) of the inflammation. The name of the micro-organism causing the inflammation is Staphylococcus pyogenes aureus, which means that the germs collect in clusters like grapes, that they are of the virulent pus-producing kind, and that they have a yellow tinge. As a rule, the germs find their way to the bone by the blood-stream, which they have entered through the membrane lining the mouth or gullet, or some other part of the alimentary canal. In the pre-antiseptic days they often entered the sawn bone during the amputation of a limb, and were not infrequently the cause of blood-poisoning and death. When the individual is well and strong, and there has been no hurt, strain or accident to lower the power of resistance of the bone, the staphylococci may circulate harmlessly in the blood, until they are gradually eaten up by the white corpuscles; but if a bone has been injured it offers a likely and attractive focus to the wandering germs.

The disease is infective. That is to say, the micro-organisms having begun to germinate in the damaged bone find their way by the blood-stream into other tissues, and developing after their kind, are apt to cause blood-poisoning. Should a surgeon prick his finger whilst operating on a case of septic osteomyelitis his blood also might be poisoned, and he would run the risk of losing his finger, his hand, or even his life. The starting-point of the disease is the delicate growing tissue recently deposited between the main part of the shaft of the bone (diaphysis) and the cartilaginous end. And it often happens that the earliest complaint of pain is just above or below the knee; just above the ankle, the elbow or the wrist. If the surgeon is prompt in operating he may find the disease limited to that spot. In the case of infants, the germs are very apt to make their way into the neighbouring joint, giving rise to the very serious disease known as acute arthritis of infants.

Probably the first sign of there being anything amiss with the limb will be a complaint of aches or pains near a joint; and these pains are apt to be miscalled rheumatic. Perhaps they occur during convalescence from scarlet or typhoid fever, or after exposure to injury, or to wet or cold, or after unusual fatigue. The part becomes swollen, hot, red and excessively tender; the tenderness, however, is not in the skin but in the bone, and in the engorged membrane around it, the periosteum. The temperature may run up to 104°, and may be associated with convulsions or shiverings. The patient’s nights are disturbed, and very likely he has violent delirium. If the case is allowed to drift on, abscess forms, and death may ensue from septic pneumonia, or pericarditis, or from some other form of blood-poisoning.

As soon as the disease is recognized an incision should be made down to the bone, and the affected area should be scraped out, and disinfected with a solution of corrosive sublimate. A considerable area of the bone may be found stripped bare by sub-periosteal abscess, and necrosis is likely to ensue. Perhaps the shaft of the bone will have to be opened up in the chief part of its length in order that it may be cleared of germs and pus. The surgeon is more apt to err on the side of doing too little in these serious cases than too much. It may be that the whole of that piece of bone (diaphysis) which lies between the joint-ends is found loose in a large abscess cavity, and in some cases immediate amputation of the limb may be found necessary in order to save life; in other cases, amputation may be called for later because of long-continued suppuration and grave constitutional disturbance. Several bones may be affected at the same time, and large pieces of them may be killed outright (multiple necrosis) by inflammatory engorgement and devastating abscess.

Septic ostitis may be confounded with erysipelas and rheumatism, but the central thickening and tenderness should suffice to distinguish it.

Chronic ostitis and periostitis denote long-continued and increased vascular supply. This may be due to injury, syphilis or rheumatism. The disease is found chiefly in the shafts of the bones. There is a dull pain in the bone, which is worse at night, and the inflamed piece of bone is thickened and tender. The lump thus formed is called a hard node, and its outline shows clearly by X-rays. The affected limb should be rested and kept elevated. Leeches and fomentations may ease the pain, and iodide of potassium is the most useful medicine.

Chronic inflammation of tuberculous origin affects the soft, cancellated tissue of such bones as the vertebrae, and the bones of the hands and feet, as well as the spongy ends of the long bones. In tuberculous ostitis the presence of the bacilli in the spongy tissue causes an escape of colourless corpuscles from the blood, which, collecting around the bacilli, form a small greyish white heap, a tubercle. These tubercles may be present in large numbers at the expense of the living tissue, and a rarefying ostitis is thus produced. Later the tubercles break down and form tuberculous abscesses, which slowly, and almost painlessly, find escape upon the surface. They should not be allowed to open spontaneously, however, as the wounds are then likely to become infected with pus-producing germs, and fuel being added to the fire, as it were, destruction advances with increased rapidity. The treatment for these tuberculous foci is to place the limb or the part at absolute rest upon a splint, to give plenty of fresh air to the patient, and to prescribe cod-liver oil and iron. And when it is seen that in spite of the adoption of these measures the tuberculous abscess is advancing towards the surface, the surgeon should cut down upon the part, scrape out the foci, and disinfect with some strong antiseptic lotion. Consideration should also be given to the treatment by injection of tuberculin.

Caries (rottenness, decay) is the name given to tuberculous disease of bone when the tubercles are running together and are breaking down the cancellous tissue. In short, caries generally means tuberculous ostitis, though syphilitic ulceration of bone has also received the same name.

Fractures.—A bone may be broken at the part where it is struck (fracture from direct violence), or it may break in consequence of a strain applied to it (fracture from indirect violence), or the fracture may be due to muscular action as when a violent cough causes a rib to break. In the first case the fracture is generally transverse and in the second more or less oblique. The fully developed bone is broken fairly across; the soft bones of young people may simply be bent—green stick or willow fracture. Fractures are either simple or compound. A simple fracture is analogous to the subcutaneous laceration in the soft parts, and a compound one to an open wound in the soft parts. The wound of the soft parts in the compound fracture may be due either to the force which caused the fracture, as in the case of a cart-wheel going over a limb, first wounding the soft parts and then fracturing the bone, or to the sharp point of the fractured bone coming out through the skin. In either case there is a communication between the external air and injured bone, and the probability arises of the germs of suppuration finding their way to the seat of fracture. This greatly increases the risks of the case, for septic inflammation and suppuration may lead to delayed union, to death of large pieces of the bone (necrosis), and to osteomyelitis and to blood-poisoning. In the treatment of a fracture, every care should be taken to prevent any sharp fragment coming near the skin. Careless handling has often been the means of a simple fracture being converted into a compound one.

In most cases of fracture crepitus can be made out; this is the feeling elicited when two rough osseous surfaces are rubbed together. When a bone is merely bent there is, of course, no crepitus. It is also absent in fractures in which the broken extremities are driven into one another (impacted fracture). In order to get firm bony union it is necessary to secure accurate apposition of the fragments. Putting the broken ends together is termed “setting the fracture,” and the needful amount of rest is obtained by the use of splints. As a rule, it is also advisable to fix with the splint the joint above or below the fracture. In cases in which a splintering of the bone into a joint has taken place, more especially in those cases in which tendons have been injured, there may be a good deal of effusion into the joint and the tendon sheaths, and this may be organized into fibrous tissue leading to permanent stiffness. This is particularly apt to occur in old people. Care must be taken in such instances by gentle exercises, and by passive movement during the process of cure, to keep the joint and tendons free. To take a common example,—in fracture close to the wrist joint, it is necessary to arrange the splint so that the patient can move his fingers and thumb, and the splint must be taken off every day, in order that the wrist and fingers may be gently bent, straightened and exercised.

The treatment of fractures has undergone considerable improvement of late years. Simple fractures are not kept so long at rest in splints, but are constantly “taken down” in order that massage and movements of the limb may be resorted to. This, of course, is done with the utmost gentleness, and with the result that swelling, pain and other evidences of the serious injury quickly disappear, whilst a more rapid and complete recovery is ensured. Stiff hands and feet after fracture are much less frequently met with. By the aid of the X-rays it is now easy for the surgeon to assure himself that fractured surfaces have been well adjusted and are in close apposition. But if they are not in a satisfactory position, and it be found impracticable to assure their close adjustment by ordinary methods, the surgeon now, without undue loss of time, cuts down upon the broken ends and fixes them together by a strong wire suture, which remains permanently in the tissues. If the fracture be associated with an open wound of the part (compound fracture), and the broken ends are found incapable of easy adjustment, immediate wiring together of the fragments is now considered to be a necessary part of the primary treatment. The French surgeon, Just Lucas-Championnière, has done more than any one else to show the advantage of discreet movements, of massage and of exercises in the treatment of fractures.

Special Fracture in Young People.—The long bones of children and growing persons consist of a shaft with cartilaginous ends in which bone is developed. As the result of injury, the end of the bone may become detached, a variety of fracture known as diastasis. Such a fracture—however well treated—may be followed by arrest of growth of the bone or by stiffness of the neighbouring joint.

Delayed union means that consolidation is taking place very slowly, if at all. This may be due to local or constitutional causes, but provided the bones are in good position, nothing further than patience, with massage, and with due attention to general health-measures, is necessary.

An ununited fracture is one in which after many weeks or months no attempt has been made by nature to consolidate the parts. This may be due to the ends not having been brought close enough together; to the seat of fracture having been constantly disturbed; to muscle or tendon being interposed between the broken ends, or to the existence of some constitutional defect in the patient. Except in the last-named condition, the treatment consists in cutting down to the broken ends; freshening them up by sawing off a thin slice, and by adjusting and fixing them by a wire or screw. Ununited fracture of the leg-bones in children is a most unsatisfactory and rebellious condition to deal with.

There is still a difference of opinion as to the best way of treating a recent fracture of the patella (knee-cap). Many surgeons are still content to follow the old plan of fixing the limb on a back-splint, or in plaster of Paris splints, and awaiting the result. It is beyond question that a large percentage of these cases recover with a perfectly useful limb—especially if the fibrous bond of union between the pieces of the broken knee-cap is adequately protected against being stretched by bending the leg at too early a date. But in some cases the fragments have been eventually found wide apart, the patient being left with an enfeebled limb. Still, at any rate, this line of treatment was unassociated with risk. But after Lister showed (1883) that with due care and cleanliness the knee-joint could be opened, and the fragments of the broken patella secured in close apposition by a stout wire suture, the treatment of the injury underwent a remarkable change. The great advantage of Lister’s treatment was that the fragments, being fixed close together by the wire stitch, became solidly united by bone, and the joint became as sound as it was before. Some surgeons, however, objected to the operation—in spite of the excellence of the results obtainable by it—because of the undoubted risk which it entailed of the joint becoming invaded by septic micro-organisms. As a sort of compromise, Professor A.E.J. Barker introduced the method, which he deemed to be less hazardous, of holding the fragments close together by means of a strong silver wire passed round them vertically by a large needle without actually laying open the joint. But experience has shown that in the hands of careful and skilful surgeons Lister’s operation of openly wiring the fragments gives a perfect result with a comparatively small risk. Other surgeons secure the fragments in close contact for bony union by passing a silk or metal suture around them circumferentially. Many years ago Lister remarked that the careful selection of one’s patients is an antiseptic measure—by which he meant that if a surgeon intended to get the most perfect results for his operative work, he must carefully consider whether any individual patient is physically adapted for the performance upon him of any particular operation. This aphorism implies that not every patient with a broken knee-cap is suited for the opening of his knee-joint, or even for the subcutaneous adjustment of the broken fragments. An operative procedure which is admirably suited for one patient might result in disaster when adopted for another, and it is an important part of the surgeon’s business to know what to advise in each individual case.

(E. O.*)

Industrial Applications of Bones.—By the increasing inventiveness of man, the industrial utilization of animal bone has been so developed that not one of the constituents fails to reappear in commerce. Composed of mineral matter—phosphates, &c.—fat and gelatinous substances, the phosphates are used as artificial manures, the fat is worked up by the soap-maker and chandler, and the gelatinous matter forms the basis of the gelatin and glue of commerce; while by the dry distillation of bones from which the gelatin has been but partially removed, there are obtained a carbonaceous residue—animal charcoal—and a tarry distillate, from which “bone oil” and bone pitch are obtained. To these by-products there must be added the direct uses of bone—for making buttons, knife-handles, &c.—when an estimate is desired of the commercial importance of these components of the animal frame.

While most of the world’s supply of bones goes to the glue and gelatin works, the leg and thigh bones, termed “marrows” and “knuckles,” are used for the manufacture of bone articles. The treatment which they receive is very different from that practised in the glue-works. The ends are removed by a saw, and the bones are steeped in a 1% brine solution for three to four days, in order to separate the fibrous matter. The bones are now heated with water, and allowed to simmer for about six hours. This removes a part of the fat and gelatinous matter; the former rises as a scum, the latter passes into solution, and the bones remain sufficiently firm to be worked up by the lathe, &c. The fat is skimmed off, and, after bleaching, reappears as a component of fine soaps, or, if unbleached, the oil is expressed and is used as an adulterant of other oils, while the stearine or solid matter goes to the candle-maker; the gelatinous water is used (after filtration) for making size for cardboard boxes; while the bones are scrubbed, dried, and then transferred to the bone-worker.

The glue-worker first removes the fat, which is supplied to the soap and candle trades; the bones are now treated for glue (q.v.); and the residue is worked up for manures, &c. These residues are ground to a fine or coarse meal, and supplied either directly as a fertilizer or treated with sulphuric acid to form the more soluble superphosphates, which are more readily assimilated by growing plants. In some places, especially South America, the residues are burned in a retort to a white ash, the “bone-ash” of commerce, which contains some 70-80% of tricalcium phosphate, and is much used as a manure, and in the manufacture of high-grade superphosphates. In the gelatin industry (see Gelatin) the mineral matter has to be recovered from its solution in hydrochloric acid. To effect this, the liquors are freed from suspended matter by filtration, and then run into vats where they are mixed with milk of lime, or some similar neutralizer. The slightly soluble bicalcium phosphate, CaHPO4, is first precipitated, which, with more lime, gives ordinary tricalcium phosphate, Ca3(PO4)2. The contents of the vats are filter-pressed, and the cakes dried on plates supported on racks in heated chambers. This product is a very valuable manure, and is also used in the manufacture of phosphorus.

Instead of extracting all the gelatinous matter from degreased bones, the practice of extracting about one half and carbonizing the residue is frequently adopted. The bones are heated in horizontal cast-iron retorts, holding about 5 cwt., and the operation occupies about twelve to thirteen hours. The residue in the retorts is removed while still red-hot to air-tight vessels in which it is allowed to cool. It is then passed through grinding mills, and is subsequently riddled by revolving cylindrical sieves. The yield is from 55 to 60% of the bones carbonized, and the product contains about 10% of carbon and about 75% of calcium phosphate, the remainder being various inorganic salts and moisture (6-7%). Animal charcoal has a deep black colour, and is much used as a filtering and clarifying material. The vapours evolved during carbonization are condensed in vertical air condensers. The liquid separates into two layers: the upper tarry layer is floated off and redistilled; the distillate is termed “bone oil,” and mainly consists of many fatty amines and pyridine derivatives, characterized by a most disgusting odour; the residue is “bone pitch,” and finds application in the manufacture of black varnishes and like compositions. The lower layer is ammoniacal liquor; it is transferred to stills, distilled with steam, and the ammonia received in sulphuric acid; the ammonium sulphate, which separates, is removed, drained and dried, and is principally used as a manure. Both during the carbonization of the bones and the distillation of the tar inflammable gases are evolved; these are generally used, after purification, for motive or illuminating purposes.

(C. E.*)


Bone oil, also known as Dippel’s oil, was originally produced by the distillation of stags’ horns; it is of interest in the history of chemistry, since from it were isolated in 1846 by T. Anderson pyridine and some of its homologues.


BONE BED, a term loosely used by geologists when speaking generally of any stratum or deposit which contains bones of whatever kind. It is also applied to those brecciated and stalagmitic deposits on the floor of caves, which frequently contain osseous remains. In a more restricted sense it is used to connote certain thin layers of bony fragments, which occur upon well-defined geological horizons. One of the best-known of these is the Ludlow Bone Bed, which is found at the base of the Downton Sandstone in the Upper Ludlow series. At Ludlow itself, two such beds are actually known, separated by about 14 ft. of strata. Although quite thin, the Ludlow Bone Bed can be followed from that town into Gloucestershire for a distance of 45 m. It is almost made up of fragments of spines, teeth and scales of ganoid fish. Another well-known bed, formerly known as the “Bristol” or “Lias” Bone Bed, exists in the form of several thin layers of micaceous sandstone, with the remains of fish and saurians, which occur in the Rhaetic Black Paper Shales that lie above the Keuper marls in the south-west of England. It is noteworthy that a similar bone bed has been traced on the same geological horizon in Brunswick, Hanover and Franconia. A bone bed has also been observed at the base of the Carboniferous limestone series in certain parts of the south-west of England.


BONE-LACE, a kind of lace made upon a cushion from linen thread; the pattern is marked out with pins, round which are twisted the different threads, each wound on its own bobbin. The lace was so called from the fact that bobbins were formerly made of bone.


BONER (or Bonerius), ULRICH (fl. 14th century), German-Swiss writer of fables, was born in Bern. He was descended of an old Bernese family, and, as far as can be ascertained, took clerical orders and became a monk; yet as it appears that he subsequently married, it is certain that he received the “tonsure” only, and was thus entitled to the benefit of the clerici uxoriati, who, on divesting themselves of the clerical garb, could return to secular life. He is mentioned in records between 1324 and 1349, but neither before nor after these dates. He wrote, in Middle High German, a collection of fables entitled Der Edelstein (c. 1349), one hundred in number, which were based principally on those of Avianus (4th century) and the Anonymus (edited by I. Nevelet, 1610). This work he dedicated to the Bernese patrician and poet, Johann von Rinkenberg, advocatus (Vogt) of Brienz (d. c. 1350). It was printed in 1461 at Bamberg; and it is claimed for it that it was the first book printed in the German language. Boner treats his sources with considerable freedom and originality; he writes a clear and simple style, and the necessarily didactic tone of the collection is relieved by touches of humour.

Der Edelstein has been edited by G.F. Benecke (Berlin, 1816) and Franz Pfeiffer (Leipzig, 1844); a translation into modern German by K. Pannier will be found, in Reclam’s Universal-Bibliothek (Leipzig, 1895). See also G.E. Lessing in Zur Geschichte und Literatur (Werke, ix.); C. Waas, Die Quellen der Beispiele Boners (Giessen, 1897).


BO’NESS, or Borrowstounness, a municipal and police burgh and seaport of Linlithgowshire, Scotland. Pop. (1891) 6295; (1901) 9306. It lies on the southern shore of the Firth of Forth, 17 m. W. by N. of Edinburgh, and 24 m. by rail, being the terminus of the North British railway’s branch line from Manuel. In the 18th century it ranked next to Leith as a port, but the growth of Grangemouth, higher up the firth, seriously affected its shipping trade, which is, however, yet considerable, coal and pig-iron forming the principal exports, and pit props from the Baltic the leading import. It has an extensive harbour (the area of the dock being 7¾ acres). The great industries are coal-mining—some of the pits extending for a long distance beneath the firth—iron-founding (with several blast furnaces) and engineering, but it has also important manufactures of salt, soap, vitriol and other chemicals. Shipbuilding and whaling are extinct. Traces of the wall of Antoninus which ran through the parish may still be made out, especially near Inveravon. Blackness, on the coast farther east, was the seaport of Linlithgow till the rise of Bo’ness, but its small export trade now mainly consists of coal, bricks, tiles and lime. Its castle, standing on a promontory, is of unknown age. James III. of Scotland is stated to have consigned certain of the insurgent nobles to its cells; and later it was used as a prison in which many of the Covenanters were immured. It was one of the four castles that had to be maintained by the Articles of Union, but when its uselessness for defensive purposes became apparent, it was converted into an ammunition depot. Kinneil House, 1 m. south of Bo’ness, a seat of the duke of Hamilton, formerly a keep, was fortified by the regent Arran, plundered by the rebels in Queen Mary’s reign, and reconstructed in the time of Charles II. Dr John Roebuck (1718-1794), founder of the Carron Iron Works, occupied it for several years from 1764. It was here that, on his invitation, James Watt constructed a model of his steam-engine, which was tested in a now disused colliery. Though Roebuck lost all his money in the coal-mines and salt works which he established at Bo’ness, the development of the mineral resources of the district may be regarded as due to him.


BONFIGLI, BENEDETTO, 15th century Italian painter, was born at Perugia. Until near the middle of the 15th century the Umbrian school was far behind those of Florence and the North, but in the person of Perugino and some of his followers it suddenly advanced into the very first rank. Among the latter none holds a more distinguished place than Benedetto Bonfigli. The most important of his extant works are a series, in fresco, of the life of St Louis of Toulouse, in the communal palace of Perugia.


BONFIRE (in Early English “bone-fire,” Scottish “bane-fire”), originally a fire of bones, now any large fire lit in the open air on an occasion of rejoicing. Though the spelling “bonfire” was used in the 16th century, the earlier “bone-fire” was common till 1760. The earliest known instance of the derivation of the word occurred as ban fyre ignis ossium in the Catholicon Anglicum, A.D. 1483. Other derivations, now rejected, have been sought for the word. Thus some have thought it Baal-fire, passing through Bael, Baen to Bane. Others have declared it to be boon-fire by analogy with boen-harow, i.e. “harrowing by gift,” the suggestion being that these fires were “contribution” fires, every one in the neighbourhood contributing a portion of the material, just as in Northumberland the “contributed Ploughing Days” are known as Bone-daags.

Whatever the origin of the word, it has long had several meanings-(a) a fire of bones, (b) a fire for corpses, a funeral pile, (c) a fire for immolation, such as that in which heretics and proscribed books were burnt, (d) a large fire lit in the open air, on occasions of national rejoicing, or as a signal of alarm such as the bonfires which warned England of the approach of the Armada. Throughout Europe the peasants from time immemorial have lighted bonfires on certain days of the year, and danced around or leapt over them. This custom can be traced back to the middle ages, and certain usages in antiquity so nearly resemble it as to suggest that the bonfire has its origin in the early days of heathen Europe. Indeed the earliest proof of the observance of these bonfire ceremonies in Europe is afforded by the attempts made by Christian synods in the 7th and 8th centuries to suppress them as pagan. Thus the third council of Constantinople (A.D. 680), by its 65th canon, orders: “Those fires that are kindled by certaine people on new moones before their shops and houses, over which also they use ridiculously and foolishly to leape, by a certaine antient custome, we command them from henceforth to cease.” And the Synodus Francica under Pope Zachary, A.D. 742, forbids “those sacrilegious fires which they call Nedfri (or bonefires), and all other observations of the Pagans whatsoever.” Leaping over the fires is mentioned among the superstitious rites used at the Palilia (the feast of Pales, the shepherds’ goddess) in Ovid’s Fasti, when the shepherds lit heaps of straw and jumped over them as they burned. The lighting of the bonfires in Christian festivals was significant of the compromise made with the heathen by the early Church. In Cornwall bonfires are lighted on the eve of St John the Baptist and St Peter’s day, and midsummer is thence called in Cornish Goluan, which means both “light” and “festivity.” Sometimes effigies are burned in these fires, or a pretence is made of burning a living person in them, and there are grounds for believing that anciently human sacrifices were actually made in the bonfires. Spring and midsummer are the usual times at which these bonfires are lighted, but in some countries they are made at Hallowe’en (October 31) and at Christmas. In spring the 1st Sunday in Lent, Easter eve and the 1st of May are the commonest dates.

See J.G. Frazer, Golden Bough, vol. iii., for a very full account of the bonfire customs of Europe, &c.


BONGARS, JACQUES (1554-1612), French scholar and diplomatist, was born at Orleans, and was brought up in the reformed faith. He obtained his early education at Marburg and Jena, and returning to France continued his studies at Orleans and Bourges. After spending some time in Rome he visited eastern Europe, and subsequently made the acquaintance of Ségur Pardaillan, a representative of Henry, king of Navarre, afterwards Henry IV. of France. He entered the service of Pardaillan, and in 1587 was sent on a mission to many of the princes of northern Europe, after which he visited England to obtain help from Queen Elizabeth for Henry of Navarre. He continued to serve Henry as a diplomatist, and in 1593 became the representative of the French king at the courts of the imperial princes. Vigorously seconding the efforts of Henry to curtail the power of the house of Habsburg, he spent health and money ungrudgingly in this service, and continued his labours until the king’s murder in 1610. He then returned to France, and died at Paris on the 29th of July 1612. Bongars wrote an abridgment of Justin’s abridgment of the history of Trogus Pompeius under the title Justinus, Trogi Pompeii Historiarum Philippicarum epitoma de manuscriptis codicibus emendatior et prologis auctior (Paris, 1581). He collected the works of several French writers who as contemporaries described the crusades, and published them under the title Gesta Dei per Francos (Hanover, 1611). Another collection made by Bongars is the Rerum Hungaricarum scriptores varii (Frankfort, 1600). His Epistolae were published at Leiden in 1647, and a French translation at Paris in 1668-1670. Many of his papers are preserved in the library at Bern, to which they were presented in 1632, and a list of them was made in 1634. Other papers and copies of instructions are now in several libraries in Paris; and copies of other instructions are in the British Museum.

See H. Hagen, Jacobus Bongarsius (Bern, 1874); L. Anquez, Henri IV et l’Allemagne (Paris, 1887).


BONGHI, RUGGERO (1828-1895), Italian scholar, writer and politician, was born at Naples on the 20th of March 1828. Exiled from Naples in consequence of the movement of 1848, he took refuge in Tuscany, whence he was compelled to flee to Turin on account of a pungent article against the Bourbons. At Turin he resumed his philosophic studies and his translation of Plato, but in 1858 refused a professorship of Greek at Pavia, under the Austrian government, only to accept it in 1859 from the Italian government after the liberation of Lombardy. In 1860, with the Cavour party, he opposed the work of Garibaldi, Crispi and Bertani at Naples, and became secretary of Luigi Carlo Farini during the latter’s lieutenancy, but in 1865 assumed contemporaneously the editorship of the Perseveranza of Milan and the chair of Latin literature at Florence. Elected deputy in 1860 he became celebrated by the biting wit of his speeches, while, as journalist, the acrimony of his polemical writings made him a redoubtable adversary. Though an ardent supporter of the historic Right, and, as such, entrusted by the Lanza cabinet with the defence of the law of guarantees in 1870, he was no respecter of persons, his caustic tongue sparing neither friend nor foe. Appointed minister for public instruction in 1873, he, with feverish activity, reformed the Italian educational system, suppressed the privileges of the university of Naples, founded the Vittorio Emanuele library in Rome, and prevented the establishment of a Catholic university in the capital. Upon the fall of the Right from power in 1876 he joined the opposition, and, with characteristic vivacity, protracted during two months the debate on Baccelli’s University Reform Bill, securing, single-handed, its rejection. A bitter critic of King Humbert, both in the Perseveranza and in the Nuova Antologia, he was, in 1893, excluded from court, only securing readmission shortly before his death on the 22nd of October 1895. In foreign policy a Francophil, he combated the Triple Alliance, and took considerable part in the organization of the inter-parliamentary peace conference.

(H. W. S.)


BONGO (Dor or Deran), a tribe of Nilotic negroes, probably related to the Zandeh tribes of the Welle district, inhabiting the south-west portion of the Bahr-el-Ghazal province, Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. G.A. Schweinfurth, who lived two years among them, declares that before the advent of the slave-raiders, c. 1850, they numbered at least 300,000. Slave-raiders, and later the dervishes, greatly reduced their numbers, and it was not until the establishment of effective control by the Sudan government (1904-1906) that recuperation was possible. The Bongo formerly lived in countless little independent and peaceful communities, and under the Sudan government they again manage their own affairs. Their huts are well built, and sometimes 24 ft. high. The Bongo are a race of medium height, inclined to be thick-set, with a red-brown complexion—“like the soil upon which they reside”—and black hair. Schweinfurth declares their heads to be nearly round, no other African race, to his knowledge, possessing a higher cephalic index. The women incline to steatopygia in later life, and this deposit of fat, together with the tail of bast which they wore, gave them, as they walked, Schweinfurth says, the appearance of “dancing baboons.” The Bongo men formerly wore only a loin-cloth, and many dozen iron rings on the arms (arranged to form a sort of armour), while the women had simply a girdle, to which was attached a tuft of grass. Both sexes now largely use cotton cloths as dresses. The tribal ornaments consist of nails or plugs which are passed through the lower lip. The women often wear a disk several inches in diameter in this fashion, together with a ring or a bit of straw in the upper lip, straws in the alae of the nostrils, and a ring in the septum. The Bongo, unlike other of the upper Nile Negroes, are not great cattle-breeders, but employ their time in agriculture. The crops mostly cultivated are sorghum, tobacco, sesame and durra. The Bongo eat the fruits, tubers and fungi in which the country is rich. They also eat almost every creature—bird, beast, insect and reptile, with the exception of the dog. They despise no flesh, fresh or putrid. They drive the vulture from carrion, and eat with relish the intestinal worms of the ox. Earth-eating, too, is common among them. They are particularly skilled in the smelting and working of iron. Iron forms the currency of the country, and is extensively employed for all kinds of useful and ornamental purposes. Bongo spears, knives, rings, and other articles are frequently fashioned with great artistic elaboration. They have a variety of musical instruments—drums, stringed instruments, and horns—in the practice of which they take great delight; and they indulge in a vocal recitative which seems intended to imitate a succession of natural sounds. Schweinfurth says that Bongo music is like the raging of the elements. Marriage is by purchase; and a man is allowed to acquire three wives, but not more. Tattooing is partially practised. As regards burial, the corpse is bound in a crouching position with the knees drawn up to the chin; men are placed in the grave with the face to the north, and women with the face to the south. The form of the grave is peculiar, consisting of a niche in a vertical shaft, recalling the mastaba graves of the ancient Egyptians. The tombs are frequently ornamented with rough wooden figures intended to represent the deceased. Of the immortality of the soul they have no defined notion; and their only approach to a knowledge of a beneficent deity consists in a vague idea of luck. They have, however, a most intense belief in a great variety of petty goblins and witches, which are essentially malignant. Arrows, spears and clubs form their weapons, the first two distinguished by a multiplicity of barbs. Euphorbia juice is used as a poison for the arrows. Shields are rare. Their language is musical, and abounds in the vowels o and a; its vocabulary of concrete terms is very rich, but the same word has often a great variety of meanings. The grammatical structure is simple. As a race the Bongo are gentle and industrious, and exhibit strong family affection.

See G.A. Schweinfurth, The Heart of Africa (London, 1873); W. Junker, Travels in Africa (Eng. edit., London, 1890-1892).


BONGO (Boöcercus eurycerus), a West African bushbuck, the largest of the group. The male is deep chestnut, marked on the body with narrow white stripes, on the chest with a white crescent, and on the face by two white spots below the eye. In the East African bongo (B. e. Isaaei) the body hue is stronger and richer. There is, as yet, no evidence as to whether the females of the true bongo bear horns, though it is probable they do; but as the horns are present in both sexes of the East African form, Mr Oldfield Thomas has made that the type of the genus.


Annals and Mag. Nat. Hist. vol. x. (seventh series), p. 309.


BONHAM, a town and the county-seat of Fannin county, Texas, U.S.A., about 14 m. S. of the Red river, in the north-east part of the state, and 70 m. N. of Dallas. Pop. (1890) 3361; (1900) 5042 (1223 being negroes); (1910), 4844. It is served by the Missouri, Kansas & Texas, and the Texas & Pacific railways. Bonham is the seat of Carlton College (Christian), a woman’s college founded in 1867; and its high school is one of the best in the state. It is a trading and shipping centre of an extensive farming territory devoted to the raising of live-stock and to the growing of cotton, Indian corn, fruit, &c. It has large cotton gins and compresses, a large cotton mill, flour mills, canning and ice factories, railway repair shops, planing mills and carriage works. The town was named in honour of J.B. Bonham, a native of South Carolina, who was killed in the Alamo. The first settlement here was made in 1836. The town was incorporated in 1850, and was re-incorporated in 1886.


BONHEUR [Marie Rosalie], ROSA (1822-1899), French painter, was born at Bordeaux on the 22nd of March 1822. She was of Jewish origin. Jacques Wiener, the Belgian medallist, a native of Venloo, says that he and Raymond Bonheur, Rosa’s father, used to attend synagogue in that town; while another authority asserts that Rosa used to be known in common parlance by the name of Rosa Mazeltov (a Hebrew term for “good luck,” Gallicé Bonheur). She was the eldest of four children, all of whom were artists—Auguste (1824-1884) painted animals and landscape; Juliette (1830-1891) was “honourably mentioned” at the exhibition of 1855; Isidore, born in 1827, was a sculptor of animals. Rosa at an early age was taught to draw by her father (who died in 1849), and he, perceiving her very remarkable talent, permitted her to abandon the business of dressmaking, to which, much against her will, she had been put, in order to devote herself wholly to art. From 1840 to 1845 she exhibited at the salon, and five times received a prize; in 1848 a medal was awarded to her. Her fame dates more especially from the exhibition of 1855; from that time Rosa Bonheur’s works were much sought after in England, where collectors and public galleries competed eagerly for them. What is chiefly remarkable and admirable in her work is that, like her contemporary, Jacques Raymond Brascassat (1804-1867), she represents animals as they really are, as she saw them in the country. Her gift of accurate observation was, however, allied to a certain dryness of style in painting; she often failed to give a perfect sense of atmosphere. On the other hand, the anatomy of her animals is always faultlessly true. There is nothing feminine in her handling; her treatment is always manly and firm. Of her many works we may note the following:—“Ploughing in the Nivernais” (1848), in the Luxembourg gallery; “The Horse Fair” (1853), one of the two replicas of which is in the National Gallery, London, the original being in the United States; and “Hay Harvest in Auvergne” (1835). She was decorated with the Legion of Honour by the empress Eugénie, and was subsequently promoted to the rank of “officer” of the order. After 1867 Rosa Bonheur exhibited but once in the salon, in 1899, a few weeks before her death. She lived quietly at her country house at By, near Fontainebleau, where for some years she had held gratuitous classes for drawing. She left at her death a considerable number of pictures, studies, drawings and etchings, which were sold by auction in Paris in the spring of 1900.

(H. Fr.)


BONHEUR DU JOUR, the name for a lady’s writing-desk, so called because, when it was introduced in France about 1760, it speedily became intensely fashionable. The bonheur du jour is always very light and graceful; its special characteristic is a raised back, which may form a little cabinet or a nest of drawers, or may simply be fitted with a mirror. The top, often surrounded with a chased and gilded bronze gallery, serves for placing small ornaments. Beneath the writing surface there is usually a single drawer. The details vary greatly, but the general characteristics are always traceable. The bonheur du jour has never been so delicate, so charming, so coquettish as in the quarter of a century which followed its introduction. The choicer examples of the time are inlaid with marqueterie, edged with exotic woods, set in gilded bronze, or enriched with panels of Oriental lacquer.


BONI (Boné), a vassal state of the government of Celebes, Dutch East Indies, in the south-west peninsula of Celebes, on the Gulf of Boni. Area, 2600 sq. m. It produces rice, tobacco, coffee, cotton and sugar-cane, none of them important as exports. The breeds of buffaloes and horses in this state are highly esteemed. The chief town, Boni, lies 80 m. N.E. of Macassar, and 2½ m. from the east coast of the peninsula. The native race of Bugis (q.v.), whose number within this area is about 70,000, is one of the most interesting in the whole archipelago.

Boni was once the most powerful state of Celebes, all the other princes being regarded as vassals of its ruler, but its history is not known in detail. In 1666 the rajah Palakkah, whose father and grandfather had been murdered by the family of Hassan, the tyrant of Sumatra, made common cause with the Dutch against that despot. From that date till the beginning of the 19th century Dutch influence in the state remained undisputed. In 1814, however, Boni fell into the hands of the British, who retained it for two years; but by the European treaties concluded on the downfall of Napoleon it reverted to its original colonizers. Their influence, however, was resisted more than once by the natives. An expedition in 1825, under General van Geen, was not fully successful in enforcing it; and in 1858 and the following year two expeditions were necessary to oppose an attempt by the princess regent towards independence. In 1860 a new prince, owning allegiance to the Dutch, was set up. As in other native states in Celebes, succession to the throne in the female line has precedence over the male line.

For the wars in Boni, see Perelaer, De Bonische expeditiën, 1859-1860 (Leiden, 1872); and Meyers, in the Militaire Spectator (1880).


BONIFACE, SAINT (680-754), the apostle of Germany, whose real name was Wynfrith, was born of a good Saxon family at Crediton or Kirton in Devonshire. While still young he became a monk, and studied grammar and theology first at Exeter, then at Nutcell near Winchester, under the abbot Winberht. He soon distinguished himself both as scholar and preacher, and had every inducement to remain in his monastery, but in 716 he followed the example of other Saxon monks and set out as missionary to Frisia. He was soon obliged to return, however, probably owing to the hostility of Radbod, king of the Frisians, then at war with Charles Martel. At the end of 717 he went to Rome, where in 719 Pope Gregory II. commissioned him to evangelize Germany and to counteract the influence of the Irish monks there. Crossing the Alps, Boniface visited Bavaria and Thuringia, but upon hearing of the death of Radbod he hurried again to Frisia, where, under the direction of his countryman Willibrord (d. 738), the first bishop of Utrecht, he preached successfully for three years. About 722 he visited Hesse and Thuringia, won over some chieftains, and converted and baptized great numbers of the heathen. Having sent special word to Gregory of his success, he was summoned to Rome and consecrated bishop on the 30th of November 722, after taking an oath of obedience to the pope. Then his mission was enlarged. He returned with letters of recommendation to Charles Martel, charged not only to convert the heathen but to suppress heresy as well.

Charles’s protection, as he himself confessed, made possible his great career. Armed with it he passed safely into heathen Germany and began a systematic crusade, baptizing, overturning idols, founding churches and monasteries, and calling from England a band of missionary helpers, monks and nuns, some of whom have become famous: St Lull, his successor in the see at Mainz; St Burchard, bishop of Würzburg; St Gregory, abbot at Utrecht; Willibald, his biographer; St Lioba, St Walburge, St Thecla. In 732 Boniface was created archbishop. In 738 for the third time he went to Rome. On his return he organized the church in Bavaria into the four bishoprics of Regensburg, Freising, Salzburg and Passau. Then his power was extended still further. In 741 Pope Zacharias made him legate, and charged him with the reformation of the whole Frankish church. With the support of Carloman and Pippin, who had just succeeded Charles Martel as mayors of the palace, Boniface set to work. As he had done in Bavaria, he organized the east Frankish church into four bishoprics, Erfurt, Würzburg, Buraburg and Eichstädt, and set over them his own monks. In 742 he presided at what is generally counted as the first German council. At the same period he founded the abbey of Fulda, as a centre for German monastic culture, placing it under the Bavarian Sturm, whose biography gives us so many picturesque glimpses of the time, and making its rule stricter than the Benedictine. Then came a theological and disciplinary controversy with Virgil, the Irish bishop of Salzburg, who held, among other heresies, that there were other worlds than ours. Virgil must have been a most remarkable man; in spite of his leanings toward science he held his own against Boniface, and was canonized after his death. Boniface was more successful in France. There a certain Adalbert or Aldebert, a Frankish bishop of Neustria, had caused great disturbance. He had been performing miracles, and claimed to have received his relics, not from Rome like those of Boniface, but directly from the angels. Planting crosses in the open fields he drew the people to desert the churches, and had won a great following throughout all Neustria. Opinions are divided as to whether he was a Culdee, a representative of a national Frankish movement, or simply the charlatan that Boniface paints him. At the instance of Pippin, Boniface secured Adalbert’s condemnation at the synod of Soissons in 744; but he, and Clement, a Scottish missionary and a heretic on predestination, continued to find followers in spite of legate, council and pope, for three or four years more.

Between 746 and 748 Boniface was made bishop of Mainz, and became metropolitan over the Rhine bishoprics and Utrecht, as well as over those he had established in Germany—thus founding the pre-eminence of the see of Mainz. In 747 a synod of the Frankish bishops sent to Rome a formal statement of their submission to the papal authority. The significance of this act can only be realized when one recalls the tendencies toward the formation of national churches, which had been so powerful under the Merovingians. Boniface does not seem to have taken part in the anointing of Pippin as king of the Franks in 752. In 754 he resigned his archbishopric in favour of Lull, and took up again his earliest plan of a mission to Frisia; but on the 5th of June 754 he and his companions were massacred by the heathen near Dockum. His remains were afterwards taken to Fulda.

St Boniface has well been called the proconsul of the papacy. His organizing genius, even more than his missionary zeal, left its mark upon the German church throughout all the middle ages. The missionary movement which until his day had been almost independent of control, largely carried on by schismatic Irish monks, was brought under the direction of Rome. But in so welding together the scattered centres and binding them to the papacy, Boniface seems to have been actuated by simple zeal for unity of the faith, and not by a conscious political motive.

Though pre-eminently a man of action, Boniface has left several literary remains. We have above all his Letters (Epistolae), difficult to date, but extremely important from the standpoint of history, dogma, or literature; see Dümmler’s edition in the Monumenta Germaniae historica, 1892. Besides these there are a grammar (De octo partibus orationibus, ed. Mai, in Classici Auctores, t. vii.), some sermons of contested authenticity, some poems (Aenigmata, ed. Dümmler, Poetae latini aevi Carolini, i. 1881), a penitential, and some Dicta Bonifacii (ed. Nürnberger in Theologische Quartalschrift, Tübingen, vol. 70, 1888), the authenticity of which it is hard to prove or to refute. Migne in his Patrologia Latina (vol. 89) has reproduced the edition of Boniface’s works by Giles (London, 1844).

There are very many monographs on Boniface and on different phases of his life (see Potthast, Bibliotheca medii aevi, and Ulysse Chevalier’s Bibliographie, 2nd ed. for indications), but none that is completely satisfactory. Among recent studies are those of B. Kuhlmann, Der heilige Bonifatius, Apostel der Deutschen (Paderborn, 1895), and of G. Kurth, Saint Boniface (2nd ed., 1902). W. Levison has edited the Vitae sancti Bonifatii (Hanover, 1905).

(J. T. S.*)


BONIFACE (Bonifacius), the name of nine of the popes.

Boniface I., bishop of Rome from 418 to 422. At the death of Pope Zosimus, the Roman clergy were divided into two factions, one of which elected the deacon Eulalius, and the other the priest Boniface. The imperial government, in the interests of public order, commanded the two competitors to leave the town, reserving the decision of the case to a council. Eulalius having broken his ban, the emperor Honorius decided to recognize Boniface, and the council was countermanded. But the faction of Eulalius long continued to foment disorders, and the secular authority was compelled to intervene.

Boniface II., pope from 530 to 532, was by birth a Goth, and owed his election to the nomination of his predecessor, Felix IV., and to the influence of the Gothic king. The Roman electors had opposed to him a priest of Alexandria called Dioscorus, who died a month after his election, and thus left the position open for him. Boniface endeavoured to nominate his own successor, thus transforming into law, or at least into custom, the proceeding by which he had benefited; but the clergy and the senate of Rome forced him to cancel this arrangement.

Boniface III. was pope from the 15th of February to the 12th of November 606. He obtained from Phocas recognition of the “headship of the church at Rome,” which signifies, no doubt, that Phocas compelled the patriarch of Constantinople to abandon (momentarily) his claim to the title of oecumenical patriarch.

Boniface IV. was pope from 608 to 615. He received from the emperor Phocas the Pantheon at Rome, which was converted into a Christian church.

Boniface V., pope from 619 to 625, did much for the christianizing of England. Bede mentions (Hist. Eccl.) that he wrote encouraging letters to Mellitus, archbishop of Canterbury, and Justus, bishop of Rochester, and quotes three letters—to Justus, to Eadwin, king of Northumbria, and to his wife Æthelberga. William of Malmesbury gives a letter to Justus of the year 625, in which Canterbury is constituted the metropolitan see of Britain for ever.

Boniface VI. was elected pope in April 896, and died fifteen days afterwards.

Boniface VII. was pope from August 984 to July 985. His family name was Franco. In 974 he was substituted by Crescentius and the Roman barons for Benedict VI., who had been assassinated. He was ejected by Count Sicco, the representative of the emperor Otto II., and fled to Constantinople. On the death of Otto (983) he returned, seized Pope John XIV., threw him into prison, and installed himself in his place.

(L. D.*)

Boniface VIII. (Benedetto Gaetano), pope from 1294 to 1303, was born of noble family at Anagni, studied canon and civil law in Italy and possibly at Paris. After being appointed to canonicates at Todi (June 1260) and in France, he became an advocate and then a notary at the papal court. With Cardinal Ottoboni, who was to aid the English king, Henry III., against the bishops of the baronial party, he was besieged in the Tower of London by the rebellious earl of Gloucester, but was rescued by the future Edward I., on the 27th of April 1267. Created cardinal deacon in 1281, and in 1291 cardinal priest (SS. Sylvestri et Martini), he was entrusted with many diplomatic missions and became very influential in the Sacred College. He helped the ineffective Celestine V. to abdicate, and was himself chosen pope at Naples on the 24th of December 1294. Contrary to custom, the election was not made unanimous, probably because of the hostility of certain French cardinals. Celestine attempted to rule in extreme monastic poverty and humility; not so Boniface, who ardently asserted the lordship of the papacy over all the kingdoms of the world. He was crowned at Rome in January 1295 with great pomp. He planned to pacify the West and then recover the Holy Land from the infidel; but during his nine years’ reign, so far from being a peacemaker, he involved the papacy itself in a series of controversies with leading European powers. Avarice, lofty claims and frequent exhibitions of arrogance made him many foes. The policy of supporting the interests of the house of Anjou in Sicily proved a grand failure. The attempt to build up great estates for his family made most of the Colonna his enemies. Until 1303 he refused to recognize Albert of Austria as the rightful German king. Assuming that he was overlord of Hungary, he declared that its crown should fall to the house of Anjou. He humbled Eric VI. of Denmark, but was unsuccessful in the attempt to try Edward I., the conqueror of Scotland, on the charge of interfering with a papal fief; for parliament declared in 1301 that Scotland had never been a fief of Rome. The most noted conflict of Boniface was that with Philip IV. of France. In 1296, by the bull Clericis laicos, the pope forbade the levying of taxes, however disguised, on the clergy without his consent. Forced to recede from this position, Boniface canonized Louis IX. (1297). The hostilities were later renewed; in 1302 Boniface himself drafted and published the indubitably genuine bull Unam sanctam, one of the strongest official statements of the papal prerogative ever made. The weight of opinion now tends to deny that any part of this much-discussed document save the last sentence bears the marks of an infallible utterance. The French vice-chancellor Guillaume de Nogaret was sent to arrest the pope, against whom grave charges had been brought, and bring him to France to be deposed by an oecumenical council. The accusation of heresy has usually been dismissed as a slander; but recent investigations make it probable, though not quite certain, that Boniface privately held certain Averroistic tenets, such as the denial of the immortality of the soul. With Sciarra Colonna, Nogaret surprised Boniface at Anagni, on the 7th of September 1303, as the latter was about to pronounce the sentence of excommunication against the king. After a nine-hours’ truce the palace was stormed, and Boniface was found lying in his bed, a cross clasped to his breast; that he was sitting in full regalia on the papal throne is a legend. Nogaret claimed that he saved the pope’s life from the vengeful Colonna. Threatened, but not maltreated, the pope had remained three days under arrest when the citizens of Anagni freed him. He was conducted to Rome, only to be confined in the Vatican by the Orsini. He died on the 11th or 12th of October 1303, not eighty-six years old, as has commonly been believed, but perhaps under seventy, at all events not over seventy-five. “He shall come in like a fox, reign like a lion, die like a dog,” is a gibe wrongly held to be a prophecy of his unfortunate predecessor. Dante, who had become embittered against Boniface while on a political mission in Rome, calls him the “Prince of the new Pharisees” (Inferno, 27, 85), but laments that “in his Vicar Christ was made a captive,” and was “mocked a second time” (Purgatory, 20, 87 f.).

Authorities.—Digard, Faucon and Thomas, Les Registres de Boniface VIII (Paris, 1884 ff.); Wetzer and Welte, Kirchenlexikon, vol. ii. (2nd ed., Freiburg, 1883), 1037-1062; Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopadie, vol. iii. (3rd ed., Leipzig, 1897), 291-300, contains an elaborate bibliography; J. Loserth, Geschichte des spateren Mittelalters (Munich, 1903), 206-232; H. Finke, Aus den Tagen Bonifaz VIII. (Münster, 1902) is dreary but epoch-making; Göttingische gelehrte Anzeigen, Jahrgang 166, 857-869 (Berlin, 1904); R. Scholz, Die Publizistik zur Zeit Philipps des Schönen und Bonifaz VIII. (Stuttgart, 1903); K. Wenck, “War Bonifaz VIII. ein Ketzer?” in von Sybel’s Historische Zeitschrift, vol. xciv. (Munich, 1905), 1-66. Special literature on Unam Sanctum: C. Mirbt, Quellen zur Geschichte des Papsttums (2nd ed., Tübingen, 1901), 148 f.; Kirchenlexikon, xii. (1901), 229-240, an exhaustive discussion; H. Finke, 146-190; J.H. Robinson, Readings in European History, vol. i. (Boston, 1904), 346 ff. On Clericis laicos: Gee and Hardy, Documents Illustrative of English Church History (London, 1896), 87 ff.

(W. W. R.*)

Boniface IX. (Piero Tomacelli), pope from 1389 to 1404, was born at Naples of a poor but ancient family. Created cardinal by Urban VI., he was elected successor to the latter on the 2nd of November 1389. In 1391 he canonized Birgitta of Sweden. He was able to restore Roman authority in the major part of the papal states, and in 1398 put an end to the republican liberties of the city itself. Boniface won Naples, which had owed spiritual allegiance to the antipopes Clement VII. and Benedict XIII. of Avignon, to the Roman obedience. In 1403 he ventured at last to confirm the deposition of the emperor Wenceslaus and the election of Rupert. Negotiations for the healing of the Great Schism were without result. In spite of his inferior education, the contemporaries of Boniface trusted his prudence and moral character; yet when in financial straits he sold offices, and in 1399 transformed the annates into a permanent tax. In 1390 he celebrated the regular jubilee, but a rather informal one held in 1400 proved more profitable. Though probably not personally avaricious, he was justly accused of nepotism. He died on the 1st of October 1404, being still under sixty years of age.

(W. W. R.*)


BONIFACE OF SAVOY (d. 1270), archbishop of Canterbury, became primate in 1243, through the favour of Henry III., of whose queen, Eleanor of Provence, he was an uncle. Boniface, though a man of violent temper and too often absent from his see, showed some sympathy with the reforming party in the English church. Though in 1250 he provoked the English bishops by claiming the right of visitation in their dioceses, he took the lead at the council of Merton (1258) in vindicating the privileges of his order. In the barons’ war he took the royalist side, but did not distinguish himself by great activity.

See Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora; François Mugnier, Les Savoyards en Angleterre (Chambéry, 1890).


BONIFACIO, a maritime town at the southern extremity of Corsica, in the arrondissement of Sartène, 87 m. S.S.E. of Ajaccio by road. Pop. (1906) 2940. Bonifacio, which overlooks the straits of that name separating Corsica from Sardinia, occupies a remarkable situation on the summit of a peninsula of white calcareous rock, extending parallel to the coast and enclosing a narrow and secure harbour. Below the town and in the cliffs facing it the rock is hollowed into caverns accessible only by boat. St Dominic, a church built in the 13th century by the Templars, and the cathedral of Santa Maria Maggiore which belongs mainly to the 12th century, are the chief buildings. The fortifications and citadel date from the 16th and 17th centuries. A massive medieval tower serves as a powder-magazine. The trade of Bonifacio, which is carried on chiefly with Sardinia, is in cereals, wine, cork and olive-oil of fine quality. Cork-cutting, tobacco-manufacture and coral-fishing are carried on. The olive is largely cultivated in the neighbourhood and there are oil-works in the town.

Bonifacio was founded about 828 by the Tuscan marquis whose name it bears, as a defence against the Saracen pirates. At the end of the 11th century it became subject to Pisa, and at the end of the 12th was taken and colonized by the Genoese, whose influence may be traced in the character of the population. In 1420 it heroically withstood a protracted siege by Alphonso V. of Aragon. In 1554 it fell into the hands of the Franco-Turkish army.


BONIFACIUS (d. 432), the Roman governor of the province of Africa who is generally believed to have invited the Vandals into that province in revenge for the hostile action of Placidia, ruling in behalf of her son the emperor Valentinian III. (428-429). That action is by Procopius attributed to his rival Aëtius, but the earliest authorities speak of a certain Felix, chief minister of Placidia, as the calumniator of Bonifacius. Whether he really invited the Vandals or not, there is no doubt that he soon turned against them and bravely defended the city of Hippo from their attacks. In 432 he returned to Italy, was received into favour by Placidia, and appointed master of the soldiery. Aëtius, however, resented his promotion, the two rivals met, perhaps in single combat, and Bonifacius, though victorious, received a wound from the effects of which he died three months later.

The authorities for the extremely obscure and difficult history of these transactions are well discussed by E.A. Freeman in an article in the English Historical Review, July 1887, to which the reader is referred. But compare also Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. iii. pp. 505-506, edited by J.B. Bury (London, 1897).


BONIN ISLANDS, called by the Japanese Ogasawara-Jima, a chain of small islands belonging to Japan, stretching nearly due north and south, a little east of 142 E., and from 26° 35′ to 27° 45′ N., about 500 m. from the mainland of Japan. They number twenty, according to Japanese investigations, and have a coast-line of 174.65 m. and a superficies of 28.82 sq. m. Only ten of them have any appreciable size, and these are named—commencing from the north—Muko-shima (Bridegroom Island), Nakadachi-shima (Go-between Island), Yome-shima (Bride Island), Ototo-jima (Younger-brother Island), Ani-shima (Elder-brother Island), Chichi-jima (Father Island), Haha-jima (Mother Island), Mei-jima (Niece Island), Ani-jima (Elder-sister Island) and Imoto-jima (Younger-sister Island). European geographers have been accustomed to divide the islands into three groups for purposes of nomenclature, calling the northern group the Parry Islands, the central the Beechey Islands and the southern the Coffin or Bailey Islands. The second largest of all, Chichi-jima, in Japanese cartography was called Peel Island in 1827 by Captain Beechey, and the same officer gave the name of Stapleton Island to the Ototo-jima of the Japanese, and that of Buckland Island to their Ani-jima. To complete this account of Captain Beechey’s nomenclature, it may be added that he called a large bay on the south of Peel Island Fitton Bay, and a bay on the south-west of Buckland Island Walker Bay. Port Lloyd, the chief anchorage (situated on Peel Island), is considered by Commodore Perry—who visited the islands in 1853 and strongly urged the establishment of a United States coaling station there—to have been formerly the crater of a volcano from which the surrounding hills were thrown up, the entrance to the harbour being a fissure through which lava used to pour into the sea. The islands are, indeed, plainly volcanic in their nature.

History.—The diversity of nomenclature indicated above suggests that the ownership of the islands was for some time doubtful. According to Japanese annals they were discovered towards the close of the 16th century, and added to the fief of a Daimyo, Ogasawa Sadayori, whence the name Ogasawara-jima. They were also called Bunin-jima (corrupted by foreigners into Bonin) because of their being without (bu) inhabitants (nin). Effective occupation did not take place, however, and communications with the islands ceased altogether in 1635, as was a natural consequence of the Japanese government’s veto against the construction of sea-going vessels. In 1728 fitful communication was restored by the then representative of the Ogasawara family, only to be again interrupted until 1861, when an unsuccessful attempt was made to establish a Japanese colony at Port Lloyd. Meanwhile, Captain Beechey visited the islands in the “Blossom,” assigned names to some of them, and published a description of their features. Next a small party consisting of two British subjects, two American citizens, and a Dane, sailed from the Sandwich Islands for Port Lloyd in 1830, taking with them some Hawaiian natives. These colonists hoisted the British flag on Peel Island (Chichi-jima), and settled there. When Commodore Perry arrived in 1853, there were on Peel Island thirty-one inhabitants, four being English, four American, one Portuguese and the rest natives of the Sandwich Islands, the Ladrones, &c.; and when Mr Russell Robertson visited the place in 1875, the colony had grown to sixty-nine, of whom only five were pure whites. Mr Robertson found them without education, without religion, without laws and without any system of government, but living comfortably on clearings of cultivated land. English was the language of the settlers, and they regarded themselves as a British colony. But in 1861 the British government renounced all claim to the islands in recognition of Japan’s right of possession. There is now regular steam communication; the affairs of the islands are duly administered, and the population has grown to about 4500. There are no mountains of any considerable height in the Ogasawara Islands, but the scenery is hilly with occasional bold crags. The vegetation is almost tropically luxuriant—palms, wild pineapples, and ferns growing profusely, and the valleys being filled with wild beans and patches of taro. Mr Robertson catalogues a number of valuable timbers that are obtained there, among them being Tremana, cedar, rose-wood, iron-wood (red and white), box-wood, sandal and white oak. The kekop tree, the orange, the laurel, the juniper, the wild cactus, the curry plant, wild sage and celery flourish. No minerals have been discovered. The shores are covered with coral; earthquakes and tidal waves are frequent, the latter not taking the form of bores, but of a sudden steady rise and equally sudden fall in the level of the sea; the climate is rather tropical than temperate, but sickness is almost unknown among the residents.

(F. By.)


Referring to the Japanese custom of employing a go-between to arrange a marriage.

These details are taken from The Bonin Islands by 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 the Zeitschrift für die österreichischen Gymnasien.

A full list of his writings is given in the obituary notice by T. Gompertz in the Biographisches 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 the Chroniques 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 (Bonna or Castra 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, in A.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); and Führer 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’s De 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 (see Acts 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 had no 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.

See Letters and Papers of Henry VIII. vols. iv.-xx.; Acts of the Privy Council (1542-1569); Lords’ Journals, vol. i.; Wilkins’ Concilia; Foxe’s Acts and Monuments, ed. Townsend; Burnet, ed. Pocock; Strype’s Works; Gough’s Index to Parker Soc. Publ.; S.R. Maitland’s Essays on the Ref.; Froude’s and R.W. Dixon’s Histories; Pollard’s Cranmer and England under Somerset; other authorities cited in Dict. 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’s Spectacle 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 in aphides or 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 of stigmata has 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, entitled Traité 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 his Essai de psychologie was published anonymously in London. This was followed by the Essai 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 his Considérations 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 his Contemplation 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 the Palingénésie 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 the Palingénésie philosophique was 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, in Arch. 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 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 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.

The Memoirs published 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 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. Brantôme 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 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 the Heptameron, 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).


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 (£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 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 38½ ft.

See E. Brizio in Notizie 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 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 équinoxiales, &c. (Paris, 1808-1816). On returning to Paris he received a pension and the superintendence of the gardens at Malmaison, and published Monographie des Mélastomées (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 Müller, the future Swiss historian. In 1779 he was named the Bernese bailiff of Saanen or Gessenay (here he wrote his Lettres 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 the Recherches sur la nature et les lois de l’imagination (1807), and the Études 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.

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 Bôks, which must have been used in the sense of a writing-tablet. The most obvious connexion of this is with the old English bóc, 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 Musée 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, βύβλος or βίβλος, that the Greeks formed βιβλίον, 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).

So long as the use of papyrus was predominant the usual form of a book was that of the volumen or roll, wound round a stick, or sticks. The modern form of book, called by the Latins codex (a word originally used for the stump of a tree, or block of wood, and thence for the three-leaved tablets into which the block was sawn) was coming into fashion in Martial’s time at Rome, and gained ground in proportion as parchment superseded papyrus. The volumen as it was unrolled revealed a series of narrow columns of writing, and the influence of this arrangement is seen in the number of columns in the earliest codices. Thus in the Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus of the Bible, both of the 4th century, there are respectively four and three columns to a page; in the Codex Alexandrinus (5th century) only two; in the Codex Bezae (6th century) only one, and from this date to the invention of printing, while there were great changes in handwriting, the arrangement of books changed very little, single or double columns being used as was found convenient. In the external form of books there was much the same conservatism. In the Codex Amiatinus written in England in the 8th century one of the miniatures shows a book in a red leather cover, and the arrangement of the pattern on this curiously resembles that of the 15th-century red leather bindings predominant in the Biblioteca Laurenziana at Florence, in which the codex itself is preserved. In the same way some of the small stamps used in Oxford bindings in the 15th century are nearly indistinguishable from those used in England three centuries earlier. Much fuller details as to the history of written books in these as well as other respects will be found in the article Manuscript, to which the following account of the fortunes of books after the invention of printing must be regarded as supplementary.

Between a manuscript written in a formal book-hand and an early printed copy of the same work, printed in the same district as the manuscript had been written, the difference in general appearance was very slight. The printer’s type (see Typography) would as a rule be based on a handwriting considered by the scribes appropriate to works of the same class; the chapter headings, headlines, initial-letters, paragraph marks, and in some cases illustrations, would be added by hand in a style which might closely resemble the like decorations in the manuscript from which the text was being printed; there would be no title-page, and very probably no statement of any kind that the book was printed, or as to where, when or by whom it was produced. Information as to these points, if given at all, was reserved for a paragraph at the end of the book, called by bibliographers a colophon (q.v.), to which the printer often attached a device consisting of his arms, or those of the town in which he worked, or a fanciful design. These devices are sometimes beautiful and often take the place of a statement of the printer’s name. Many facsimiles or copies of them have been published. The first dated title-page known is a nine-line paragraph on an otherwise blank page giving the title of the book, Sermo ad populum predicabilis in festo presentacionis Beatissime Marie Semper Virginis, with some words in its praise, the date 1470 in roman numerals, and a reference to further information on the next page. The book in which this title-page occurs was printed by Arnold ther Hoernen at Cologne. Six years later Erhard Ratdolt and his partners at Venice printed their names and the date, together with some verses describing the book, on the title-page of a Latin calendar, and surrounded the whole with a border in four pieces. For another twenty years, however, when title-pages were used at all, they usually consisted merely of the short title of the book, with sometimes a woodcut or the printer’s (subsequently the publisher’s) device beneath it, decoration being more often bestowed on the first page of text, which was sometimes surrounded by an ornamental border. Title-pages completed by the addition of the name and address of printer or publisher, and also by the date, did not become common till about 1520.

While the development of the title-page was thus slow the completion of the book, independently of handwork, in other respects was fairly rapid. Printed illustrations appear first in the form of rude woodcuts in some small books produced at Bamberg by Albrecht Pfister about 1461. Pagination and headlines were first used by ther Hoernen at Cologne in 1470 and 1471; printed signatures to guide binders in arranging the quires correctly (see Bibliography and Bibliology) by Johann Koelhoff, also at Cologne in 1472. Illustrations abound in the books printed at Augsburg in the early ’seventies, and in the ’eighties are common in Germany, France and the Low Countries, while in Italy their full development dated from about 1490. Experiments were made in both Italy and France with illustrations engraved on copper, but in the 15th century these met with no success.

Bound with wooden boards covered with stamped leather, or with half of the boards left uncovered, many of the earliest printed books are immensely large and heavy, especially the great choir-books, the Bibles and the Biblical and legal commentaries, in which a great mass of notes surrounds the text. The paper on which these large books were printed was also extraordinarily thick and strong. For more popular books small folio was at first a favourite size, but towards the end of the century small thin quartos were much in vogue. Psalters, books of hours, and other prayer-books were practically the only very small books in use. Owing to changes, not only in the value of money but in the coinage, the cost of books in the 15th century is extremely difficult to ascertain. A vellum copy of the first printed Bible (Mainz, c. 1455) in two large folio volumes, when rubricated and illuminated, is said to have been worth 100 florins. In 1467 the bishop of Aleria writing to Pope Paul II. speaks of the introduction of printing having reduced prices to one-fifth of what they had previously been. Fifteen “Legends” bequeathed by Caxton to St Margaret’s, Westminster, were sold at prices varying from 6s. 8d. to 5s. This would be cheap for a large work like the Golden Legend, but the bequest was more probably of copies of the Sarum Legenda, or Lectionary, a much smaller book.

16th Century.—The popularization of the small octavo by Aldus at Venice in 1501 and the introduction in these handy books of a new type, the italic, had far-reaching consequences. Italics grew steadily in favour during the greater part of the century, and about 1570 had almost become the standard vernacular type of Italy. In France also they were very popular, the attempt to introduce a rival French cursive type (lettres de civilité) attaining no success. In England they gained only slight popularity, but roman type, which had not been used at all in the 15th century, made steady progress in its contest with black letter, which by the end of the century was little used save for Bibles and proclamations. The modern practice in the use of i and j, u and v dates from about 1580, though not firmly established till the reign of Charles I.

In the second quarter of the 16th century the French printers at Paris and Lyons halved the size of the Aldine octavos in their small sextodecimos, which found a ready market, though not a lasting one, the printers of Antwerp and Leiden ousting them with still smaller books in 24mo or small twelves. These little books were printed on paper much thinner than had previously been used. The size and weight of books was also reduced by the substitution of pasteboards for wooden sides. Gold tooling came into use on bindings, and in the second half of the century very elaborate decoration was in vogue in France until checked by a sumptuary law. On the other hand a steady decline in the quality of paper combined with the abandonment of the old simple outline woodcuts for much more ambitious designs made it increasingly difficult for printers to do justice to the artists’ work, and woodcuts, at first in the Low Countries and afterwards in England and elsewhere, were gradually superseded by copper-plates printed separately from the text. At the beginning of this century in England a ballad or Christmas carol sold for a halfpenny and thin quarto chapbooks for 4d. (a price which lasted through the century), the Great Bible of 1541 was priced at 10s. in sheets and 12s. bound, Edward VI.’s prayer-book (1549) at 2s. 2d. unbound, and 3s. 8d. in paste or boards; Sidney’s Arcadia and other works in 1598 sold for 9s.

17th Century.—Although the miniature editions issued by the Elzevirs at Leiden, especially those published about 1635, have attracted collectors, printing in the 17th century was at its worst, reaching its lowest depths in England in the second quarter. After this there was a steady improvement, partly due to slight modifications of the old printing presses, adopted first in Holland and copied by the English printers. In the first half of the century many English books, although poorly printed, were ornamented with attractive frontispieces, or portraits, engraved on copper. During the same period, English prayer-books and small Bibles and New Testaments were frequently covered with gay embroideries in coloured silks and gold or silver thread. In the second half of the century the leather bindings of Samuel Mearne, to some extent imitated from those of the great French binder Le Gascon, were the daintiest England had yet produced. For trade bindings rough calf and sheepskin were most used, and the practice of lettering books on the back, instead of on the sides or fore-edges or not at all, came gradually into favour. Owing to the increase of money, and in some cases to the action of monopolists, in others to the increased payments made to authors, book-prices rather rose than fell. Thus church Bibles, which had been sold at 10s. in 1541, rose successively to 25s., 30s. and (in 1641) to 40s. Single plays in quarto cost 6d. each in Shakespeare’s time, 1s. after the Restoration. The Shakespeare folio of 1623 is said to have been published at £1. Bishop Walton’s polyglot Bible in six large volumes was sold for £10 to subscribers, but resulted in a heavy loss. Izaak Walton’s Compleat Angler was priced at 1s. 6d. in sheepskin, Paradise Lost at 3s., The Pilgrim’s Progress at 1s. 6d.; Dryden’s Virgil was published by subscription at £5:5s. It was a handsome book, ornamented with plates; but in the case of this and other subscription books a desire to honour or befriend the author was mainly responsible for the high price.

18th Century.—During this century there was a notable improvement alike in paper, type and presswork in both France and England, and towards the end of the century in Germany and Italy also. Books became generally neat and sometimes elegant. Book-illustration revived with the French livres-à-vignettes, and English books were illustrated by Gravelot and other French artists. In the last quarter of the century the work of Bewick heralded a great revival in woodcut illustrations, or as the use of the graver now entitled them to be called, wood engravings. The best 18th-century binders, until the advent of Roger Payne, were inferior to those of the 17th century, but the technique of the average work was better. In trade bindings the use of sheepskin and calf became much less common, and books were mostly cased in paper boards. The practice of publishing poetry by subscription at a very high price, which Dryden had found lucrative, was followed by Prior and Pope. Single poems by Pope, however, were sold at 1s. and 1s. 6d. Novels were mostly in several volumes. The price at the beginning of the century was mostly 1s. 6d. each. It then remained fairly steady for many years, and at the close of the century rose again. Thus Miss Burney’s Evelina (3 vols., 1778) sold for 7s. 5d., her Cecilia (5 vols., 1782) for 12s. 6d., and her Camilla (5 vols., 1796) for £1:1s. Johnson’s Dictionary (2 vols. folio, 1755) cost £4 : 4s. in sheets, £4 : 15s. in boards.

19th Century.—great change in the appearance of books was caused by the use first of glazed calico (about 1820), afterwards (about 1830) of cloth for the cases of books as issued by their publishers. At first the lettering was printed on paper labels, but soon it was stamped in gilt on the cloth, and in the last quarter of the century many very beautiful covers were designed for English and American books. The designs for leather bindings were for many years chiefly imitated from older work, but towards the end of the ’eighties much greater originality began to be shown. Book illustrations passed through many phases. As subsidiary methods colour-prints, line engravings, lithographs and etchings were all used during the first half of the century, but the main reliance was on wood-engraving, in which extraordinary technical skill was developed. In the ’sixties and the years which immediately preceded and followed them many of the chief English artists supplied the engravers with drawings. In the last decade of the century wood-engraving was practically killed by the perfection attained by photographic methods of reproduction (see Process), the most popular of these methods entailing the use of paper heavily coated with china clay. During the century trade-printing, both in England and America, steadily improved, and the work done by William Morris at his Kelmscott Press (1891-1896), and by other amateur printers who imitated him, set a new standard of beauty of type and ornament, and of richness of general effect. On the other hand the demand for cheap reprints of famous works induced by the immense extension of the reading public was supplied by scores of pretty if flimsy editions at 1s. 6d. and 1s. and even less. The problem of how to produce books at moderate prices on good paper and well sewn, was left for the 20th century to settle. About 1894 the number of such medium-priced books was greatly increased in England by the substitution of single-volume novels at 6s. each (subject to discount) for the three-volume editions at 31s. 6d. The preposterous price of 10s. 6d. a volume had been adopted during the first popularity of the Waverly Novels, and despite the example of France, where the standard price was 3 fr. 50, had continued in force for the greater part of the century. Even after novels were sold at reasonable rates artificial prices were maintained for books of travel and biographies, so that the circulating libraries were practically the only customers for the first editions. (See Publishing and Bookselling).

(A. W. Po.)


Works especially devoted to these facsimiles are:—Berjeau’s Early Dutch, German and English Printers’ Marks (London, 1866); W. Roberts’s Printers’ Marks (London, 1893); Silvestre’s Marques typographiques (French; Paris, 1853-1867); Die Büchermarken oder Buchdrucker und Verlegerzeichen (Strassburg, 1892-1898), the successive parts containing the devices used in Alsace, Italy, Basel, Frankfort, Mainz and Cologne; and Marques typographiques des imprimeurs et libraires qui ont exercé dans les Pays-Bas (Gand, 1894). Numerous devices are also reproduced in histories of printing and in volumes of facsimiles of early types.

An edition of a bull of Pope Pius II. in the John Rylands library, Manchester, in types used by Fust and Schoeffer at Mainz, bears printed on the top of the first page the words “Dis ist die bul zu dutsch die unser allerheiligster vatter der bapst Pius herusgesant hait widder die snoden ungleubigen turcken.” This is attributed to the year 1463, and is claimed as the first book with a printed title-page.


BOOKBINDING. Bindings or covers to protect written or printed matter have always followed the shapes of the material on which the writing or printing was done. Very early inscriptions on rocks or wood needed no coverings, and the earliest instances of protective covers are to be found among the smaller Assyrian tablets of about the 8th century B.C. These tablets, with cuneiform inscriptions recording sales of slaves, loans of money and small matters generally, are often enclosed in an outer shell of the same shape and impressed with a short title. Egyptian papyrus rolls were generally kept in roll form, bound round with papyrus tape and often sealed with seals of Nile mud; and the rolls in turn were often preserved in rectangular hollows cut in wood. The next earliest material to papyrus used for writing upon was tree bark. Bark books, still commonly used by uncultured nations, often consisting of collections of magical formulae or medical receipts, are generally rolls, folded backwards and forwards upon themselves like the sides of a concertina. At Pompeii in 1875 several diptychs were found, the wooden leaves hollowed on the inner sides, filled with blackened wax, and hinged together at the back with leather thongs. Writings were found scratched on the wax, one of them being a record of a payment to Umbricia Januaria in A.D. 55. This is the earliest known Latin manuscript. The diptychs are the prototypes of the modern book. From about the 1st to the 6th century, ornamental diptychs were made of carved ivory, and presented to great personages by the Roman consuls.

Plate.

Rolls of papyrus, vellum or paper were written upon in three ways, (1) In short lines, at right angles to the length of the roll. (2) In long lines each the entire length of the roll. (3) In short lines parallel to the length of the roll, each column or page of writing having a space left on each side of it. Rolls written in the first of these ways were simply rolled up and kept in cylinders of like shape, sometimes several together, with a title tag at the end of each, in a box called a scrinium. In the case of the second form, the most obvious instances of which are to be found in the Buddhist prayer-wheels, the rolls were and are kept in circular boxes with handles through the centres so that they can revolve easily. In the third manner of arranging the manuscript the page forms show very clearly, and it is still used in the scrolls of the law in Jewish synagogues, kept on two rollers, one at each end. But this form of writing also developed a new method for its own more convenient preservation. A roll of this kind can be folded up, backwards and forwards, the bend coming in the vacant spaces between the columns of writing. When this is done it at once becomes a book, and takes the Chinese and Japanese form known as orihon—all the writing on one side of the roll or strip of paper and all the other side blank. Some books of this kind are simply guarded by two boards, but generally they are fastened together along one of the sides, which then becomes the back of the book. The earliest fastening of such books consists of a lacing with some cord or fibre run through holes stabbed right through the substance of the roll, near the edge. Now the orihon is complete, and it is the link between the roll and the book. This “stabbed” form of binding is the earliest method of keeping the leaves of a book together; it occurs in the case of a Coptic papyrus of about the 8th century found at Thebes, but it is rarely used in the case of papyrus, as the material is too brittle to retain the threads properly.

The method of folding vellum into pages seems to have been first followed about the 5th century. The sheets were folded once, and gatherings of four or more folded sheets were made, so that stitches through the fold at the back would hold all the sheets together and each leaf could be conveniently turned over. Very soon an obvious plan of fixing several of these gatherings, or quires, together was followed by the simple expedient of fastening the threads at the back round a strong strip of leather or vellum held at right angles to the line of the backs. This early plan of “sewing” books is to-day used in the case of valuable books; it is known as “flexible” work, and has never been improved upon.

As soon as the method of sewing quires together in this way became well understood, it was found that the projecting bands at the back needed protection, so that when all the quires were joined together and, so far, finished, strips of leather were fastened all over the back. But it was also found that vellum leaves were apt to curl strongly, and to counteract this tendency strong wooden boards were put on each side. The loose ends of the bands were fastened to the boards, which hinged upon them, and the protecting strip of leather at the back was drawn over the boards far enough to cover the hinge. So we get the medieval “half-binding” which shows the strip of leather over the back of the book, projecting for a short way over the boards, the rest of which is left uncovered. The boards were usually kept closed by means of clasps in front.

The leather strip soon developed, and covered the whole of the boards, “whole” binding as it is called, and it was quickly found that these fine flat pieces of leather offered a splendid field for artistic decoration.

The first ornamentation on leather bindings was probably made by means of impressions from small metal points or lines, pressed upon the leather. This in time led to the purposeful cutting of small decorative stamps to be used in the same way. It is considered that English binders excelled in this art of “blind” stamping, that is, without the use of gold leaf. Most of the stamps were cut intaglio, so that their impressions are in cameo form. Such bindings were made to perfection during the 12th and 13th centuries at Durham, Oxford, Cambridge, London and other places. One of the most charming examples left is the binding of the Winchester Domesday Book of the 12th century (Plate, fig. 1), now belonging to the Society of Antiquaries of London.

From about the 7th to the 16th century illuminated manuscripts were held in the greatest esteem. Among them can be found not only exquisite calligraphy but exquisite miniature painting. Moreover, the gorgeousness of the illuminations inside suggested gorgeousness of the outside coverings, so we find splendid work in metals with jewels, enamels and carved ivory, dating from the 7th-century Gospels of Theodolinda at Monza, the Irish cumdach of the Stowe Missal, the Lindau Gospels now in America, and the Gospels of Charlemagne in the Victoria and Albert Museum at South Kensington, to the magnificent bindings of 14th-century Limoges enamel in the British Museum. Such English bindings of this kind—intrinsically precious—as may have existed have all disappeared,—most likely they were melted up by Henry VIII. or Edward VI.; but at Stonyhurst there is a book known as St Cuthbert’s Gospels, which is bound in red leather with a repoussé design upon it, and is probably the work of the 7th or 8th century (Plate, fig. 2).

When printing was introduced into Europe about the middle of the 15th century, there was very soon a reaction against the large, beautiful and valuable illuminated MSS. and their equally precious covers. Printing brought small books, cheap books, ugly books, generally bound in calf, goatskin or sheepskin, and ornamented with large panel stamps in blind. But a new art came into birth very shortly, namely the art of gold tooling on leather, which in capable hands is almost a great art, and specimens of the work of the few great masters that have practised it are now much sought after and likely to increase in estimation and value. All this, as usual, brings a school of skilled faussaires into the field, and already the collector of fine bindings must be wary, or he may easily give thousands of pounds for forged or made-up objects that are worth but little.

In the matter of leather bindings with gold tooling, an art which was probably brought to Venice from the East, the finest examples are to be found in late 15th-century Italian work. The art quickly spread, and Thomas Berthelet, Royal Binder to Henry VIII., seems to have been the first binder who practised it in England. Berthelet’s work is strongly Italian in feeling, especially at first, and it is likely that he was taught the new art by an Italian master; he worked until about 1558.

During the late 15th and the 16th century in England, numbers of fine printed books were bound in velvet and satin, sometimes set with enamels, sometimes embroidered. These books, having strong threads of metal freely used upon them, have lasted much better than would be expected, and instances of such work made for Henry VIII. are still in excellent condition, and most decorative.

The fashion of ornamenting English royal books with heraldic designs, which is considered to have begun in the reign of Edward IV., has continued without break. The same fashion in books belonging to private owners was first followed during the later Tudor period, and then numbers were made, and have been, more or less, ever since.

During the whole Tudor period several small bindings of gold ornamented with enamels were made. Some of these still exist, and they are charming little jewels. They were always provided with a ring at the top, no doubt for attaching to the girdle.

Aldus Manutius, the great Venetian printer, had several of his books charmingly bound in dark morocco with “Aldine” knot leaves and small dolphins both in blind and gold tooling; and Giunta, a Florentine printer, had his books bound in a similar way but without the dolphins. Many early Venetian bindings have recessed panels, made by the use of double boards, the upper of which is pierced, finished in true oriental fashion.

Jean Grolier, viscount d’Aguisy, treasurer of France in 1545, was a great collector of fine books, most of which were bound for himself, and bear upon them his legend, Portio mea domine sit in terra viventium, and also his name, Io Grolierii et Amicorum (Plate, fig. 3). Tommaso Maioli, an Italian collector of about the same time, used the same form of legend. Books bound for him are curiously marked with atoms of gold remaining in the irregularities of the leather.

Demetrio Canevari, physician to Pope Urban VIII., had his books bound in dark green or deep red morocco, and upon them is a fine cameo stamp with a design of Apollo driving a chariot with one white horse and one black horse towards a mountain on which is a silver Pegasus. The stamp was coloured, but in most cases the colour has now worn off. Round the stamp is the legend ΟΡΘΩΣ ΚΑΙ ΜΗ ΛΟΞΙΩΣ.

The Italian bindings which were made for popes and cardinals are always of much interest and often of high merit, but as a rule later Italian bindings are disappointing.

Geoffrey Tory, printer and engraver to Francis I. of France, designed some fine bindings, some for himself and quite possibly some for Jean Grolier.

For Henry II. of France much highly decorative work in binding was done, richly gilded and coloured. These bindings have upon them the king’s initials, the initials of his queen, Catherine de’ Medici, and the emblems of crescents and bows. Henry’s device was a crescent with the legend, Donec impleat totum orbem. Bindings of similar style were made for Diane de Poitiers, duchesse de Valentinois, with her initials and the same devices of crescents and bows. They are always fine work.

German bindings are mostly in pigskin, finely stamped in blind. Several are, however, in calf. Gilding, when it exists, is generally bad.

In England during the 17th century much fine work was done in binding, most of it in morocco, but Henry, prince of Wales, always had his books bound in calf. The Jacobean style is heraldic, with semis of small stamps and heavy corners, but James I. has left some very fine bindings in another style (Plate, fig. 4), very possibly done for him by John Gibson, who bound the royal books while James was king of Scotland only. During the reign of Charles I. Nicholas Ferrar founded his curious establishment at Little Gidding, and there his niece Mary Collet and her sisters set up a bindery. They made large scrap-books, harmonies of the Gospels and other parts of the Bible, with illustrations, and bound them magnificently in velvet stamped in gold and silver. They were taught by a binder who worked for John and Thomas Buck, printers to the university of Cambridge, and the Little Gidding stamps are often identical with Buck’s.

Samuel Mearne (d. 1683) was royal binder to Charles II., and invented the cottage style of decoration, a style which has lasted till the present day; the Bible on which Edward VII. took the coronation oath was ornamented in that way. An inner rectangle is run parallel to the edges of the book, and the upper and lower lines are broken outwards into the outline of a gable roof. Mearne’s work as a binder (Plate, fig. 5) is of the highest merit. Many of his books have their fore-edge painted in such a way that the work is invisible when the book is shut, and only shows when the edges are fanned out.

In France 16th- and 17th-century binding is distinguished by the work of such masters as Nicholas Eve, who bound the beautiful Livre des Statuts et Ordonnances de l’ordre du Benvist Sainct Esprit for Henry III. (Plate, fig. 6); Clovis Eve, who is credited with the invention of the style known as “fanfare,” a delicate tracery over the boards of a book, filled out with spirals of leafy stems; and Le Gascon, who invented the dotted work which has been used more or less ever since. Le Gascon caused his small gilding tools—curves and arabesques—to be scored across, so that when impressions were made from them a dotted line showed instead of a right line. Florimond Badier worked in a style very similar to that of Le Gascon and sometimes signed his work, which Le Gascon never did. Le Gascon had many imitators, the best and closest being Poncyn and Magnus, Dutch binders who worked at Amsterdam in the 17th century, and his style has been continuously followed to the present day.

The bindings of Padeloup le Jeune often have small tickets with his name upon them; they usually have borders of lace-like gold tooling known as “dentelle” and are often inlaid. He belonged to a family of binders, all of whom were excellent workmen, and lived in the 17th and 18th centuries.

The Deromes were another of the great French families of binders; the most celebrated was Nicholas Denis, called “Le Jeune,” born in 1731. He used dentelle borders resembling those of Padeloup, but with little birds interspersed among the arabesques—“dentelles à l’oiseau.”

Among the many French binders of the 18th century who used delicate inlays of coloured leathers, Jean Charles le Monnier was perhaps the most skilled. He often signed his bindings in small capitals impressed in gold somewhere about the inlaid part.

Eliot and Chapman bound the library of Robert Harley, earl of Oxford, about the middle of the 18th century. The bindings are in morocco, with broad, richly gold-tooled borders, and usually a diamond-shaped centre-piece. This is known as the Harleian style.

Thomas Hollis had his books bound in fine red morocco, ornamented with small, well-cut stamps engraved by Thomas Pingo, the medallist. These stamps comprise a cap of liberty, a figure of liberty, a figure of Britannia and several smaller ones.

Towards the end of the 18th century, when binding in England was decoratively at a low level, Roger Payne, a native of Windsor, came to London and set up as a bookbinder. He was a splendid workman, and introduced richly gold-tooled corner-pieces, ornamental “doublures” or inside linings, and also invented the graining of morocco, graining it, however, in one direction only, known as the “straight grain.” It is said that Payne cut his own binding tools of iron; they certainly are exquisitely made, and in many of his bindings he has put a written description of loving work he has done upon them. Payne was, unfortunately, a drunkard, but he has in spite of this rendered an immortal service to the art of bookbinding in England.

In 1785 John Edwards of Halifax patented a method of making vellum transparent, and using it as a covering over delicate paintings. He also painted pictures on the fore-edges of many of his books in the same manner as that followed by Samuel Mearne in the 17th century, so that they did not show until the book was opened. John Whitaker used calf for his bindings, but ornamented the calf in a curious way with strong acids and with prints from engraved metal plates. Both Edwards and Whitaker liked classical borders and ornaments, and their bindings are in consequence often known as “Etruscan.”

The main styles used in England at the beginning of the 19th century were nothing more than distant imitations of Roger Payne. Kalthoeber, Staggemeier, Walther and Hering were all disciples of this master, but Charles Lewis worked on original lines. He developed arabesques and paid particular attention to richly gold-tooled doublures. He also used gold end papers, and the bands at the back of his bindings are often double and always broad, flat and gold-tooled. His workmanship is excellent; he worked largely for Thomas Grenville and other great collectors.

French binding of the 19th century is remarkable for wonderful technical excellence in every part. Among the most skilled of these admirable workmen and artists may be particularly mentioned Thouvenin, Bauzonnet, Lortic, Niedrée, Capé and Duru, and fortunately they generally sign their work in small gold lettering either on the back of their bindings or inside along the lower edge.

Recent years have witnessed a marked revival of interest in the art of bookbinding, but modern binders have two serious difficulties to contend with. One of these is the prevalence of bad paper, overladen with clay and with wood pulp, and also the fact that many of the modern leathers are badly prepared and dangerously treated with sulphuric acid, which in time inevitably rots the fibre. The Society of Arts has appointed committees of experts to report upon both of these evils, and the published accounts of both inquiries are of much value, and it is to be hoped that the results may be beneficial. Concurrently with the revival of the artistic side of the subject, there has also arisen a remarkable development in the technical processes, owing to the invention of ingenious and delicate machinery which is capable of executing the work which had hitherto been always laboriously done by hand. The processes of folding the printed sheets, and sewing them together on bands, rounding the backs when sewn, and of making the outer cases, covering them with cloth or leather and stamping designs upon them, can now all be efficiently executed by means of machines. The saving in time and labour thus effected is very great, although it must be said that the old methods of carrying out the process of sewing and rounding the backs of books by hand labour were safer and stronger, as well as being much less liable to bruise and injure the paper. These processes unfortunately are not only slow but also necessitate highly skilled labour. Already the larger trade binders utilize machines extensively and advantageously, but exclusively high-class trade binders do not as yet materially depart from the older methods. Private binders have naturally no reason to use machines at all. Fine and delicate examples of large metal blocks or dies have been very successfully used for the decoration of covers measuring about 11½ by 8 in.

Besides the large trade binders working mainly by the help of machinery, and producing a great quantity of bound work which is not expected to last long, there also exists in London, Paris, New York and other large cities, a small class of art binders who work throughout upon the principles which have been continuously in use for first-class work ever since about the 5th century. The initial impetus to this school can be traced to William Morris, who himself made some beautiful designs for bookbindings, to be executed both in gold and in blind. Although he probably did not fully appreciate either the peculiar limitations or the possibilities of the art of gold-tooling on leather, nevertheless his genius guided him truly as to the spirit in which the designs should be conceived. The revived art soon reached its first stage of development under the guidance of Mr T.J. Cobden-Sanderson, who may fairly be considered as the founder of the modern school of design for gold-tooling on book-covers, the pre-eminence and individuality of his work in this direction being proved by the number of his imitators. Among the most successful of his pupils is Mr Douglas Cockerell, whose work (Plate, fig. 7) is distinguished by a marked originality of treatment, while it shows a scholarly appreciation of ancient methods. Mr Alfred de Sauty has succeeded in developing a new and admirable style in inlaid leathers, combined with delicate pointille work. A number of women artists, both in England and in America, have already discovered in bookbinding a fitting and lucrative field for their energies. One, Miss Sarah Prideaux, is not only skilled and original in her own work, but she has also given us much valuable literature on her subject. Miss E.M. MacColl may claim to be the inventor of the small curved gold line produced by means of a tiny wheel, for though the possibility of producing such a line in blind was known for a long time, it was rarely used. The graceful curves and lines found on Miss MacColl’s work have been designed for her by her brother, Mr D.S. MacColl (Plate, fig. 8). Miss Joanna Birkenruth recalls the highly decorative medieval binding by her use of jewels cut en cabochon, but set in morocco instead of gold or silver, and there are many others who are working well and earnestly at art binding with delicate skill and taste. Outside the inner circle of professional bookbinders there has grown up a new profession, that of the designer for pictorial book-covers, especially those intended to be shown in colour on cloth or paper. Among notable designers may be mentioned Lewis F. Day, A.A. Turbayne, Walter Crane and Charles Ricketts.

Machine-binding.—The principal types of machine for commercial binding are described below. They are almost all due to American or German ingenuity. It may be noted that, while books sewn by hand on bands have the loose ends of the bands actually drawn through the boards and strongly fastened to them through their substance, no machines for covering sewn books will do this so effectively. All they will do as a rule is to paste down to the inner surfaces of the boards the loose ends of the tapes on which the sewing is done. So that, although it may last a long time if not much used, a “cased” book is likely to slip out of its cover as soon as the paste fixing it perishes. Modern bookbinding machines of all kinds are usually driven by power, and in consequence of the necessary setting of most of them accurately to some particular size of book, they are not suitable for binding books of different sizes; the full advantage of them can only be taken where there is a large edition of one book.

Book-sewing machines (fig. 9) are of two kinds one sews the books on bands, either flat or round, and the other supplies the place of bands by a kind of chain stitch. The band-working machines bring the return thread back by pulling it through the upper and lower edges of the back of each section, thereby to some extent weakening each section, but at the same time this weakening can be to some extent neutralized by careful head-banding. The other system, where the band is replaced by a chain stitch, brings back the return thread inside each section; the objection to this is that there is a flattening out of the back of the book, which becomes a difficulty when the subsequent operation of covering the book begins. The sections are sewn continuously in a long line, and are afterwards cut apart. The threads catch into hooked needles and are drawn through holes made by piercers set to a certain distance; a shuttle like that used in an ordinary sewing-machine sews the inner thread backwards and forwards. Each section is placed upon a sort of metal saddle by the hand of the operator, one after the other, the machine working continuously unless the action is cut off or controlled by a foot-lever or pedal. This machine is much quieter to work, and although the inner threads are too bulky to be quite satisfactory, this is not a serious matter like the cutting of the upper and lower edges of the back already described, and, moreover, is probably capable of being either improved away or so minimized that it will become of small importance.

The Martini book-sewing machine, which sews books on tape without cutting up head or tail—a most important improvement— and also forms complete Kettle stitches, will sew books of any size up to 18 in. The needles are straight, and the necessary adjustments for various sizes of books are very simple.

The machine for rounding and backing sewn books requires a rather elaborate and very careful setting of several parts to the exact requirement of each size to be worked. The sewn book with the back glued is caught in a clip and forced between two tight rollers, the result being that the hitherto flat back is automatically turned into a rounded shape (figs. 10 and 11). The book is then drawn forward, by a continuance of the onward movement, until it reaches the rounding plate, which is a block of steel with a polished groove a little larger than the size required. This rounding plate moves within a small arc by means of heavy counter-weights, and on the back of the book being strongly pressed against it, it receives the permanent form of the groove cut in it, at the same time a strong grip on each side of the book causes the ledge to rise up along each outer edge of the back. This ledge it is which enables the boards to be subsequently fixed in such a way as to hinge on a line outside the actual and natural boundary of the book. Before the discovery of the possibility of producing this ledge, the boards of books hinged upon a line coincident with the inner edges of the back, the result of which was that when the book was opened there was an invariable tendency to open and pull away the few outer sections of the paper or vellum itself—a destructive and disagreeable peculiarity. These machines are capable, after they are properly set, of rounding and backing about 750 volumes of the same size within an hour.

The machine for making cases, or “case” covers (fig. 12), for books is large and complicated, but beautifully effective. It contains altogether over fifty springs, some of which are very small, like watch fittings, while others are large and powerful. The machine is fed with pieces of cardboard cut exactly to the sizes of the required boards, other pieces cut to the size of the back, and a long roll of the cloth with which the cases are to be covered, and when set working the roll of cloth is gradually unwound and glued by contact with a roller, which is drawn along until it reaches a point where the two boards are ingeniously dropped upon it one by one, then on again to where a long arm swings backwards and forwards, at each movement picking up a piece of cardboard for the back and placing it gently exactly upon the glued bed left for it between the two boards already fixed. Next, as the cloth passes along, it comes under the sharp influence of two rectangular gouges which cut out the corners, the remaining side pieces being gradually but irresistibly turned up by hollow raisers and flattened down by small rollers, a very delicate piece of machinery finishing the corners in a masterly way. Then, lastly, an arrangement of raisers and rollers acting at right angles to the last mentioned turn over and press out the remaining pieces of cloth. Of course each piece of cloth is cut across at the proper point before the turning up begins. This machine is capable of producing 1200 cases in an hour of any size that the machine will take.

A. Cases.

B. Side of Case Hopper.

C. Paste box.

D. Head Clamp Rod.

E. Head Clamp.

1. 1st position.

2. 2nd position.

3. 3rd position and finished book. When in 2nd position the book drops to level of paste box.

The Smyth casing-in machine (fig. 13) pastes the sides of a book as required and then attaches the cover over all. Cleverly arranged rollers catch the book, and by a carefully regulated pressure fix the cover in the proper position. There is a “jointing-in” device which at a critical moment forces the joints in the cover into the joints in the book. It will work books from 4 to 22 in. in length and from ¼ to 3 in. in thickness, and can cover from 10 to 15 books per minute.

Here may also be mentioned the Sheridan wrappering machine, which covers magazines and pamphlets ranging from 5 to 12 in. in length at the rate of 40 a minute.

Wiring is a cheap method of keeping together thin parts of periodicals or tracts. The machine that executes it is simple in construction and use. It drives a short wire pin, bent at right angles at each end, through the folds of the sections of a book or through the entire thickness, sideways, after the manner of stabbing. The projecting ends, when through the substance of the paper, are bent over and flattened so as to grip firmly. The metal used for these pins was at first very liable to rust, and consequently did much damage to the paper near it, but this defect has now been largely remedied. At the same time the principle of using hard metal wire instead of flexible hempen thread is essentially vicious, and should only be used as a temporary expedient for publications of little value.

The machines (fig. 14) now used for blocking designs upon book-covers are practically the same as have been employed for many years. Several small improvements have been introduced as to better inking of the rollers for colour work, and better heating of the blocks used for gold work. A blocking press is now, in consequence of the size of many of the blocks, a large and cumbersome machine. The block itself is fixed firmly in a strong metal bed, and a movable table in front of it is fitted with gauges which keep the cover exactly in its right place. For gold work the block is kept at the proper temperature by means of gas jets, and the cover being properly overlaid with gold leaf is passed, on its table, directly under the block and then pressed steadily upwards against it, lowered, drawn out, and the superfluous gold rubbed off. The same process is followed in the case of colour blocks, only now the block need not be heated, but is inked by means of a roller for each impression. A separate printing is necessary for each colour. These printings always require great care on the part of the operator, who has to watch the working of each pull very carefully, and if any readjustment is wanted, to make it at once, so that it is difficult to estimate at what rate they can be made. In the matter of gold blocking there must be great care exercised in the matter of the heat of the block, for if it is too hot the gold will adhere where it is not wanted, and if too cool it will not adhere where it is required. Great nicety is also necessary as to the exact pressure required as well as the precise number of moments during which the block should be in contact with the gold, which is fastened to the cloth or leather by means of the solidification by heat of egg albumen. Blocking presses are mainly of German make, but Scottish and English presses are also largely used.

Authorities.—See the Anglo-Saxon Review (1899-1901); C.J. Davenport, Royal English Bookbindings (1896), Cantor Lectures on Bookbinding (1898), English Embroidered Bookbindings (1899), Life of Thomas Berthelet (1901), Life of Samuel Mearne (1906); W.Y. Fletcher, English Bookbindings in the British Museum (1895), Foreign Bookbindings in the British Museum (1896); L. Gruel, Manuel de l’amateur de relieures (1887); H.P. Horne, The Binding of Books (1894); S.T. Prideaux, Historical Sketch of Bookbinding (1893); E. Thoinan, Les Relieurs français (1893); O. Uzanne, La Relieure moderne (1887); H.B. Wheatley, Remarkable Bindings in the British Museum (1889); J.W. Zaehnsdorf, The Art of Bookbinding (1880).

(C. D.)


BOOKCASE, an article of furniture, forming a shelved receptacle, usually perpendicular or horizontal, for the storage of books. When books, being written by hand, were excessively scarce, they were kept in small coffers which the great carried about with them on their journeys. As manuscript volumes accumulated in the religious houses or in regal palaces, they were stored upon shelves or in cupboards, and it is from these cupboards that the bookcase of to-day directly descends. At a somewhat later date the doors were, for convenience’ sake, discarded, and the evolution of the bookcase made one step forward. Even then, however, the volumes were not arranged in the modern fashion. They were either placed in piles upon their sides, or if upright, were ranged with their backs to the wall and their edges outwards. The band of leather, vellum or parchment which closed the book was often used for the inscription of the title, which was thus on the fore-edge instead of on the back. It was not until the invention of printing had greatly cheapened books that it became the practice to write the title on the back and place the edges inwards. Early bookcases were usually of oak, which is still deemed to be the most appropriate wood for a stately library. The oldest bookcases in England are those in the Bodleian library at Oxford, which were placed in position in the last year or two of the 16th century; in that library are the earliest extant examples of shelved galleries over the flat wall-cases. Long ranges of book-shelves are necessarily somewhat severe in appearance, and many attempts have been made by means of carved cornices and pilasters to give them a more riant appearance—attempts which were never so successful as in the hands of the great English cabinet-makers of the second half of the 18th century.

Both Chippendale and Sheraton made or designed great numbers of bookcases, mostly glazed with little lozenges encased in fret-work frames often of great charm and elegance. The alluring grace of some of Sheraton’s satinwood bookcases has very rarely indeed been equalled. The French cabinet-makers of the same period were also highly successful with small ornamental cases. Mahogany, rosewood, satinwood and even choicer exotic timbers were used; they were often inlaid with marqueterie and mounted with chased and gilded bronze. Dwarf bookcases were frequently finished with a slab of choice marble at the top. In the great public libraries of the 20th century the bookcases are often of iron, as in the British Museum where the shelves are covered with cowhide, of steel, as in the library of Congress at Washington, or of slate, as in the Fitzwilliam library at Cambridge. There are three systems of arranging bookcases—flat against the wall; in “stacks” or ranges parallel to each other with merely enough space between to allow of the passage of a librarian; or in bays or alcoves where cases jut out into the room at right angles to the wall-cases. The stack system is suitable only for public libraries where economy of space is essential; the bay system is not only handsome but utilizes the space to great advantage. The library of the city of London at the Guildhall is a peculiarly effective example of the bay arrangement.

The whole question of the construction and arrangement of bookcases was learnedly discussed in the light of experience by W.E. Gladstone in the Nineteenth Century for March 1890.

(J. P.-B.)


BOOK-COLLECTING, the bringing together of books which in their contents, their form or the history of the individual copy possess some element of permanent interest, and either actually or prospectively are rare, in the sense of being difficult to procure. This qualification of rarity, which figures much too largely in the popular view of book-collecting, is entirely subordinate to that of interest, for the rarity of a book devoid of interest is a matter of no concern. On the other hand so long as a book (or anything else) is and appears likely to continue to be easily procurable at any moment, no one has any reason for collecting it. The anticipation that it will always be easily procurable is often unfounded; but so long as the anticipation exists it restrains collecting, with the result that Horn-books are much rarer than First Folio Shakespeares. It has even been laid down that the ultimate rarity of books varies in the inverse ratio of the number of copies originally printed, and though the generalization is a little sweeping, it is not far from the truth. To triumph over small difficulties being the chief element in games of skill, the different varieties of book-collecting, which offer almost as many varieties of grades of difficulty, make excellent hobbies. But in its essence the pastime of a book-collector is identical with the official work of the curator of a museum, and thus also with one branch of the duties of the librarian of any library of respectable age. In its inception every library is a literary workshop, with more or less of a garden or recreation ground attached according as its managers are influenced by the humanities or by a narrow conception of utility. As the library grows, the books and editions which have been the tools of one generation pass out of use; and it becomes largely a depository or storehouse of a stock much of which is dead. But from out of this seemingly dead stock preserved at haphazard, critics and antiquaries gradually pick out books which they find to be still alive. Of some of these the interest cannot be reproduced in its entirety by any mere reprint, and it is this salvage which forms the literary museum. Book-collectors are privileged to leap at once to this stage in their relations with books, using the dealers’ shops and catalogues as depositories from which to pick the books which will best fit with the aim or central idea of their collection. For in the modern private collection, as in the modern museum, the need for a central idea must be fully recognized. Neither the collector nor the curator can be content to keep a mere curiosity-shop. It is the collector’s business to illustrate his central idea by his choice of examples, by the care with which he describes them and the skill with which they are arranged. In all these matters many amateurs rival, if they do not outstrip, the professional curators and librarians, and not seldom their collections are made with a view to their ultimate transference to public ownership. In any case it is by the zeal of collectors that books which otherwise would have perished from neglect are discovered, cared for and preserved, and those who achieve these results certainly deserve well of the community.

Whenever a high degree of civilization has been attained book-lovers have multiplied, and to the student with his modest desire to read his favourite author in a well-written or well-printed copy there has been added a class of owners suspected of caring more for the externals of books than for the enjoyment to be obtained by reading them. But although adumbrations of it existed under the Roman empire and towards the end of the middle ages, book-collecting, as it is now understood, is essentially of modern growth. A glance through what must be regarded as the medieval text-book on the love of books, the Philobiblon, attributed to Richard de Bury (written in 1345), shows that it deals almost exclusively with the delights of literature, and Sebastian Brant’s attack on the book-fool, written a century and a half later, demonstrates nothing more than that the possession of books is a poor substitute for learning. This is so obviously true that before book-collecting in the modern sense can begin it is essential that there should be no lack of books to read, just as until cups and saucers became plentiful there was no room for the collector of old china. Even when the invention of printing had reduced the cost of books by some 80%, book-collectors did not immediately appear. There is a natural temptation to imagine that the early book-owners, whose libraries have enriched modern collectors with some of their best-known treasures, must necessarily have been collectors themselves. This is far from being the case. Hardly a book of all that Jean Grolier (1479-1565) caused to be bound so tastefully for himself and his friends reveals any antiquarian instincts in its liberal owner, who bought partly to encourage the best printers of his day, partly to provide his friends with the most recent fruits of Renaissance scholarship. In England Archbishop Cranmer, Lords Arundel and Lumley, and Henry, prince of Wales (1594-1612), in France the famous historian Jacques Auguste de Thou (1553-1617), brought together the best books of their day in all departments of learned literature, put them into handsome leather jackets, and enriched them with their coats of arms, heraldic badges or other marks of possession. But they brought their books together for use and study, to be read by themselves and by the scholars who frequented their houses, and no evidence has been produced that they appreciated what a collector might now call the points of a book other than its fine condition and literary or informational merits. Again, not a few other more or less famous men have been dubbed collectors on the score of a scanty shelf-full of volumes known to have been stamped with their arms. Collecting, as distinct both from the formation of working libraries and from casual ownership of this latter kind, may perhaps be said to have begun in England at the time of the antiquarian reaction produced by the book-massacres when the monasteries were dissolved by Henry VIII., and the university and college libraries and the parish service books were plundered and stript by the commissioners of Edward VI. To rescue good books from perishing is one of the main objects of book-collecting, and when Archbishop Parker and Sir Robert Cotton set to work to gather what they could of the scattered records of English statecraft and literature, and of the decorative art bestowed so lavishly on the books of public and private devotion, they were book-collectors in a sense and on a scale to which few of their modern imitators can pretend. Men of more slender purses, and armed with none of Archbishop Parker’s special powers, worked according to their ability on similar lines. Humphrey Dyson, an Elizabethan notary, who collected contemporary proclamations and books from the early English presses, and George Thomason (d. 1666), the bookseller who bought, stored and catalogued all the pamphlet literature of the Civil War, were mindful of the future historians of the days in which they lived. By the end of the 17th century book-collecting was in full swing all over Europe, and much of its apparatus had come into existence. In 1676 book auctions were introduced into England from Holland, and soon we can trace in priced catalogues the beginning of a taste for Caxtons, and the books prized by collectors slowly fought their way up from amid the heavy volumes of theology by which they were at first overwhelmed.

While book-collecting thus came into existence it was rather as an added grace in the formation of a fine library than as a separate pursuit. Almost all the large book-buyers of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries bought with a public object, or were rewarded for their zeal by their treasures being thought worthy of a public resting-place. Sir Thomas Smith (d. 1577) bequeathed his books to Queens’ College, Cambridge; Archbishop Parker’s were left under severe restrictions to Corpus Christi College in the same university; Sir Thomas Bodley refounded during his lifetime the university library at Oxford, to which also Laud gave liberally and Selden bequeathed his books. The library of Archbishop Williams went to St John’s College, Cambridge; that of Archbishop Usher was bought for Trinity College, Dublin. The mathematical and scientific books of Thomas Howard, earl of Norfolk (d. 1646), were given by his grandson to the Royal Society; the heraldic collections of Ralph Sheldon (d. 1684) to Heralds’ College; the library in which Pepys took so much pleasure to Magdalene College, Cambridge. Bishop Moore’s books, including a little volume of Caxton quartos, almost all unique, were bought by George I. and presented to the university library at Cambridge. Archbishop Marsh, who had previously bought Stillingfleet’s printed books (his manuscripts went to Oxford), founded a library at Dublin. The immense accumulations of Thomas Rawlinson (d. 1725) provided materials for a series of auctions, and Harley’s printed books were sold to Osbourne the bookseller. But the trend was all towards public ownership. While Richard Rawlinson (d. 1755) allowed his brother’s books to be sold, the best of his own were bequeathed to Oxford, and the Harleian MSS. were offered to the nation at a sum far below their value. A similar offer of the great collections formed by Sir Hans Sloane, including some 50,000 printed books, together with the need for taking better care of what remained of the Cotton manuscripts, vested in trustees for public use in 1702 and partially destroyed by fire in 1731, led to the foundation of the British Museum in 1753, and this on its opening in 1757 was almost immediately enriched by George II.’s gift of the old royal library, formed by the kings and queens of England from Henry VII. to Charles II., and by Henry, prince of Wales, son of James I., who had bought the books belonging to Archbishop Cranmer and Lords Arundel and Lumley. A few notable book-buyers could not afford to bequeath their treasures to libraries, e.g. Richard Smith, the secondary of the Poultry Compter (d. 1675), at whose book-sale (1682) a dozen Caxtons sold for from 2 S. to 18 S. apiece, Dr Francis Bernard (d. 1698), Narcissus Luttrell(d. 1732) and Dr Richard Mead (d. 1754). At the opposite end of the scale, in the earls of Sunderland (d. 1722) and Pembroke (d. 1733), we have early examples of the attempts, seldom successful, of book-loving peers to make their libraries into permanent heirlooms. But as has been said, the drift up to 1760 was all towards public ownership, and the libraries were for the most part general in character, though the interest in typographical antiquities was already well marked.

When George III. came to the throne he found himself bookless, and the magnificent library of over 80,000 books and pamphlets and 440 manuscripts which he accumulated shows on a large scale the catholic and literary spirit of the book-lovers of his day. As befitted the library of an English king it was rich in English classics as well as in those of Greece and Rome, and the typographical first-fruits of Mainz, Rome and Venice were balanced by numerous works from the first presses of Westminster, London and Oxford. This noble library passed in 1823 to the British Museum, which had already received the much smaller but carefully chosen collection of the Rev. C.M. Cracherode (d. 1799), and in 1846 was further enriched by the wonderful library formed by Thomas Grenville, the last of its great book-loving benefactors, who died in that year, aged ninety-one. A few less wealthy men had kept up the old public-spirited tradition during George III.’s reign, Garrick bequeathing his fine collection of English plays and Sir Joseph Banks his natural history books to the British Museum, while Capell’s Shakespearian treasures enriched Trinity College, Cambridge, and those of Malone went to the Bodleian library at Oxford, the formation of these special collections, in place of the large general library with a sprinkling of rarities, being in itself worth noting. But the noble book-buyers celebrated by the Rev. Thomas Frognall Dibdin in his numerous bibliographical works kept mainly on the old lines, though with aims less patriotic than their predecessors. The duke of Roxburghe’s books were sold in 1812, and the excitement produced by the auction, more especially by the competition between Lord Spencer and the duke of Marlborough (at that time marquess of Blandford) for an edition of Boccaccio printed by Valdarfer at Venice in 1471, led to the formation of the Roxburghe Club at a commemorative dinner. In 1819 the duke of Marlborough’s books were sold, and the Boccaccio for which he had paid £2260 went to Earl Spencer (d. 1834) for £750, to pass with the rest of his rare books to Mrs Rylands in 1892, and by her gift to the John Rylands library at Manchester in 1899. The books of Sir M.M. Sykes were sold in 1824, those of J.B. Inglis in 1826 (after which he collected again) and those of George Hibbert in 1829. The 150,000 volumes brought together by Richard Heber at an expense of about £100,000 were disposed of by successive sales during the years 1834-1837 and realized not much more than half their cost. The wonderful library of William Beckford (d. 1844), especially rich in fine bindings, bequeathed to his daughter, the duchess of Hamilton, was sold in 1882, with the Hamilton manuscripts, for the most part to the German government. Their dispersal was preceded in 1881 by that of the Sunderland collection, already mentioned. The library of Brian Fairfax (d. 1749), which had passed to the earls of Jersey, was sold in 1885, that of Sir John Thorold (d. 1815) in 1884, his “Gutenberg” Bible fetching £3900 and his Mainz Psalter £4950. The great collection of manuscripts formed by Sir Thomas Phillipps (d. 1872) has furnished materials for numerous sales. The printed books of the earl of Ashburnham (d. 1878) kept the auctioneers busy in 1897 and 1898; his manuscripts were sold, some to the British government (the Stowe collection shared between the British Museum and Dublin), the German government (part of the Libri and Barrois collection, all, save one MS. of 13th century German ballads, resold to France), the Italian government (the rest of the Libri collection) Mr Yates Thompson (the MSS. known as the Appendix) and Mr J. Pierpont Morgan (the Lindau Gospels). The collections formed by Mr W.H. Miller (d. 1848, mainly English poetry), the duke of Devonshire (d. 1858) and Mr Henry Huth (d. 1878), are still intact.

Among the book-buyers of the reign of George III., John Ratcliffe, an ex-coal-merchant, and James West had devoted themselves specially to Caxtons (of which the former possessed 48 and the latter 34) and the products of other early English presses. The collections of Capell and Garrick were also small and homogeneous. Each section, moreover, of some of the great libraries that have just been enumerated might fairly be considered a collection in itself, the union of several collections in the same library being made possible by the wealth of their purchaser and the small prices fetched by most classes of books in comparison with those which are now paid. But perhaps the modern cabinet theory of book-collecting was first carried out with conspicuous skill by Henry Perkins (d. 1855), whose 865 fine manuscripts and specimens of early printing, when sold in 1870, realized nearly £26,000. If surrounded by a sufficient quantity of general literature the collection might not have seemed noticeably different from some of those already mentioned, but the growing cost of books, together with difficulties as to house-room, combined to discourage miscellaneous buying on a large scale, and what has been called the “cabinet” theory of collecting, so well carried out by Henry Perkins, became increasingly popular among book buyers, alike in France, England and the United States of America. Henri Béraldi, in his catalogue of his own collection (printed 1892), has described how in France a little band of book-loving amateurs grew up who laughed at the bibliophile de la vieille roche as they disrespectfully called their predecessors, and prided themselves on the unity and compactness of their own treasures. In place of the miscellaneous library in which every class of book claimed to be represented, and which needed a special room or gallery to house it, they aimed at small collections which should epitomize the owner’s tastes and require nothing bulkier than a neat bookcase or cabinet to hold them. The French bibliophiles whom M. Béraldi celebrated applied this theory with great success to collecting the dainty French illustrated books of the 18th century which were their especial favourites. In England Richard Fisher treated his fine examples of early book-illustration as part of his collection of engravings, etchings and woodcuts (illustrated catalogue printed 1879), and Frederick Locker (Locker-Lampson) formed in two small bookcases such a gathering of first editions of English imaginative literature that the mere catalogue of it (printed in 1886) produced the effect of a stately and picturesque procession. Some of the book-hoards of previous generations could have spared the equivalent of the Locker collection without seeming noticeably the poorer, but the compactness and unity of this small collection, in which every book appears to have been bought for a special reason and to form an integral part of the whole, gave it an artistic individuality which was a pleasant triumph for its owner, and excited so much interest among American admirers of Mr Locker’s poetry that it may be said to have set a fashion. As another example of the value of a small collection, both for delight and for historical and artistic study, mention may be made of the little roomful of manuscripts and incunabula which William Morris brought together to illustrate the history of the bookish arts in the middle ages before the Renaissance introduced new ideals. Many living collectors are working in a similar spirit, and as this spirit spreads the monotony of the old libraries, in which the same editions of the same books recurred with wearisome frequency, should be replaced by much greater individuality and variety. Moreover, if they can be grouped round some central idea cheap books may yield just as good sport to the collector as expensive ones, and the collector of quite modern works may render admirable service to posterity. The only limitation is against books specially manufactured to attract him, or artificially made rare. A quite wholesome interest in contemporary first editions was brought to nought about 1889 by the booksellers beginning to hoard copies of Browning’s Asolando and Mr Lang’s Blue Fairy Book on the day of publication, while a graceful but quite minor poet was made ridiculous by £100 being asked for a set of his privately printed opuscula. The petty gambling in books printed at the Kelmscott and Doves’ presses, and in the fine paper copies of a certain Life of Queen Victoria, for which a premium of 250% was asked before publication, is another proof that until the manufacturing stage is over collecting cannot safely begin. But with this exception the field is open, and the 19th century offers as good a hunting ground as any of its predecessors.

While book-collecting may thus take an endless variety of forms the heads under which these may be grouped are few and fairly easily defined. They may be here briefly indicated together with some notes as to the literature which has grown up round them. The development which bibliographical literature has taken is indeed very significant of the changed ideals of collectors. Brunet’s Manuel du libraire, first published in 1810, attained its fifth edition in 1860-1864, and has never since been re-edited (supplement, 1878-1880). The Bibliographer’s Manual of English Literature by W.T. Lowndes, first published in 1834, was revised by H.G. Bohn in 1857-1864, and of this also no further edition has been printed. These two works between them gave all the information the old-fashioned collectors required, the Trésor de livres rares et précieux by J.G.T. Graesse (Dresden, 1859-1867, supplementary volume in 1869) adding little to the information given by Brunet. The day of the omnivorous collector being past, the place of these general manuals has been taken by more detailed bibliographies and handbooks on special books, and though new editions of both Lowndes and Brunet would be useful to librarians and booksellers no publisher has had the courage to produce them.

To attract a collector a book must appeal to his eye, his mind or his imagination, and many famous books appeal to all three. A book may be beautiful by virtue of its binding, its illustrations or the simple perfection and harmony of its print and paper. The attraction of a fine binding has always been felt in France, the high prices quoted for Elzevirs and French first editions being often due much more to their 17th and 18th century jackets than to the books themselves. The appreciation of old bindings has greatly increased in England since the exhibition of them at the Burlington Fine Arts Club in 1891 (illustrated catalogue printed the same year), English blind stamped bindings, embroidered bindings, and bindings attributable to Samuel Mearne (temp. Charles II.) being much more sought after than formerly. (See Bookbinding.)

Illustrated books of certain periods are also much in request, and with the exception of a few which early celebrity has prevented becoming rare have increased inordinately in price. The primitive woodcuts in incunabula are now almost too highly appreciated, and while the Nuremburg Chronicle (1493) seldom fetches more than £30 or the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (Venice, 1499) more than £120, rarer books are priced in hundreds. The best books on the subject are: for Italy, Lippmann’s Wood Engraving in Italy in the 15th Century (1888), Kristeller’s Early Florentine Woodcuts (1897), the duc de Rivoli’s (Prince d’Essling’s) Bibliographie des livres à figures vénitiens 1469-1525 (1892, new edition 1906); for Germany, Muther’s Die deutsche Bücherillustration der Gothik und Frührenaissance (1884); for Holland and Belgium, Sir W.M. Conway’s The Woodcutters of the Netherlands in the 15th Century (1884); for France the material will all be found in Claudin’s Histoire de l’imprimerie en France (1900, &c.). Some information on the illustrated books of the early 16th century is given in Butsch’s Die Bücherornamentik der Renaissance (1878), but the pretty French books of the middle of the century and the later Dutch and English copper-engraved book illustrations (for the latter see Colvin’s Early Engraving and Engravers in England, 1905) have been imperfectly appreciated. This cannot be said of the French books of the 18th century chronicled by H. Cohen, Guide de l’amateur de livre à gravures du XVIIIe siècle (5th ed., 1886), much of the same information, with a little more about English books, being given in Lewine’s Bibliography of Eighteenth Century Art and Illustrated Books (1898). English books with coloured illustrations, for which there has arisen a sudden fashion, are well described in Martin Hardie’s English Colour Books (1906). Bewick’s work has been described by Mr Austin Dobson.

Appreciation of finely printed books has seldom extended much beyond the 15th century. In addition to the works mentioned in the article on incunabula(q.v.), note may be made of Humphrey’s Masterpieces of the Early Printers and Engravers (1870), while Lippmann’s Druckschriften des XV. bis XVIII Jahrhunderts (1884-1887) covers, though not very fully, the later period.

Among books which make an intellectual appeal to the collectors may be classed all works of historical value which have not been reprinted, or of which the original editions are more authentic, or convincing, than modern reprints. It is evident that these cover a vast field, and that the collector in taking possession of any corner of it is at once the servant and rival of historical students. Lord Crawford’s vast collections of English, Scottish and Irish proclamations and of papal bulls may be cited as capital instances of the work which a collector may do for the promotion of historical research, and the philological library brought together by Prince Lucien Bonaparte (An Attempt at a Catalogue by V. Collins, published 1894) and the Foxwell collection of early books on political economy (presented to the university of London by the Goldsmiths’ Company) are two other instances of recent date. Much collecting of this kind is now being carried on by the libraries of institutes and societies connected with special professions and studies, but there is ample room also for private collectors to work on these lines.

Of books which appeal to a collector’s imagination the most obvious examples are those which can be associated with some famous person or event. A book which has belonged to a king or queen (more especially one who, like Mary queen of Scots, has appealed to popular sympathies), or to a great statesman, soldier or poet, which bears any mark of having been valued by him, or of being connected with any striking incident in his life, has an interest which defies analysis. Collectors themselves have a natural tenderness for their predecessors, and a copy of a famous work is all the more regarded if its pedigree can be traced through a long series of book-loving owners. Hence the production of such works as Great Book-Collectors by Charles and Mary Elton (1893), English Book-Collectors by W.Y. Fletcher (1902) and Guigard’s Nouvel armorial du bibliophile (1890). Books condemned to be burnt, or which have caused the persecution of their authors, have an imaginative interest of another kind, though one which seems to have appealed more to writers of books than to collectors. As has already been noted, most of the books specially valued by collectors make a double or triple appeal to the collecting instinct, and the desire to possess first editions may be accounted for partly by their positive superiority over reprints for purposes of study, partly by the associations which they can be proved to possess or which imagination creates for them. The value set on them is at least to some extent fanciful. It would be difficult, for instance, to justify the high prices paid by collectors of the days of George III. for the first printed editions of the Greek and Latin classics. With few exceptions these are of no value as texts, and there are no possible associations by which they can be linked with the personality of their authors. It may be doubted whether any one now collects them save as specimens of printing, though no class of books which has once been prized ever sinks back into absolute obscurity. On the other hand the prestige of the first editions of English and French literary masterpieces has immensely increased. A first folio Shakespeare (1623) was in 1906 sold separately for £3000, and the MacGeorge copies of the first four folios (1623, 1632, 1663-1664 and 1685) fetched collectively the high price of £10,000. The quarto editions of Shakespeare plays have appreciated even more, several of these little books, once sold at 6d. apiece, having fetched over £1000, while the unknown and unique copy of the 1594 edition of Titus Andronicus, discovered in Sweden, speedily passed to an American collector for £2000. Information as to early editions of famous English books will be found in Lowndes’ Bibliographer’s Manual, in Hazlitt’s Handbook to the Popular Poetical and Dramatic Literature of Great Britain from the Invention of Printing to the Restoration (1867) and his subsequent Collections and Notes (1876-1903), and as to more recent books in Slater’s Early Editions, a bibliographical survey of the works of some popular modern authors (1894), while French classics have found an excellent chronicler in Jules Le Petit (Bibliographie des principales éditions originales d’ècrivains français du XVe au XVIIIe siècle, 1888).

In most cases there is a marked falling off in the interest with which early editions other than the first are regarded, and consequently in the prices paid for them, though important changes in the text give to the edition in which they first occur some shadow of the prestige attaching to an original issue. One of the recognized byways of book-collecting, however, used to be the collection of as many editions as possible of the same work. When this result in the acquisition of numerous late editions of no value for the text its only usefulness would appear to be the index it may offer to the author’s popularity. But in translations of the Bible, in liturgical works, and in editions published during the author’s life the aid offered to the study of the development of the final text by a long row of intermediate editions may be very great.

Another instance in which imagination reinforces the more positive interest a book may possess is in the case of editions which can be connected with the origin, diffusion or development of printing. Piety suggests that book-lovers should take a special interest in the history of the art which has done so much for their happiness, and in this respect they have mostly shown themselves religious. The first book printed in any town is reasonably coveted by local antiquaries, and the desire to measure the amount and quality of the work of every early printer has caused the preservation of thousands of books which would otherwise have perished. (See Incunabula.)

The financial side of book-collecting may be studied in Slater’s Book-Prices Current, published annually since 1887, and in Livingston’s American Book Prices Current, and in the same author’s Auction Prices of Books (1905). While largely influenced by fashion the prices given for books are never wholly unreasonable. They are determined, firstly by the positive or associative interest which can be found in the book itself, secondly by the infrequency with which copies come into the market compared with the number and wealth of their would-be possessors, and thirdly, except in the case of books of the greatest interest and rarity, by the condition of the copy offered in respect to completeness, size, freshness and absence of stains.

(A. W. Po.)


BOOK-KEEPING, a systematic record of business transactions, in a form conveniently available for reference, made by individuals or corporations engaged in commercial or financial operations with a view to enabling them with the minimum amount of trouble and of dislocation to the business itself to ascertain at any time (1) the detailed particulars of the transactions undertaken, and (2) the cumulative effect upon the business and its financial relations to others. Book-keeping, sometimes described as a science and sometimes as an art, partakes of the nature of both. It is not so much a discovery as a growth, the crude methods of former days having been gradually improved to meet the changing requirements of business, and this process of evolution is still going on. The ideal of any system of book-keeping is the maximum of record combined with the minimum of labour, but as dishonesty has to be guarded against, no system of book-keeping can be regarded as adequate which does not enable the record to be readily verified as a true and complete statement of the transactions involved. Such a verification is called an audit, and in the case of public and other large concerns is ordinarily undertaken by professional accountants (q.v.). Where the book-keeping staff is large it is usually organized so that its members, to some extent at least, check each other’s work, and to that extent an audit, known as a “staff audit” or “internal check,” is frequently performed by the book-keeping staff itself.

Formerly, when credit was a considerably less important factor than now in commercial transactions, book-keeping was frequently limited to an account of receipts and payments of money; and in early times, before money was in use, to an account of the receipt and issue of goods of different kinds. Even now what may be called the “cash system” of accounts is almost exclusively used by governments, local authorities, and charitable and other institutions; but in business it is equally necessary to record movements of credit, as a mere statement of receipts and payments of money would show only a part of the total number of transactions undertaken. As for practical purposes some limit must be placed upon the daily record of transactions, certain classes show only a record of cash receipts and payments, which must, when it is desired to ascertain the actual position of affairs, be adjusted by bringing into account those transactions which have not yet been completed by the receipt or payment of money. For instance, it is usual to charge customers with goods sold to them at the date when the sale takes place, and to give them credit for the amount received in payment upon the date of receipt (thus completely recording every phase of the transaction as and when it occurs); but in connexion (say) with wages it is not usual to give each workman credit for the services rendered by him from day to day, but merely to charge up the amounts, when paid, to a wages account, which thus at any date only shows the amounts which have actually been paid, and takes no cognisance of the sums accruing due. When, therefore, it is desired to ascertain the actual expenditure upon wages for any given period, it is necessary to allow for the payments made during that period in respect of work previously performed, and to add the value of work performed during the current period which remains unpaid. In the majority of businesses those accounts which deal with various forms of standing expenses are thus dealt with, and in consequence the record, as it appears from day to day, is pro tanto incomplete. Another very important series of transactions which is not included in the ordinary day-to-day record is that representing the loss gradually accruing by reason of waste, or depreciation, of assets or general equipment of the business; proper allowance for these losses must of course be made whenever it is desired to ascertain the true position of affairs.

The origin of book-keeping is lost in obscurity, but recent researches would appear to show that some method of keeping accounts has existed from the remotest times. Babylonian records have been found dating back as far as 2600 B.C., written with a stylus on small slabs of clay, and it is of interest to note (Records of the Past, xi. 89) that these slabs or tablets “usually contain impressions from cylinder seals, and nail marks, which were considered to be a man’s natural seal,” thus showing that the modern method of identifying criminals by finger prints had its counterpart in Babylonia some 4500 years ago. Egyptian records were commonly written on papyrus, and contemporary pictures show a scribe keeping account of the quantities of grain brought into and removed from the government store-houses. It will thus be seen that some form of book-keeping existed long before bound books were known, and therefore the more general term accounting would seem to be preferable—the more so as the most modern developments are in the direction of again abandoning the bound book in favour of loose or easily detached sheets of paper or card, thus capable of being rearranged as circumstances or convenience may dictate. Most of the earlier accounting records are in the nature of a mere narrative of events, which—however complete in itself—failed to fulfil the second requirement of an adequate system of book-keeping already referred to. Prior to the use of money nothing in this direction could of course well be attempted; but for a long time after its employment became general money values were recorded in Roman figures, which naturally did not lend themselves to ready calculation.

At the present-time it may be generally stated that all book-keeping records are kept in three distinct columns, dealing respectively with the date of the transaction, its nature, and its money value. The earliest extant example of accounts so kept is probably a ledger in the Advocates’ library at Edinburgh, dated 1697, which, it is of interest to note, is ruled by hand. Prior to that time, however, double-entry book-keeping had been in general use. The exact date of its introduction is unknown; but it was certainly not, as has been frequently stated, the invention of Lucas de Bergo, in or about 1494. This, however, is the date of the first issue (at Venice) of a printed book entitled Everything about Arithmetic, Geometry and Proportion, by Luca Paciolo, which contains inter alia an explanation of book-keeping by double-entry as then understood; but in all probability, the system had then been in use for something like 200 years. It is perhaps unfortunate that from 1494 until comparatively recent times the literature of accounting has been provided by theorists and students, rather than by practical business men, and it may well be doubted, therefore, whether it accurately describes contemporary procedure. Another illusion which it is necessary to expose in the interests of truth is the value attached to Jones’s English System of Book-keeping by Single or Double Entry, published at Bristol in 1796. Before publishing this book, E.T. Jones issued a prospectus, stating that he had patented an entirely new and greatly improved system, and that subscribers (at a guinea a copy) would be entitled to a special licence empowering them to put the new invention into practice in their own book-keeping. With this bait he secured thousands of subscribers, but so far as can be gathered his system was entirely without merit, and it is chiefly of interest as indicating the value, even then, of advertising.

It is impossible here to describe fully all the improvements that have been made in methods of accounting during recent years, but it is proposed to deal with the more important of these improvements, after the general principles upon which all systems of book-keeping are based have been briefly described.

The centre of all book-keeping systems is the ledger, and it may be said that all other books are only kept as a matter of practical convenience— hence the name “subsidiary books” that is frequently applied thereto. Inasmuch, however, as the transactions are first recorded in these subsidiary books, and afterwards classified therefrom into the ledger, the names books of entry or books of first entry are often employed. Subsidiary books which do not form the basis of subsequent entries into the ledger, but are merely used for statistical purposes, are known as statistical or auxiliary books. In the early days of book-keeping the ledger comprised merely those accounts which it was thought desirable to keep accessible, and was not a complete record of all transactions. Thus in many instances records were only kept of transactions with other business houses, known as personal accounts. In the earliest examples transactions tending to reduce indebtedness were recorded in order of date, as they occurred underneath transactions recording the creation of the indebtedness; and the amount of the reduction was subtracted from the sum of the indebtedness up to that date. This method was found to be inconvenient, and the next step was to keep one account of the transactions recording the creation of indebtedness and another account (called the contra account) of those transactions reducing or extinguishing it. For convenience these two accounts were kept on opposite sides of the ledger, and thus was evolved the Dr. and Cr. account as at present in general use:—

Dr. A.B. Contra. Cr.

Date. Narrative. Amount. Date. Narrative. Amount.

£ s. d. £ s. d.

In this form of account all transactions creating indebtedness due from the person named therein to the business—that is to say, all benefits received by that person from the buisness—are recorded upon the left-hand, or Dr. side, and per contra all transactions representing benefits imparted by him, giving rise to a liability on the part of the business, are recorded upon the Cr. side. The account may run on indefinitely, but as a matter of convenience is usually ruled off each time all indebtedness is extinguished, and also at certain periodical intervals, so that the state of the account may then be readily apparent.

A mere collection of personal accounts is, however, obviously a very incomplete record of the transactions of any business, and does not suffice to enable a statement of its financial position to be prepared. So at an early date other accounts were added to the ledger, recording the acquisition of and disposal of different classes of property, such accounts being generally known as real accounts. These accounts are kept upon the same principle as personal accounts, in that all expenditure upon the part of the business is recorded upon the Dr. side, and all receipts upon the Cr. side; the excess of the debit entries over the credit entries thus showing the value placed upon those assets that still remain the property of the business. With the aid of personal and real accounts properly written up to date, it is possible at any time to prepare a statement of assets and liabilities showing the financial position of a business, and the following is an example of such a statement, which shows also how the profit made by the business may be thus ascertained, assuming that the financial position at the commencement of the current financial period, and the movements of capital into and out of the business during the period, are capable of being ascertained.

State of Affairs as at 31st December 1906

Liabilities. Assets.

Trade Creditors £4,961 10 0 Fixtures, Furniture, &c. £1,269 4 3

Bills Payable 2,620 18 4 Stock on hand 5,751 3 10

Balance, being excess of Trade Debtors 3,842 7 9

assets over liabilities Bills Recievable 7,468 14 3

(or “Capital”) at this Cash at Bank 4,169 5 5

date carried down 14,918 7 4

£22,500 15 6 £22,500 15 6

Amount of Capital Balance brought down £14,918 7 2

on 1st Jan. 1906 £15,010 1 7

Balance, being net Amount drawn out of

profit for the year business during year

ended this date 1,408 5 7 ended this date 1,500 0 0

£16,418 7 2 £16,418 7 2

The method of accounting hitherto described represents single-entry, which—albeit manifestly incomplete—is still very generally used by small business houses, and particularly by retail traders. Its essential weakness is that it provides no automatic check upon the clerical accuracy of the record, and, should any mistake be made in the keeping of the books, or in the extraction therefrom of the lists of assets and liabilities, the statement of assets and liabilities and the profit or loss of the current financial period, will be incorrect to an equal extent. It was to avoid this obvious weakness of single-entry that the system of double-entry was evolved.

The essential principle of double-entry is that it constitutes a complete record of every business transaction, and as these transactions are invariably cross-dealings—involving simultaneously the receipt of a benefit by some one and the imparting of a benefit by some one—a complete record of transactions from both points of view necessitates an entry of equal amount upon debit and credit sides of the ledger. Hence it follows that, if the clerical work be correctly performed, the aggregate amount entered up upon the debit side of the ledger must at all times equal the aggregate amount entered up upon the credit side; and thus a complete list of all ledger balances will show an agreement of the total debit balances with the total credit balances. Such a list is called a trial balance, an example of which is given below. It should be observed, however, that the test supplied by the trial balance is a purely mechanical one, and does not prove the absolute accuracy of the ledger as a record of transactions. Thus transactions which have actually taken place may have been omitted from the books altogether, or they may have been recorded to the wrong accounts, or the money values attached to them may be incorrect; or, yet again, fictitious records may be entered in the ledger of transactions which have never taken place. A trial balance is thus no very adequate safeguard against fraud, nor does it bring to light mistakes in the monetary value attaching to the various transactions recorded. This last point is of especial importance, in that the monetary value of transactions may have been correctly recorded in the first instance, but owing to altered circumstances may have become inaccurate at a later date. This of course means that the altered circumstances constitute an additional “transaction” which has been omitted.

Trial Balance, 31st December 1906

Dr. Cr.

1 Capital account £15,010 1 7

5 Drawings 1,500 0 0

20 Trade creditors 4,961 10 0

24 Fixtures, furniture, &c. 1,269 4 3

27 Bills payable 2,620 18 4

40 Bad debts 71 4 2

44 Stock 1st Jan. 1906 4,078 16 4

50 Discounts allowed 975 3 3

53 Trade debtors 3,842 7 9

60 Discounts received 1,117 17 8

65 Wages and salaries 1,865 12 0

75 Depreciation 141 0 5

78 Rent, rates and taxes 1,242 13 8

82 General expenses 1,087 8 0

90 Bills receivable 7,468 14 3

97 Purchases 44,731 2 10

100 Sales 48,732 4 9

C56 Cash at bank 4,169 5 5

£72,442 12 4 £72,442 12 4

It will be observed, therefore, that in order to complete the record of the transactions by double-entry, it has become necessary to introduce into the ledger a third class of accounts, known as impersonal or nominal accounts. These accounts record the transferences of money, or of money’s worth, which, so far from representing a mere reshuffling of assets and liabilities, involve an increase in or a reduction of the amount invested in the business, i.e. a profit or a loss. Transactions representing profits are recorded upon the Cr. side of nominal accounts, and those representing losses (including expenses) upon the Dr. side. This is consistent with the rules already laid down in connexion with real and nominal accounts, inasmuch as expenditure which does not result in the acquisition of an asset is a loss, whereas receipts which do not involve the creation of liabilities represent profits. All debit balances therefore that are not assets are losses, and per contra all credit balances that are not liabilities are profits. So that, inasmuch as double-entry provides inter alia a complete statement under suitable headings of all profits and all losses, it is possible by aggregating these results to deduce therefrom the net profit or loss of carrying on the business—and that by a method entirely distinct from that previously described in connexion with single-entry, thus constituting a valuable additional check. Taking the trial balance shown above, the following represent the trading account, profit and loss account, and balance sheet compiled therefrom. The trading account may be variously regarded as the account recording the movements of goods which represent the stock-in-trade, and as a preliminary to (or a subdivision of) the profit and loss account. The balance sheet is a statement of the assets and liabilities; but—inasmuch as, by transferring the balance of the profit and loss account to the capital account, it is possible to bring the latter account up to date and to show the credit balance representing the surplus of assets over liabilities to date—the balance sheet, instead of showing a difference, or a “balance,” representing what is assumed to be the amount of the capital to date, shows an absolute agreement of assets upon the one hand and of liabilities plus capital upon the other. The two sides of the account thus balance—hence the name.

Dr. Trading Account for the Year ended 31st December 1906 Cr.

To Stock on hand, 1st Jan. 1906 £4,078 16 4 By Sales £48,732 4 9

” Purchases 44,731 2 10 ” Stock on hand 31st Dec.

” Gross Profit, transferred 1906 5,751 3 10

to Profit and Loss account 5,673 9 5

£54,483 8 7 £54,483 8 7

Dr. Profit and Loss Account for the Year ended 31st December 1906 Cr.

To Rent, rates and taxes £1,242 13 8 By Gross Profit as per

” Salaries and wages 1,865 12 0 Trading Account £5,673 9 5

” General expenses 1,087 8 0 ” Discount received 1,117 17 8

£4,195 13 8

” Discounts allowed 975 3 3

” Bad debts 71 4 2

” Deprecation 141 0 5

” Net Profit for the year trans-

ferred to Capital account 1,408 5 7

£6,791 7 1 £6,791 7 1

Dr. Balance Sheet as at 31st December 1906 Cr.

To A.B., Capital account £14,918 7 2 By Fixtures, furniture, &c. £1,269 4 3

” Trade creditors 4,961 10 0 ” Stock on hand 5,751 3 10

” Bills payable 2,620 18 4 ” Trade debtors 3,842 7 9

” Bills receivable 7,468 14 3

” Cash at bank 4,169 5 5

£22,500 15 6 £22,500 15 6

Dr. A.B., Capital Account Cr.

1906.

1906. To Drawings account £1,500 0 0 Jan. 1 By balance from last account £15,010 1 7

Dec 31 ” Balance carried down 14,918 7 2 Dec. 31 ” Profit and Loss account,

being net profit for the

year ended this date 1,408 5 7

£16,418 7 2 £16,418 7 2

1907.

Jan. 1 By Balance brought down £14,918 7 2

In the foregoing example the customary method has been followed of deducting withdrawals of capital from the capital account and of adding profits thereto. Sometimes, however, the balance of the capital account remains constant, and the drawings and net profits are transferred to a separate account called current account. This plan is but rarely observed in the case of undertakings owned by individuals, or private firms, but is invariably adopted in connexion with joint-stock companies, although in such cases the name appropriation of profit account is generally employed.

Although it is now usual to employ several books of first-entry, in the case of comparatively small businesses one such book is sufficient for all purposes, in that it is practicable for one person to record all the transactions that take place as and when they occur. A book of this description is called the journal, and for many years represented the only book of first-entry employed in book-keeping. An example of the journal is given below. The entries appearing therein are such as would be necessary to prepare the trading and profit and loss accounts from the trial balance shown above, and to bring the capital account up to date.

In modern times, however, with the growth of business, it was soon found impracticable to keep one book of first-entry for all transactions, and accordingly it became necessary either to treat the journal as an intermediate book, in which the transactions might be brought together and focused as a preliminary to being recorded in the ledger, or else to split up the journal into numerous books of first-entry, each of which might in that case be employed for the record of a particular class of transaction. The first method has been generally adopted in the continental countries of Europe, as will be shown later on, whereas in Great Britain and in North America the latter method more generally obtains; that is, instead of having one journal in which all classes of transactions are recorded in the first instance, it is usual to employ several journals, as follows:—a sales journal, sales book or day book, to record particulars of goods sold; a bought journal, invoice book or purchases book, to record particulars of goods purchased; a returns inwards book, to record particulars of goods sold but subsequently returned by customers; a returns outwards book, to record the like particulars with regard to goods purchased and subsequently returned; a bills receivable book, to record particulars of bills of exchange received from debtors; and a bills payable book, to record particulars of bills of exchange given to creditors.

Journal 1906

Dr. Cr.

Dec. 31 Trading account 110 £48,809 19 2

To Stock account 44 £4,078 16 4

” Purchases account 97 44,731 2 10

” Sales account 100 48,732 4 9

Stock account 44 5,751 3 10

To Trading account 110 54,483 8 7

” Trading account 110 5,673 9 5

To Profit and Loss account 120 5,673 9 5

” Profit and Loss account 120 5,383 1 6

To Rent, rates and taxes 78 1,242 13 8

” Salaries and wages 65 1,865 12 0

” General expenses 82 1,087 8 0

” Discounts allowed 50 975 3 3

” Bad debts 40 71 4 2

” Depreciation 75 141 0 5

” Discounts received 60 1,117 17 8

To Profit and Lossaccount 120 1,117 17 8

” Profit and Loss account 120 1,408 5 7

To A.B., Capital account 1 1,408 5 7

A.B., Captial account 1 1,500 0 0

To Drawings account 5 1,500 0 0

£118,376 1 11 £118,376 1 11

Day Book 1906

471 Forward £3761 7 8

27th December.

A. Brown,

492 New Street, Walworth—

2 doz. V.C. port 31/- £3 2 0

1 ” A.C. pale brandy 49/- 2 9 0

216 28th December. 5 11 0

Fredk. Newton,

Farleigh House, Epsom—

1 gall. E. Pale sherry 13/6 £0 13 6

2 doz. O.B. Heidsieck 1892 160/- 16 0 0

2 gall. P. Scotch 21/- 2 2 0

408 18 15 6

Robert French,

214 High Road, Sutton—

6 doz. F.D. Pommard, 1899 30/- £9 0 0

1 ” M.F. Margaux, 1893 66/- 3 6 0

2 ” A. Niersteiner 24/- 2 8 0

14 14 0

£3800 8 2

100