in September 1854, and was absent in the East until July 1856. He had by this time made such good use of his opportunities for the study of Arabic, that he was able to preach with fluency in that difficult language. On 10 Aug. 1857 he was consecrated bishop of Sierra Leone by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishops of Peterborough and Victoria, and sailed for his diocese on 26 Nov. following. The bishop recovered from several attacks of yellow fever. Malignant fever, however, broke out in the colony, and he died of it on 2 June 1859, when he had occupied the see two years and five months. He married, on 24 Nov. 1857, Catharine Butler, second daughter of Dr. George Butler, dean of Peterborough. She died at Freetown, after giving birth to a stillborn son, on 4 Aug. 1858.
[Memorials of John Bowen, LL.D., Bishop of Sierra Leone, by his Sister, 1862; Gent. Mag. vii. 187-8 (1859).]
BOWEN, THOMAS (d. 1790), engraver of charts, was the son of Emanuel Bowen, map engraver to George II and Louis XV, who published a 'Complete Atlas of Geography,' with good maps, 1744-7; an 'English Atlas, with a new set of maps,' 1745(?); a 'Complete Atlas … in sixty-eight Maps,' 1752; 'Atlas Minimus; or a new set of Pocket Maps,' 1758, 24mo; and a series of separate maps of the English counties, of Germany, Asia Minor, and Persia, between 1736 and 1776, of which Gough speaks with little approval. Thomas Bowen engraved the maps and charts of the West Indies, published by the direction of the government from the surveys of Captain James Speer; maps of the country twenty miles round London and of the road between London and St. David's, about 1750; a 'New Projection of the Eastern and Western Hemispheres of the Earth,' 1776; and an 'Accurate Map of the Russian Empire in Europe and Asia,' 1778. He contributed to Taylor and Skinner's 'Survey and Maps of the Roads of North Britain' in 1776. He died at an advanced age in Clerkenwell workhouse early in 1790.
[Gent. Mag. lx. pt. i. p. 374; Redgrave's Dict. of English Artists; Gough's British Topography, vols. i. ii.; Watt's Bibl. Brit.; Brit. Mus. Map Cat.]
BOWER, ALEXANDER (fl. 1804–1830), biographer, was originally a teacher in Edinburgh, and afterwards acted as assistant-librarian in the university of Edinburgh. He died suddenly about 1830–1. He published several works between 1804 and 1830, the titles of them being:
- 'An Account of the Life of James Beattie, LL.D.,' in which are occasionally given characters of the principal literary men, and a sketch of the state of literature in Scotland during the last century, 1804, 8vo.
- 'The Life of Luther, with an account of the early progress of the Reformation,' 1813, 8vo.
- 'The History of the University of Edinburgh, chiefly compiled from original Papers and Records never before published,' vols. i. ii., 1817, vol. iii. 1830, 8vo. This work is strong in biographical details of the professors and others, but in other points the history is now of little value.
- 'The Edinburgh Students' Guide, or an Account of the Classes of the University,' 1822.
[Watt's Bibl. Brit.; Cat. of the Advocates' Library; Grant's Edin. University, 1884, i. p.ix.]
BOWER, ARCHIBALD (1686–1766), author of the 'History of the Popes,' was born on 17 Jan. 1685–6 at or near Dundee; according to his own account, he was descended from an ancient family which had been for several hundred years possessed of an estate in the county of Angus in Scotland. In 1702 he was sent to the Scotch college at Douay; afterwards proceeded to Rome, and was there admitted into the Society of Jesus on 9 Dec. 1706. His own statement that he was admitted into the order in November 1705 is evidently untrue, as is shown by the entry in the register of the Roman province of the society. After a novitiate of two years he went in 1712 to Fano, where he taught classics till 1714, when he removed to Fermo. In 1717 he was recalled to Rome to study divinity in the Roman college, and in 1721 he was transferred to the college of Arezzo, where he remained till 1723, and became reader of philosophy and consultor to the rector of the college. He was next sent to Florence, and in the same year removed to Macerata, at which place he continued till 1726. Before the latter date he was probably professed of the four vows, his own account fixing that event in March 1722 at Florence (Full Confutation, p. 54), though, as he certainly was resident at Arezzo in that year, his profession was most likely made a year later. All his statements concerning himself must be received with extreme caution.
The turning-point in Bower's career was his removal from Macerata to Perugia, and his flight from the latter city to England in 1726. His enemies said that this step was taken in consequence of his having been detected in an amour with a nun, but he himself ascribes it to the 'hellish proceedings'
