(1758). To the last two pamphlets were attached certificates and other documents obtained from Italy, clearly establishing Bower's guilt and imposture. In the course of this embittered controversy, Garrick, who had formerly been his friend, threatened to write a farce in which Bower was to be introduced on the stage as a mock convert and to be shown in various situations, so that the profligacy of his character might be exposed (Davies, Memoirs of Garrick, ed. 1808, i. 306). From this period Bower's whole time was spent in making ineffectual attacks upon his enemies, and equally vain efforts to recover the reputation of himself and his 'History of the Popes.' Before the controversy had ended he published his fourth volume, and in 1757 an abridgment of the first four volumes of his work was published in French at Amsterdam. In 1761 he seems to have assisted the author of 'Authentic Memoirs concerning the Portuguese Inquisition, in a series of letters to a friend;' and about the same time he produced the fifth volume of his 'History of the Popes.' To this volume he annexed a summary view of the controversy between himself and the Roman catholics. The remainder of his history did not appear till just before the author's death, when the sixth and seventh volumes were published together, but in so hasty and slovenly a manner that the whole period from 1600 to 1758 was comprehended in twenty-six pages. The 'History of the Popes' has been reprinted with a continuation by Dr. Samuel Hanson Cox, in 3 vols., Philadelphia, 1844-5, 8vo.
Bower died on 3 Sept. 1766, and was buried in Marylebone churchyard. The epitaph on his tomb describes him as 'a man exemplary for every social virtue, justly esteemed by all who knew him for his strict honesty and integrity, a faithful friend, and a sincere christian.' He bequeathed all his property to his wife, who, some time after his death, attested that he died in the protestant faith (London Chronicle, 11 Oct. 1766).
His portrait has been engraved by J. M'Ardell and T. Holloway from a painting by G. Knapton; and by J. Faber from a painting by Reynolds.
[The principal authorities are the twenty-two pamphlets published during the Bower controversy, and a series of articles, probably by Bishop Douglas, in the European Magazine for 1794, xxv. 3, 133, 209, 261, xxvi. 32. These articles were reprinted without acknowledgment in the General Biog. Dict. (1798), ii. 528, and thence transferred by Alexander Chalmers (but with the omission of the references) to his edition of that work. Consult also Birch MS. in Addit. MS. Brit. Mus. 4234; Gent. Mag. lx. 1187, lxi. 118, lxxi. 509; Nichols's Illustr. of Lit. ii. 134; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. i. 477, ii. 42, 394, 554, 565, iii. 507, iv. 95, vi. 463, 467, viii. 269; Milner's Life of Bishop Challoner, 29–31; Bromley's Cat. of Engraved Portraits, 383; Oliver's Jesuit Collections, 40; Foley's Records, vii. 882; Cat. of Birch and Sloane MSS. 713, 717; Lysons's Environs, iii. 263, 264; Edinburgh Mag. (1785), i. 284; Memoirs of George Psalmanazar, 2nd edit. 277; Evans's Cat. of Engraved Portraits, 1212, 1213; Macdonald's Memoir of Bishop Douglas, 28–36; C. Butler's Life of Alban Butler (1800), 9.]
BOWER, or BOWERS, GEORGE (fl. 1681), medallist, worked principally in the reigns of Charles II and James II, and for a short time under William III. In January 1664 he was appointed 'embosser in ordinary' (engraver) to the Mint, an office which he continued to hold till his death in the early part of 1689-90. He executed numerous medals for the royal family as well as for private persons, and his work displays considerable skill, though it is inferior in finish and execution to that of the Roettiers, the well-known medallists of the same period. The most interesting of all his medals is, perhaps, the specimen struck to commemorate the acquittal of the Earl of Shaftesbury on the charge of high treason, showing on the obverse the bust of the earl, and on the reverse the legend 'Lætamur, 24 Nov. 1681,' and a view of London with the sun bursting from behind a cloud. It was the production of this specimen which gave rise to Dryden's satire on Shaftesbury entitled 'The Medal:'
Five days he sate for every cast and look,
Four more than God to finish Adam took;
But who can tell what essence angels are,
Or how long Heaven was making Lucifer?
Bower also executed in the reign of Charles II the Restoration medal (1660: reverse, Jupiter destroying prostrate giants, signed 'G. Bower '), the marriage medal (1662: signed 'G. B.'), and medals relating to the popish and Rye House plots. Of the medals made by him under James II, we may mention a piece commemorating the defeat of Monmouth (signed ' G. Bowers'), and specimens referring to the trial of the seven bishops. He further produced a medal celebrating the landing of William (III) at Torbay, 1688, and the coronation medal of William and Mary, 1689.
