Did you know?

On his Grand Tour of Europe in 1764-1765, Boswell visited and befriended the famous philosophers Jean-Jacques Rosseau and François-Marie Arouet (Voltaire), and back in Edinburgh he was a personal friend of David Hume.

Biographies

James Boswell mentioned thousands of people in his extensive journals and other writings. Read about an ever increasing number of those people, and about their relationship with Boswell, in our biographies section.

Literature

In our literature section you can read about the numerous books published by Boswell in his own lifetime, and about more than 40 other books about or related to Boswell published since his death in 1795.

Gijsbertus Bonnet - Theologian

Gijsbertus Bonnet

Born 1723
Died 1805

Biography:

A pupil of Johannes Horthemels (1698-1776), Bonnet became Professor of Theology (Divinity) at Utrecht. According to sources, he was an outspoken orthodox professor who, among other things, was supervisor of Johannes Clarisse's Doctor of Divinity degree.1

Life with Boswell:

Boswell met him at Heer van Zuylen's on January 30 or February 6, 1764. Boswell "was very much surprised to find him a lively and cheerful man", and ended up borrowing the Professor's copy of Lambert ten Kate's Aenleiding tot de kennisse van het verhevene deel der Nederduitsche sprake - an early philological masterpiece, "in which the connection between the Low Dutch, the Old Saxon, the Icelandic, and the Latin languages is exhibited" (according to Boswell). Boswell went to one of his lectures on May 22.

Notes:

Note 1: According to Azn, Jasper (2000). The Dominating Theology Within the Nederlandse Hervormde Kerk after 1815 in its Relation to the Secession of 1834.

Literature

I don't know of any existing works of Bonnet, but Lambert ten Kate's Aenleiding tot de kennisse... is sometimes available via the AbeBooks used books search engine.