Chapter Boucicault to Boyle of B by Biographical Dictionary of English Literature

Boucicault to Boyle

Boucicault, Dion (1820-90).—Actor and dramatist, born in Dublin and educated in London, joined Macready while still young, and made his first appearance upon the stage with Benj. Webster at Bristol. Soon afterwards he began to write plays, occasionally in conjunction, of which the first, London Assurance (1841) had an immediate success. He was an excellent actor, especially in pathetic parts. His plays are for the most part adaptations, but are often very ingenious in construction, and have had great popularity. Among the best known are The Colleen Bawn, Arrah-na-Pogue, Faust and Marguerite, and The Shaughraun. Boucicault died in America.

Bowdler, Thomas (1754-1825).—Editor of The Family Shakespeare, b. near Bath, son of a gentleman of independent fortune, studied medicine at St. Andrews and at Edinburgh, where he took his degree in 1776, but did not practise, devoting himself instead to the cause of prison reform. In 1818 he published 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 published 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 Bowdler 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.” Bowdler subsequently essayed a similar enterprise in regard to Gibbon, which, however, was not so successful.

Bower, Archibald (1686-1766).—Historian, born at Dundee, and educated 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 (died 1449).—w as Abbot of Inchcolm, and continued and enlarged Fordun’s Scotichronicon.

Bowles, William Lisle (1762-1850).—Poet and antiquary, born at King’s Sutton, Northamptonshire, of which his flourished was vicar, and educated at Winchester and Oxford, was for the most of his life Vicar of Bremhill, Wilts, and became Prebendary and Canon Residentiary of Salisbury. His first work, published 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. Bowles published 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 published 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. Bowles 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.

Other works are Coombe Ellen and St. Michael’s Mount (1798), The Battle of the Nile (1799), The Sorrows of Switzerland (1801), St. John in Patmos (1833), etc.

Bowring, Sir John (1792-1872).—Linguist, writer, and traveller, was born at Exeter. His talent for acquiring languages enabled him at last to say that he knew 200, and could speak 100. He was appointed editor of the Westminster Review in 1824; travelled in various countries with the view of reporting on their commercial position; was an M.P. 1835-37 and 1841-49, and held various appointments in China. His chief literary work was the translation of the folk-songs of most European nations, and he also wrote original poems and hymns, and works on political and economic subjects. Bowring was knighted in 1854. He was the literary executor of Jeremy Bentham (q.v.).