Page:Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography Volume 1.pdf/721

BON Geneva (where he made the acquaintance of Bonnet and Voltaire), Leyden, Cambridge, and Paris; he also travelled over great part of Italy. On returning to Switzerland he was made a member of the sovereign council at Berne, and received other political appointments. At this time he became very intimate with Matthison the poet, and Muller the historian. The troubles of his country obliging him to flee, he repaired first to Italy, then to Copenhagen, and finally to Geneva, where he remained till his death. Those of Bonstettin's works which are devoted to social science, display extensive knowledge of mankind, a keen insight into human nature, and considerable originality of view; but his psychological writings are very deficient in analytical power, and are neither accurate nor profound. The titles of his principal works are—"Researches into the Nature and Laws of Imagination;" "Studies of Man, or researches into the faculties of feeling and thought;" "On National Education;" "Thoughts on various objects of Public Good;" and "The Man of the South and the Man of the North."—J. D. E.  BONTEKOE,, a Dutch surgeon, born at Alkmaer in 1647. His principal works are a "Short Treatise on Human Life," published at the Hague in 1684, of which a German translation passed through four editions; and a "Treatise on that most excellent herb, Tea," also published at the Hague in 1672. A complete edition of his writings appeared at Amsterdam in 1689, in two volumes quarto.—W. S. D.  BONTEMPI,, a musician, was born at Perugia about 1630, and educated under Mazzochi, the eminent chapelmaster of St. Peter's at Rome. After filling various offices as choirmaster at Rome and Venice, he passed into the service of the margrave of Brandenburg, whom he left for the post of director of the music at the court of the elector of Saxony. He wrote several operas, but is chiefly known by his two treatises—"Nova Quatuor Vocibus Componendi Methodus," Dresden, 1660, 4to, and "Istoria Musica nella quale si la piena cognizione della teoria e della Prattica Antica della Musica Armonica," Perugia, 1695, folio.—E. F. R.  BONTIUS,, a distinguished Dutch physician and naturalist of the seventeenth century, was born at Leyden about the year 1590. In 1627 he quitted his native country for the East Indies, and resided for many years in the island of Java, where he held the appointment of first physician to the governor of Batavia and to the Dutch East India Company. The period of his death is not known, but it must have occurred before 1658. During his residence in the East, he laboured with much assiduity in investigating the diseases prevailing there, and the qualities of the native plants; upon which subjects he published a remarkable and valuable work, entitled "De Medicina Indorum libri IV.," which originally appeared at Leyden in 1642, and afterwards passed through numerous editions, and was translated into French and English. His "Historia naturalis et medica Indiæ Orientalis," an improved edition of the preceding work, was published at Amsterdam in 1658, in folio, with Piso's treatise on the plants of Brazil. The writings of Bontius contain the earliest information accessible to Europeans on the natural history of Java.—W. S. D.  BONVICINO,, called , born in 1514, and studied under Titian, being indeed the best pupil that great old man produced, painting at the stripling age of sixteen a painting of St. Nicholas, in the church of the Madonna de Miracoli. But the accidental sight of some of Raphael's angelic designs set Bonvicino on the road to Rome in full cry after quite a new ideal. He began to learn how to unite colour and design, gave a graceful turn to his heads, devotion and inward burning fervour to his religion, something of Titian's purity and depth of colour, and somewhat of Raphael's elevation of design. This Dutch Venetio-Roman excelled also in portraits, and finished his draperies to the utmost refinement of texture. His colour is colder than his master's, his frescos inferior to his oils. Lanzi, eulogizing this not-sufficiently known master, praises his simple dignity, tranquil grace, purity of motive, noble sentiment, and quiet, self-resigned, contemplative religion. His altarpieces are his best works, as we might expect from such a Fra Angelico as Moretto, who, when painting a picture of the Holy Virgin, is said to have always prepared himself by prayer and fasting. His choices and pictures are a "St. Lucia and Catherine" at Brescia; a "Virgin and Infant with Saints;" a "Conversion of St. Paul;" an "Adoration of the Shepherds" at Berlin; a "St. Justina;" a "Coronation of the Virgin;" and an "Assumption." The celebrated portrait painter Moroni was Moretto's pupil.—W. T.  BONZI,, called indifferently or, born in 1580. He painted a few histories and landscapes, but was best known for his baskets of fruit and festoons of flowers. Died in 1640.—W. T.  BOOKER,, a haberdasher of London, who figured as an astrologer in the early part of the seventeenth century. He was for some time writing-master at Hadley, Middlesex, and afterwards licenser of mathematical books (under which title were ranked all publications relating to the celestial sciences). "He had a curious fancy of judging of thefts," says Lilly, "and was as successful in resolving love questions." A work of his, "Bloody Irish Almanac," contains some interesting matter. Died in 1667.—J. S., G.  * BOOLE,, LL.D., professor of mathematics at Queen's college, Cork. Professor Boole is one of the most accomplished mathematicians of our time, and he has found for himself a novel and remarkable course. His peculiar inclinations first appeared in a comparatively short treatise, entitled "Mathematical Analysis of Logic;" but his conception was not adequately developed until the publication of a very elaborate volume, entitled "An Investigation of the Laws of Thought, on which are founded the Mathematical Theories of Logic and Probabilities." The design of that treatise is—to use the author's own words—"to investigate the fundamental laws of those operations of the mind by which reasoning is performed; to give expression to them in the symbolical language of a calculus, and upon this foundation to establish the science of logic and construct its method; to make that method itself the basis of a general method for the application of the mathematical doctrine of probabilities; and, finally, to collect from the various elements of truth, brought to view in the course of such inquiries, some probable intimations concerning the nature and constitution of the human mind." Mr. Boole establishes, in the first place, that the fundamental principles of logic are as indubitable and absolute as the fundamental troths of geometry, and that its processes are fixed and determinate. Hence the applicability of symbols to express the relations of these principles, and of symbolic processes to carry out their development and detect their issues. The laws of such processes must be deduced of course from the nature of the subject itself; but they are found to be almost identical with the laws of the general symbols of algebra. If, indeed, we can conceive an algebra in which the symbols x, y, z, &c., admit indifferently of the values of 0 and 1, and of these values alone, the laws, the axioms, and the processes of such an algebra, are identical with the laws, the axioms, and the processes of an algebra of logic. It will be discerned on a moment's reflection, how powerful and fertile is such a principle; nor indeed do we know any modern work, on this class of subjects, so suggestive and full of promise as Professor Boole's. In every separate portion of it, inquiries that were deemed exhausted and familiar, come up under new and enlarged forms, and the knot of difficulties that never before was loosed, simply and almost without parting word, disappears. No recent volume has thrown on the puzzling philosophy of probabilities, in its widest relations, a tithe of the light that is here brought to bear on it. The author is understood to abide by his subject, and to have in preparation a still more important essay.—It may be further stated, that Professor Boole is distinguished otherwise. He has recently communicated to the Royal Society a profound and highly interesting memoir on the comparison of transcendents, with certain applications to the theory of definite integrals.—J. P. N. <section end="721H" /> <section begin="721I" />BOON,, a buffoon Dutch painter, who established himself in England in Charles II.'s reign, when everything, good and bad, was turned into joke. He painted drunken, sickening revels (nor always without a certain gross humour, large or small), grimacing deformed boors, and street characters. This Boon died in 1698.—W. T. <section end="721I" /> <section begin="721Zcontin" />BOONE,, a celebrated American explorer and backwoodsman, was born of English parents in Bucks county, Pennsylvania, in February, 1735. While he was still very young, the family removed to Berks county, Pennsylvania, near Reading. This was then a frontier settlement, the country abounding in game, and the settlers constantly liable to attacks from the Indians. And here began the training as a hunter and backwoodsman, which made Boone so celebrated in after life. In <section end="721Zcontin" />