An English linguist, author, and noted diplomat; born in Exeter, Oct. 17, 1792; died there, Nov. 23, 1872. He was a great traveler and a close student; and boasted that he knew 200 languages and could speak 100. In 1825 he became editor of the Westminster Review, in which he advocated Free Trade by repeal of the Corn Laws in advance of Bright and Cobden. He was a member of Parliament in 1835–37 and 1841–47; was appointed on various commissions, to France, Switzerland, Italy, Syria, etc. In 1849 he was British consul at Hong-Kong, where he became governor in 1853. In 1855 he concluded a treaty with Siam; he was knighted in 1854. He rendered great service to English literature by translating the popular poems and folk-songs of various nations. Among his works are: “Specimens of the Russian Poets” (London, 1821–23); “Ancient Poetry and Romances of Spain” (1824); “Specimens of the Polish Poets” (1827); “Servian Popular Poetry” (1827); “Poetry of the Magyars” (1830) “Cheskian Anthology” (1832); “The Flowery Scroll, a Chinese Novel” (1868); “The Oak, Original Tales and Sketches” (1869); and two important volumes of travel: “The Kingdom and People of Siam” (1857); and “A Visit to the Philippine Islands” (1859). He edited with a biography (22 vols., London, 1838) the works of Jeremy Bentham, of whom he was a disciple and admirer; and wrote a number of books on political and social topics, and also hymns and poems.

Personal

  Next morning (Tuesday) I went to Bowring’s. Figure to yourself a thin man about my height and bent at the middle into an angle of 150°, the back quite straight, with large grey eyes, a huge turn-up nose with straight nostrils to the very point, and large projecting close-shut mouth: figure such a one walking restlessly about the room (for he had been thrown out of a gig, and was in pain), frank of speech, vivid, emphatic, and verständig. Such is the Radical Doctor.

  I have never been able to understand the enormous unpopularity of this man, who appears civil, well-bred, intelligent, and agreeable (only rather a coxcomb), and has made a certain figure in the House of Commons, but it has been explained to me by a person who knows him well. He was originally a merchant, and had a quantity of counting-house knowledge. He became a member of a club of political economists, and a scholar of M’Culloch’s. In this club there were some obscure but very able men, and by them he got crammed with the principles of commerce and political economy, and from his mercantile connections he got facts. He possessed great industry and sufficient ability to work up the materials he thus acquired into a very plausible exhibition of knowledge upon these subjects, and having opportunities of preparing himself for every particular question, and the advantage of addressing an audience the greater part of which is profoundly ignorant, he passed for a young gentleman of extraordinary ability and profound knowledge, and among the greatest of his admirers was Althorp, who, when the Whigs came in, promoted him to his present situation. Since he has been there he has not had the same opportunities of learning his lesson from others behind the curtain, and the envy which always attends success has delighted to pull down his reputation, so that he now appears something like the jackdaw stripped of the peacock’s feathers.

  Dr. Bowring is a very striking-looking personage, with a most poetical, ardent, imaginative forehead, and a temperament all in keeping, as evidenced by his whole look and manner.

  The Doctor is a brisk person, with the address of a man of the world,—free, quick to smile, and of agreeable manners. He has a good face, rather American than English in aspect, and does not look much above fifty, though he says he is between sixty and seventy. I should take him rather for an active lawyer or a man of business than for a scholar and a literary man.

  In his private life he was the most affectionate of husbands and fathers, and the firmest of friends. He never varied in his regard for his early associates, and in his own family his name was always mentioned with love and sympathy. In society, which he greatly relished, he was a most agreeable companion, having a fund of information and anecdote, while his genial and buoyant nature made him a general favourite. As an old man, his serene demeanour testified that, notwithstanding the assaults of time and the vicissitudes of a chequered life, in which there had been many and rapid alternations of joy and sorrow, his existence had been on the whole a happy one.

  Sir John Bowring was a man of considerable ability. At one time he seemed to be a candidate for something like fame. He was the political pupil and the literary executor of Jeremy Bentham, and for some years was editor of the “Westminster Review.” He had a very large and varied, although not profound or scholarly, knowledge of European and Asiatic languages (there was not much scientific study of languages in his early days), he had traveled a great deal, and had sat in Parliament for some years. He understood political economy, and had a good knowledge of trade and commerce; and in those days a literary man who knew anything about trade and commerce was thought a person of almost miraculous versatility. Bowring had many friends and admirers, and set up early for a sort of great man. He was full of self-conceit, and without any very clear idea of political principles on the large scale.

  In politics he was a Benthamite, and in the House of Commons he made many enemies by his virulent attacks upon all who differed from him. He was a great scholar, and in literature and science a very learned man. He possessed a wonderful facility in acquiring foreign languages. At the age of sixteen he spoke and wrote French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, and German, besides English. At a later period in life he could express himself with ease in thirty tongues and dialects. When he was governor of Hong Kong I have heard him converse at an official dinner with six foreigners who sat near him, addressing each in his own language. It was quite unnecessary to have done so, but Bowring was vain of his accomplishments, and not in the habit of hiding his light under a bushel. I first made his acquaintance when he was British consul at Canton. He must have been at the time about sixty, and, as a young man, I looked up to him with profound respect.

  Dr. Bowring was another man to be depended on in any proceedings toward reform. I saw him often on public questions, once breakfasted with him at his house in Queen Square, Westminster, and had a pleasant meeting with him, after his return from China. There was a little of the Girondist, of the pedagogue about him, and I have no faith in his too facile translations; but he was a good citizen and a man to be respected.

General

  As an author, his reputation mainly rests on translations from languages with which few persons are acquainted, but his public services were considerable; as an advanced Liberal he largely aided his party, and was foremost as a promoter and advocate of many good and useful measures in Parliament; while as a man and a gentleman he was in all ways beyond reproach. He is one whom his native county may be proud to rank among the worthies of Devon.

  His poetry is quite unequal, and is mostly a reproduction of his literary readings. As sacred poetry, it is cold, and destitute of that glowing inspiration that characterizes so many of the productions of Trinitarian poets. Many who have so often sung with delight,—

“In the cross of Christ I glory,” etc.,

may be surprised to learn that its author was then, and to the day of his death, a confirmed Unitarian.

  Among these renderings the magnificent “Oda Boy” of Derzhavin, the Russian poet, claims the foremost place for felicity and power in its English dress. But the acquirements of Bowring are little less than marvellous. To parody Praed’s rhyme:

	“You would have sworn as you looked at them
	He had fished in the Flood with Ham and Shem.”

He seems to have touched the very nerve centres of language, and to have comprehended by a supreme instinct, the essence of the poet’s thought.

  Bowring was an ardent reformer, and did good service, especially in the cause of free trade, on which subject he had gathered a great store of knowledge in the course of several commercial missions on which he was sent by the government to France, Belgium, Holland, Italy, Prussia, and Turkey.

  Sir John Bowring was a man of broad and open mind. He had a firm grip for fundamental principles, a clear eye for the intricacies of conflicting evidence, and a sound judgment for estimating subtle issues. His religious belief was an intelligent faith based upon reason and inquiry, of which the sonnet “Confidence” may be taken as a proof. Two of his hymns, “In the Cross of Christ I Glory,” and “God is Love! His Mercy Brightens,” have found world-wide acceptance among all classes of Christians. Such poems as “Matter and Mind” help to establish the reasonableness of faith.