Part 36

BOWDLER, THOMAS (1754-1825), editor of the "family" Shakespeare, younger son of Thomas Bowdler, a gentleman of independent fortune, was born at Ashley, near Bath, on the 11th of July 1754. He studied medicine at the universities of St Andrews and Edinburgh, graduating M.D. in 1776. After four years spent in foreign travel, he settled in London, where he became intimate with Mrs Montague and other learned ladies. In 1800 he left London to live in the Isle of Wight, and later on he removed to South Wales. He was an energetic philanthropist, and carried on John Howard's work in the prisons and penitentiaries. In 1818 he published _The Family Shakespeare_ "in ten volumes, in which nothing is added to the original text; but those words and expressions are omitted which cannot with propriety be read aloud in a family." Criticisms of this edition appeared in the _British Critic_ of April 1822. Bowdler also expurgated Edward Gibbon's _History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_ (published posthumously, 1826); and he issued a selection from the Old Testament for the use of children. He died at Rhyddings, near Swansea, on the 24th of February 1825.

From Bowdler's name we have the word to "bowdlerize," first known to occur in General Perronet Thompson's _Letters of a Representative to his Constituents during the Session of 1836_, printed in Thompson's _Exercises_, iv. 126. The official interpretation is "to expurgate (a book or writing) by omitting or modifying words or passages considered indelicate or offensive." Both the word and its derivatives, however, are associated with false squeamishness. In the ridicule poured on the name of Bowdler it is worth noting that Swinburne in "Social Verse" (_Studies in Prose and Poetry_, 1894, p. 98) said of him that "no man ever did better service to Shakespeare than the man who made it possible to put him into the hands of intelligent and imaginative children," and stigmatized the talk about his expurgations as "nauseous and foolish cant."

BOWDOIN, JAMES (1726-1790), American political leader, was born of French Huguenot descent, in Boston, Massachusetts, on the 7th of August 1726. He graduated at Harvard in 1745, and was a member of the lower house of the general court of Massachusetts in 1753-1756, and from 1757 to 1774 of the Massachusetts council, in which, according to Governor Thomas Hutchinson, he "was without a rival," and, on the approach of the War of Independence, was "the principal supporter of the opposition to the government." From August 1775 until the summer of 1777 he was the president of the council, which had then become to a greater extent than formerly an executive as well as a legislative body. In 1779-1780 he was president of the constitutional convention of Massachusetts, also serving as chairman of the committee by which the draft of the constitution was prepared. Immediately afterward he was a member of a commission appointed "to revise the laws in force in the state; to select, abridge, alter and digest them, so as to be accommodated to the present government." From 1785 to 1787 he was governor of Massachusetts, suppressing with much vigour Shays' Rebellion, and failing to be re-elected largely because it was believed that he would punish the insurrectionists with more severity than would his competitor, John Hancock. Bowdoin was a member of the state convention which in February 1788 ratified for Massachusetts the Federal Constitution, his son being also a member. He died in Boston on the 6th of November 1790. He took much interest in natural philosophy, and presented various papers before the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, of which he was one of the founders and, from 1780 to 1790, the first president. Bowdoin College was named in his honour.

His son, JAMES BOWDOIN (1752-1811), was born in Boston on the 22nd of September 1752, graduated at Harvard in 1771, and served, at various times, as a representative, senator and councillor of the state. From 1805 until 1808 he was the minister plenipotentiary of the United States in Spain. He died on Naushon Island, Dukes county, Massachusetts, on the 11th of October 1811. To Bowdoin College he gave land, money and apparatus; and he made the college his residuary legatee, bequeathing to it his collection of paintings and drawings, then considered the finest in the country.

BOWELL, SIR MACKENZIE (1823- ), Canadian politician, son of John Bowell, carpenter and builder, was born at Ricking-hall, England, on the 27th of December 1823. In 1833 he moved with his family to Belleville, Canada, where he finally became editor and proprietor of the _Intelligencer_. He was elected grand master of the Orange Association of British America, and was long the exponent in the Canadian parliament of the claims of that order. From 1867 till 1892 he represented North Hastings in the House, after which he retired to the senate. From 1878 till 1891 he was minister of customs in the cabinet of Sir John Macdonald; then minister of militia; and under the premiership of Sir John Thompson, minister of trade and commerce. From December 1894 till April 1896 he was premier of Canada, and endeavoured to enforce remedial legislation in the question of the Manitoba schools. But his policy was unsuccessful, and he retired from the government. From 1896 till 1906 he led the Conservative party in the senate. In 1894 he presided over the colonial conference held in Ottawa, and in 1895 was created K.C.M.G.

BOWEN, CHARLES SYNGE CHRISTOPHER BOWEN, BARON (1835-1894), English judge, was born on the 1st of January 1835, at Woolaston in Gloucestershire, his father, the Rev. Christopher Bowen of Hollymount, Co. Mayo, being then curate of the parish. He was educated at Lille, Blackheath and Rugby schools, leaving the latter with a Balliol scholarship in 1853. At Oxford he made good the promise of his earlier youth, winning the principal classical scholarships and prizes of his time. He was made a fellow of Balliol in 1858. From Oxford Bowen went to London, where he was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1861, and while studying law he wrote regularly for the _Saturday Renew_, and also later for the _Spectator_. For a time he had little success at the bar, and came near to exchanging it for the career of a college tutor, but he was induced by his friends, who recognized his talents, to persevere. Soon after he had begun to make his mark he was briefed against the claimant in the famous "Tichborne Case." Bowen's services to his leader, Sir John Coleridge, helped to procure for him the appointment of junior counsel to the treasury when Sir John had passed, as he did while the trial proceeded, from the office of solicitor-general to that of attorney-general; and from this time his practice became a very large one. The strain, however, of the Tichborne trials had been great, so that his physical health became unequal to the tasks which his zeal for work imposed upon it, and in 1879 his acceptance of a judgeship in the queen's bench division, on the retirement of Mr Justice Mellor, gave him the opportunity of comparative rest. The character of Charles Bowen's intellect hardly qualified him for some of the duties of a puisne judge; but it was otherwise when, in 1882, in succession to Lord Justice Holker, he was raised to the court of appeal. As a lord justice of appeal he was conspicuous for his learning, his industry and his courtesy to all who appeared before him; and in spite of failing health he was able to sit more or less regularly until August 1893, when, on the retirement of Lord Hannen, he was made a lord of appeal in ordinary, and a baron for life, with the title of Baron Bowen of Colwood. By this time, however, his health had finally broken down; he never sat as a law lord to hear appeals, and he gave but one vote as a peer, while his last public service consisted in presiding over the commission which sat in October 1893 to inquire into the Featherstone riots. He died on the 10th of April 1894.

Lord Bowen was regarded with great affection by all who knew him either professionally or privately. He had a polished and graceful wit, of which many instances might be given, although such anecdotes lose force in print. For example, when it was suggested on the occasion of an address to Queen Victoria, to be presented by her judges, that a passage in it, "conscious as we are of our shortcomings," suggested too great humility, he proposed the emendation "conscious as we are of one another's shortcomings"; and on another occasion he defined a jurist as "a person who knows a little about the laws of every country except his own." Lord Bowen's judicial reputation will rest upon the series of judgments delivered by him in the court of appeal, which are remarkable for their lucid interpretation of legal principles as applied to the facts and business of life. Among good examples of his judgment may be cited that given in advising the House of Lords in _Angus_ v. _Dalton_ (6 App. Cas. 740), and those delivered in _Abrath_ v. _North Eastern Railway_ (11 Q.B.D. 440); _Thomas_ v. _Quartermaine_ (18 Q.B.D. 685); _Vagliano_ v. _Bank of England_ (23 Q.B.D. 243) (in which he prepared the majority judgment of the court, which was held to be wrong in its conclusion by the majority of the House of Lords); and the _Mogul Steamship Company_ v. _M'Gregor_ (23 Q.B.D. 598). Of Lord Bowen's literary works besides those already indicated may be mentioned his translation of Virgil's _Eclogues_, and _Aeneid_, books i.-vi., and his pamphlet, _The Alabama Claim and Arbitration considered from a Legal Point of View._ Lord Bowen married in 1862 Emily Frances, eldest daughter of James Meadows Rendel, F.R.S., by whom he had two sons and a daughter.

See _Lord Bowen_, by Sir Henry Stewart Cunningham.

BOWEN, FRANCIS (1811-1890), American philosophical writer and educationalist, was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, on the 8th of September 1811. He graduated at Harvard in 1833, taught for two years at Phillips Exeter Academy, and then from 1835 to 1839 was a tutor and instructor at Harvard. After several years of study in Europe, he settled in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and was editor and proprietor of the _North American Review_ from 1843 to 1854. In 1850 he was appointed professor of history at Harvard; but his appointment was disapproved by the board of overseers on account of reactionary political opinions he had expressed in a controversy with Robert Carter (1819-1879) concerning the Hungarian revolution. In 1853 his appointment as Alford professor of natural religion, moral philosophy and civil polity was approved, and he occupied the chair until 1889. In 1876 he was a member of the Federal commission appointed to consider currency reform, and wrote (1877) the minority report, in which he opposed the restoration of the double standard and the remonetization of silver. He died in Boston, Massachusetts, on the 22nd of January 1890. His writings include lives of Sir William Phipps, Baron von Steuben, James Otis and Benjamin Lincoln in Jared Sparks' "Library of American Biography"; _Critical Essays on the History and Present Condition of Speculative Philosophy_ (1842); _Lowell Lectures on the Application of Metaphysical and Ethical Science to the Evidences of Religion_ (1849); _The Principles of Political Economy applied to the Condition, Resources and Institutions of the American People_ (1856); _A Treatise on Logic_ (1864); _American Political Economy_ (1870); _Modern Philosophy from Descartes to Schopenhauer and Hartmann_ (1877); and _Gleanings from a Literary Life, 1838-1880_ (1880).

BOWEN, SIR GEORGE FERGUSON (1821-1899), British colonial governor, eldest son of the Rev. Edward Bowen, afterwards rector of Taughboyne, Co. Donegal, was born on the 2nd of November 1821. Educated at Charterhouse school and Trinity College, Oxford, he took a first class in classics in 1844, and was elected a fellow of Brasenose. In 1847 he was chosen president of the university of Corfu. Having served as secretary of government in the Ionian Islands, he was appointed in 1859 the first governor of Queensland, which colony had just been separated from New South Wales. He was interested in the exploration of Queensland and in the establishment of a volunteer force, but incurred some unpopularity by refusing to sanction the issue of inconvertible paper money during the financial crisis of 1866. In 1867 he was made governor of New Zealand, in which position he was successful in reconciling the Maoris to the English rule, and saw the end of the struggle between the colonists and the natives. Transferred to Victoria in 1872, Bowen endeavoured to reduce the expenses of the colony, and in 1879 became governor of Mauritius. His last official position was that of governor of Hong-Kong, which he held from 1882 to 1887. He was made a K.C.M.G. in 1856, a privy councillor in 1886, and received honorary degrees from both Oxford and Cambridge. In December 1887 he was appointed chief of the royal commission which was sent to Malta with regard to the new constitution for the island, and all the recommendations made by him were adopted. He died at Brighton on the 21st of February 1899, having been married twice, and having had a family of one son and four daughters. Bowen wrote _Ithaca in 1850_ (London, 1854), translated into Greek in 1859; and _Mount Athos, Thessaly and Epirus_ (London, 1852); and he was the author of Murray's _Handbook for Greece_ (London, 1854).

A selection of his letters and despatches, _Thirty Years of Colonial Government_ (London, 1889), was edited by S. Lane-Poole.

BOWER, WALTER (1385-1449), Scottish chronicler, was born about 1385 at Haddington. He was abbot of Inchcolm (in the Firth of Forth) from 1418, was one of the commissioners for the collection of the ransom of James I., king of Scots, in 1423 and 1424, and in 1433 one of the embassy to Paris on the business of the marriage of the king's daughter to the dauphin. He played an important part at the council of Perth (1432) in the defence of Scottish rights. During his closing years he was engaged on his work the _Scotichronicon_, on which his reputation now chiefly rests. This work, undertaken in 1440 by desire of a neighbour, Sir David Stewart of Rosyth, was a continuation of the _Chronica Gentis Scotorum_ of Fordun. The completed work, in its original form, consisted of sixteen books, of which the first five and a portion of the sixth (to 1163) are Fordun's--or mainly his, for Bower added to them at places. In the later books, down to the reign of Robert I. (1371), he was aided by Fordun's _Gesta Annalia_, but from that point to the close the work is original and of contemporary importance, especially for James I., with whose death it ends. The task was finished in 1447. In the two remaining years of his life he was engaged on a reduction or "abridgment" of this work, which is known as the _Book of Cupar_, and is preserved in the Advocates' library, Edinburgh (MS. 35. 1. 7). Other abridgments, not by Bower, were made about the same time, one about 1450 (perhaps by Patrick Russell, a Carthusian of Perth) preserved in the Advocates' library (MS. 35. 6. 7) and another in 1461 by an unknown writer, also preserved in the same collection (MS. 35. 5. 2). Copies of the full text of the _Scotichronicon_, by different scribes, are extant. There are two in the British Museum, in _The Black Book of Paisley_, and in Harl. MS. 712; one in the Advocates' library, from which Walter Goodall printed his edition (Edin., 1759), and one in the library of Corpus Christi, Cambridge.

Goodall's is the only complete modern edition of Bower's text. See also W.F. Skene's edition of Fordun in the series of _Historians of Scotland_ (1871). Personal references are to be found in the _Exchequer Rolls of Scotland_, iii. and iv. The best recent account is that by T.A. Archer in the _Dict, of Nat. Biog._

BOWERBANK, JAMES SCOTT (1797-1877), English naturalist and palaeontologist, was born in Bishopsgate, London, on the 14th of July 1797, and succeeded in conjunction with his brother to his father's distillery, in which he was actively engaged until 1847. In early years astronomy and natural history, especially botany, engaged much of his attention; he became an enthusiastic worker at the microscope, studying the structure of shells, corals, moss-agates, flints, &c., and he also formed an extensive collection of fossils. The organic remains of the London Clay attracted particular attention, and about the year 1836 he and six other workers founded "The London Clay Club"--the members comprising Dr Bowerbank, Frederick E. Edwards (1799-1875), author of _The Eocene Mollusca_ (Palaeontograph. Soc.), Searles V. Wood, John Morris, Alfred White (zoologist), N.T. Wetherell, surgeon of Highgate (1800-1875), and James de Carle Sowerby. In 1840 Bowerbank published _A History of the Fossil Fruits and Seeds of the London Clay_, and two years later he was elected F.R.S. In 1847 he suggested the establishment of a society for the publication of undescribed British Fossils, and thus originated the Palaeontographical Society. From 1844 until 1864 he did much to encourage a love of natural science by being "at home" every Monday evening at his residence in Park Street, Islington, and afterwards in Highbury Grove, where the treasures of his museum, his microscopes, and his personal assistance were at the service of every earnest student. In the study of sponges he became specially interested, and he was author of _A Monograph of the British Spongiadae_ in 4 vols., published by the Ray Society, 1864-1882. He retired in 1864 to St Leonards, where he died on the 8th of March 1877.

BOWIE, JAMES (1796-1836), American pioneer, was born in Logan county, Kentucky. He was taken to Louisiana about 1802, and in 1818-1820 was engaged with his brothers, John J. and Rezin P., in smuggling negro slaves into the United States from the headquarters of the pirates led by Jean Lafitte on Galveston Island. Bowie removed to Texas in 1828 and took a prominent part in the revolt against Mexico, being present at the battles of Nacogdoches (1832), Concepcion (1835) and the Grass Fight (1835). He was one of the defenders of the Alamo (see SAN ANTONIO), but was ill of pneumonia at the time of the final assault on the 6th of March 1836, and was among the last to be butchered. Bowie's name is now perpetuated by a county in north-eastern Texas, and by its association with that of the famous hunting-knife, which he used, but probably did not invent.

BOW-LEG (_Genu Varum_), a deformity characterized by separation of the knees when the ankles are in contact. Usually there is an outward curvature of both femur and tibia, with at times an interior bend of the latter bone. At birth all children are more or less bandy-legged. The child lies on its nurse's knee with the soles of the feet facing one another; the tibiae and femora are curved outwards; and, if the limbs are extended, although the ankles are in contact, there is a distinct space between the knee-joints. During the first year of life a gradual change takes place. The knee-joints approach one another; the femora slope downwards and inwards towards the knee-joints; the tibiae become straight; and the sole of the foot faces almost directly downwards. While these changes are occurring, the bones, which at first consist principally of cartilage, are gradually becoming ossified, and in a normal child by the time it begins to walk the lower limbs are prepared, both by their general direction and by the rigidity of the bones which form them, to support the weight of the body. If, however, the child attempts either as the result of imitation or from encouragement to walk before the normal bandy condition had passed off, the result will necessarily be either an arrest in the development of the limbs or an increase of the bandy condition. If the child is weakly, either rachitic or suffering from any ailment which prevents the due ossification of the bones, or is improperly fed, the bandy condition may remain persistent. Thus the chief cause of this deformity is rickets (q.v.). The remaining causes are occupation, especially that of a jockey, and traumatism, the condition being very likely to supervene after accidents involving the condyles of the femur. In the rickety form the most important thing is to treat the constitutional disease, at the same time instructing the mother never to place the child on its feet. In many cases this is quite sufficient in itself to effect a cure, but matters can be hastened somewhat by applying splints. When in older patients the deformity arises either from traumatism or occupation, the only treatment is that of operation.

A far commoner deformity than the preceding is that known as _knock-knee_ (or _Genu Valgum_). In this condition there is close approximation of the knees with more or less separation of the feet, the patient being unable to bring the feet together when standing. Occasionally only one limb may be affected, but the double form is the more common. There are two varieties of this deformity: (i.) that due to rickets and occurring in young children (the rachitic form), and (ii.) that met with in adolescents and known as the static form. In young children it is practically always due to rickets, and the constitutional disease must be most rigorously dealt with. It is, however, especially in these cases that cod-liver oil is to be avoided, since it increases the body weight and so may do harm rather than good. The child if quite young must be kept in bed, and the limbs manipulated several times a day. Where the child is a little older and it is more difficult to keep him off his feet, long splints should be applied from the axilla or waist to a point several inches below the level of the foot. It is only by making the splints sufficiently long that a naturally active child can be kept at rest. The little patient should live in the open air as much as possible.