DON 



653 



BON 



Bonner, him ; and, affer a long trial, he was committed to 

 the Marshalsea, and deprived of his bishoprick. Bi- 

 shop Burnet remarks, that, on his trial, he behaved 

 more like a madman than a bishop. 



On the accession of Queen Mary, in 1553, he was 

 restored to his bishoprick ; and, the following year, 

 he was created vicegerent and president of the con- 

 vocation, in the room of Archbishop Cranmcr, who 

 was committed to the Tower. The persecution 

 which arose against the reformers, now gave him an 

 opportunity of gratifying his cruel and vindictive 

 temper ; and he directed all his power and influence 

 against them in the most malignant and violent man- 

 ner. He obtained a commission for searching out 

 and punishing all heretics, and for erazing from the 

 public records all the proceedings of Henry VIII. 

 against the pope, and particularly the accounts of 

 the visitations of the monasteries, and the renunciation 

 of the papal authority by the monks. He dismissed 

 many of the reformed bishops ; and set up mass in 

 St Paul's, even before the act for restoring it was 

 passed. In the short space of about three years, 

 from the beginning of the year 1555 to the year 

 1558, it is said, that he caused no fewer than two 

 hundred persons to be committed to the flames ; be- 

 sides many who, by his orders, were imprisoned, 

 publicly whipped, and cruelly tortured. 



After Elizabeth succeeded to the crown, in 1558, 

 the face of affairs, with regard to religion, was com- 

 pletely changed. Bonner, however, (although it was 

 well known that Elizabeth would espouse the cause 

 of the Reformation,) had the impudence to go with 

 the Protestant bishops to congratulate her upon her 

 accession ; but she received him with that cool re- 

 serve which he so justly deserved. Eor some months 

 he was allowed to remain unnoticed ; but, in 1559, 

 being called before the privy council, and haying re- 

 fused to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, 

 he was again deprived of his bishoprick, and thrown 

 into Marshalsea, where he died in 1569. His body 

 was interred by his friends, in the most private man- 

 ner, during the night, lest any indignity should have 

 been offered to it by an enraged populace. 



Bonner's temper was violent, and his disposition 

 cruel. It is also said, that he was addicted to swear- 

 ing, and that he sometimes made a prophane use of 

 the Holy Scriptures. His ruling principle was am- 

 bition, which led- him to sacrifice every thing for the 

 advancement of his temporal interest. Destitute of 

 merit, he raised himself, during the reign of the im- 

 petuous Henry, by offering his services to those who 

 were in power, and by making the will of his prince 

 the rule of his conduct; and, in the short but bloody 

 reign of Mary, he Persecuted the Protestants with a 

 barbarity, which will for ever render his character 

 and his memory detestihle. It has been justly remark- 

 ed, that it is a clear proof of the lenity of the reform- 

 ed church, that such a man was permitted to end his 

 days in a prison. 



Further particulars of his life may be found in eve- 

 ry History of England, during the reigns of Henry 

 VIII., Edward VI., and Mary. Sec also Biog. 



Brit, and Burnet's History of the Reformation. Bonnet. 

 (a. t.) 



BONNET, Charles, an eminent naturalist, was 

 born at Geneva on the 13th March 1720, and was the 

 only son of a Protestant refugee, who sought for shel- 

 ter in Switzerland from the religious persecutions with 

 which France was at that time agitated. His father 

 sent him early to school ; but, in consequence of a de- 

 fect in hearing with which he was afflicted at an early 

 age, and probably from his being unable to partici- 

 pate in the bustle and rivalry ot a public seminary, 

 he made little progress in his studies, and was placed 

 under the care of a domestic tutor, who inspired him 

 with a taste for general literature. In 173G, the pe- 

 rusal of La Pluche's interesting work, entitled, Le 

 Spectacle tie la Nature, turned his attention to those 

 branches'" of natural history, in the cultivation of 

 which he obtained such distinguished eminence. He 

 investigated with particular success the structure and 

 habits of the curious insect called the formica leo, or 

 ant lion, and detected many interesting facts which 

 had escaped the notice of Poupart and Reaumur. 

 He repeated many of Reaumur's experiments on in- 

 sects. He made several interesting observations on 

 caterpillars ; and, at the early age of eighteen, he had 

 the courage to communicate the results of his re- 

 searches to Reaumur, who admired the ingenuity of 

 young Bonnet, and encouraged him to proceed in 

 the study of natural history. His researches, in 1740, 

 respecting the generation of aphides, or vine fretters, 

 conducted him to a very curious discovery regarding 

 these singular insects. He found, that the impreg- 

 nation of a female aphis by the male transmitted the 

 prolific quality to its offspring even to the tenth in 

 succession, so that each succeeding female, within 

 these limits, will produce its young without any 

 sexual intercourse with the male. * This discovery 

 was communicated, in a memoir, to the Academy of 

 Sciences at Paris, who immediately ranked its inge- 

 nious author among the number of its corresponding 

 members. These experiments were of such a delicate 

 nature, and required such minuteness of observation, 

 and such close attention, that they brought on a weak- 

 ness of sight, from which he never afterwards reco- 

 vered. 



During these inquiries, Bonnet was prosecuting, 

 with extreme reluctance, the study of the law ; a pro- 

 fession to which he had been destined by his father. 

 He continued, however, to perform this unpleasant 

 task till the year 1713, when he received the degree 

 of doctor of laws, on which occasion he abandoned 

 for ever the study of the law. In the year 1711, he 

 discovered, that the reproductive power of the polypus 

 was, in some measure, possessed by different kinds 

 of worms ; and, in 1742, he made some new observa- 

 tions on the tape worm, and found that butterflies 

 and caterpillars respired by means of their stigmata, 

 or pores. In the year 1713, he communicated to the 

 Royal Society of London a long paper, entitled, Ah 

 Abstract of some new Observations on Insects ; the 

 substance of which was republish). J in his Insectologie, 

 which appeared in 1744, and which contained his ob- 



See his remarks aur U) Puccront, in his Traite tflmcctologic ; and in his (Euurcs, torn. 



