favourite yachting, boating, fishing and tourist centre. The church of St Martin is ancient, and contains stained glass from Cartmel priory in Furness. (See Windermere.)
BOWRING, SIR JOHN (1792–1872), English linguist, political
economist and miscellaneous writer, was born at Exeter, on the
17th of October 1792, of an old Puritan family. In early life he
came under the influence of Jeremy Bentham. He did not,
however, share his master’s contempt for belles-lettres, but was a
diligent student of literature and foreign languages, especially
those of eastern Europe. As a linguist he ranked with Mezzofanti
and von Gabelentz among the greatest of the world. The
first-fruits of his study of foreign literature appeared in Specimens of the Russian Poets (1821–1823). These were speedily followed
by Batavian Anthology (1824), Ancient Poetry and Romances of Spain (1824), Specimens of the Polish Poets, and Servian Popular Poetry, both in 1827. During this period he began to contribute
to the newly founded Westminster Review, of which he was
appointed editor in 1825. By his contributions to the Review
he obtained considerable reputation as political economist and
parliamentary reformer. He advocated in its pages the cause
of free trade long before it was popularized by Richard Cobden
and John Bright. He pleaded earnestly in behalf of parliamentary
reform, Catholic emancipation and popular education.
In 1828 he visited Holland, where the university of Groningen
conferred on him the degree of doctor of laws. In the following
year he was in Denmark, preparing for the publication of a collection
of Scandinavian poetry. Bowring, who had been the trusted
friend of Bentham during his life, was appointed his literary
executor, and was charged with the task of preparing a collected
edition of his works. This appeared in eleven volumes in 1843.
Meanwhile Bowring had entered parliament in 1835 as member
for Kilmarnock; and in the following year he was appointed
head of a government commission to be sent to France to inquire
into the actual state of commerce between the two countries.
He was engaged in similar investigations in Switzerland, Italy,
Syria and some of the German states. The results of these
missions appeared in a series of reports laid before the House of
Commons. After a retirement of four years he sat in parliament
from 1841 till 1849 as member for Bolton. During this busy
period he found leisure for literature, and published in 1843 a
translation of the Manuscript of the Queen’s Court, a collection of
old Bohemian lyrics, &c. In 1849 he was appointed British
consul at Canton, and superintendent of trade in China, a post
which he held for four years. After his return he distinguished
himself as an advocate of the decimal system, and published
a work entitled The Decimal System in Numbers, Coins and Accounts (1854). The introduction of the florin as a preparatory
step was chiefly due to his efforts. Knighted in 1854, he was
again sent the same year to Hong-Kong as governor, invested
with the supreme military and naval power. It was during his
governorship that a dispute broke out with the Chinese; and the
irritation caused by his “spirited” or high-handed policy led
to the second war with China. In 1855 he visited Siam, and
negotiated with the king a treaty of commerce. After the usual
five years of service he retired and received a pension. His last
employment by the English government was as a commissioner
to Italy in 1861, to report on British commercial relations with
the new kingdom. Sir John Bowring subsequently accepted
the appointment of minister plenipotentiary and envoy extraordinary
from the Hawaiian government to the courts of Europe,
and in this capacity negotiated treaties with Belgium, Holland,
Italy, Spain and Switzerland. In addition to the works already
named he published—Poetry of the Magyars (1830);
Cheskian Anthology (1832); The Kingdom and People of Siam (1857);
a translation of Peter Schlemihl (1824);
translations from the Hungarian poet, Alexander Petöfi (1866); and various pamphlets.
He was elected F.R.S. and F.R.G.S., and received the decorations
of several foreign orders of knighthood. He died at Claremont,
near Exeter, on the 23rd of November 1872. His valuable
collection of coleoptera was presented to the British Museum by
his second son, Lewin Bowring, a well-known Anglo-Indian
administrator; and his third son, E. A. Bowring, member of
parliament for Exeter from 1868 to 1874, became known in the
literary world as an able translator.
Sir John Bowring’s Recollections were edited by Lewin Bowring (d. 1910) in 1877.
BOWTELL, a medieval term in architecture for a round or
corniced moulding; the word is a variant of “boltel,” which is
probably the diminutive of “bolt,” the shaft of an arrow or
javelin. A “roving” bowtell is one which passes up the side of a
bench end and round a finial, the term “roving” being applied to
that which follows the line of a curve.
BOWYER, WILLIAM (1663–1737), English printer, was born
in 1663, apprenticed to a printer in 1679, made a liveryman of the
Stationers’ Company in 1700, and nominated as one of the
twenty printers allowed by the Star Chamber. He was burned
out in the great fire of 1712, but his loss was partly made good by
the subscription of friends and fellow craftsmen, as recorded on a
tablet in Stationers’ Hall, and in 1713 he returned to his Whitefriars
shop and became the leading printer of his day. He died on
the 27th of December 1737.
His son, William Bowyer (1699–1777), was born in London on the 19th of December 1699. He was educated at St John’s College, Cambridge, and in 1722 became a partner in his father’s business. In 1729 he was appointed printer of the votes of the House of Commons, and in 1736 printer to the Society of Antiquaries, of which he was elected a fellow in 1737. In 1737 he took as apprentice John Nichols, who was to be his successor and biographer. In 1761 Bowyer became printer to the Royal Society, and in 1767 printer of the rolls of the House of Lords and the journals of the House of Commons. He died on the 13th of November 1777, leaving unfinished a number of large works and among them the reprint of Domesday Book. He wrote a great many tracts and pamphlets, edited, arranged and published a host of books, but perhaps his principal work was an edition of the New Testament in Greek, with notes. His generous bequests in favour of his own profession are administered by the Stationers’ Company, of which he became a liveryman in 1738, and in whose hall is his portrait bust and a painting of his father. He was known as “the learned printer.”
BOX (Gr. πύξος, Lat. buxus, box-wood; cf. πύξις, a pyx),
the most varied of all receptacles. A box may be square, oblong,
round or oval, or of an even less normal shape; it usually opens
by raising, sliding or removing the lid, which may be fastened
by a catch, hasp or lock. Whatever its shape or purpose or the
material of which it is fashioned, it is the direct descendant
of the chest, one of the most ancient articles of domestic furniture.
Its uses are infinite, and the name, preceded by a qualifying
adjective, has been given to many objects of artistic or antiquarian
interest.
Of the boxes which possess some attraction beyond their immediate purpose the feminine work-box is the commonest. It is usually fitted with a tray divided into many small compartments, for needles, reels of silk and cotton and other necessaries of stitchery. The date of its introduction is in considerable doubt, but 17th-century examples have come down to us, with covers of silk, stitched with beads and adorned with embroidery. In the 18th century no lady was without her work-box, and, especially in the second half of that period, much taste and elaborate pains were expended upon the case, which was often exceedingly dainty and elegant. These boxes are ordinarily portable, but sometimes form the top of a table.
But it is as a receptacle for snuff that the box has taken its most distinguished and artistic form. The snuff-box, which is now little more than a charming relic of a disagreeable practice, was throughout the larger part of the 18th century the indispensable companion of every man of birth and breeding. It long survived his sword, and was in frequent use until nearly the middle of the 19th century. The jeweller, the enameller and the artist bestowed infinite pains upon what was quite as often a delicate bijou as a piece of utility; fops and great personages possessed numbers of snuff-boxes, rich and more ordinary, their selection being regulated by their dress and by the relative splendour of the occasion. From the cheapest wood
