BOWDLER, THOMAS (1754-1825).—­Editor of The Family Shakespeare, b. near Bath, s. of a gentleman of independent fortune, studied medicine at St. Andrews and at Edin., where he took his degree in 1776, but did not practise, devoting himself instead to the cause of prison reform.  In 1818 he pub. his Family Shakespeare in 10 vols., “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.”  The work had considerable success, 4 editions having been pub. before 1824, and others in 1831, 1853, and 1861.  It was, however, subjected to some criticism and ridicule, and gave rise to the expression “bowdlerise,” always used in an opprobrious sense.  On the other hand, Mr. Swinburne has said, “More nauseous and foolish cant was never chattered than that which would deride the memory or depreciate the merits of B. 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.”  B. subsequently essayed a similar enterprise in regard to Gibbon, which, however, was not so successful.

BOWER, ARCHIBALD (1686-1766).—­Historian, b. at Dundee, and ed. at the Scots Coll., Douay, became a Jesuit, but afterwards joined the Church of England, and again became a Jesuit.  He wrote a History of Rome (1735-44), a History of the Popes (1748-66).  These works are ill-proportioned and inaccurate.  His whole life appears to have been a very discreditable one.

BOWER, or BOWMAKER, WALTER (d. 1449).—­Was Abbot of Inchcolm, and continued and enlarged Fordun’s Scotichronicon.

BOWLES, WILLIAM LISLE (1762-1850).—­Poet and antiquary, b. at King’s Sutton, Northamptonshire, of which his f. was vicar, and ed. at Winchester and Oxf., was for the most of his life Vicar of Bremhill, Wilts, and became Prebendary and Canon Residentiary of Salisbury.  His first work, pub. in 1789, was a little vol. containing 14 sonnets, which was received with extraordinary favour, not only by the general public, but by such men as Coleridge and Wordsworth.  It may be regarded as the harbinger of the reaction against the school of Pope, in which these poets were soon to bear so great a part.  B. pub. several other poems of much greater length, of which the best are The Spirit of Discovery (1805), and The Missionary of the Andes (1815), and he also enjoyed considerable reputation as an antiquary, his principal work in that department being Hermes Britannicus (1828).  In 1807 he pub. a Life of Pope, in the preface to which he expressed some views on poetry which resulted in a rather fierce controversy with Byron, Campbell, and others.  He also wrote a Life of Bishop Ken.  B. was an amiable, absent-minded, and rather eccentric man.  His poems are characterised by refinement of feeling, tenderness, and pensive thought, but are deficient in power and passion.