SIR JOHN BOWRING, LL.D., F.R.S., ETC.

SIR JOHN BOWRING is descended from an ancient Devonshire family, which gave its name to the estate of Bowringsleigh, in the parish of West Allington. The Bowrings had for many generations been engaged in the woollen trade of Devon, and in the year 1670 coined tokens for the payment of their workmen bearing the inscription, with a wool-comb for a device, "John Bowring, of Chulmleigh, his halfpenny." The subject of our memoir is the eldest son of the late Charles Bowring, Esq., of Larkbeare, by Sarah, daughter of the Rev. Thomas Lane, of St. Ives, Cornwall, and was born in the city of Exeter, on the 17th of October, 1792. Having received the rudiments of an ordinary education in the school of the Rev. J. H. Bransby, at Moretonhampstead, Devon, he entered a merchant's house at Exeter, as a clerk; but soon gave evidence of a higher order of abilities than those which fitted him for the counting-house. But his connection with mercantile pursuits necessitated much foreign travel and intercourse with many Continental nations, and gave facilities for studying the character, for entering into the domestic circles, and for learning and speaking the languages of the countries in which he temporarily dwelt. In 1822 he was arrested at Calais, being the bearer of dispatches to the Portuguese ministers, announcing the intended invasion of the Peninsula by the Bourbon Government of France, and detained for several weeks; during a considerable portion of which he was excluded from all communication. Canning insisted on an indictment or a release; but having been accused of complicity in the attempt to rescue the young sergeants of La Rochelle," who were executed for singing

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'republican songs," he was released without trial, but condemned to perpetual exile from France. The illegality of the arrest was brought before the House of Commons by Lord Archibald Hamilton, but Mr. Canning explained that, however despotic and un-English the proceedings had been, they were warranted by the then existing laws of France, from which visitors to France could claim no exemption. The proceedings were reported at length in a pamphlet by Dr. Bowring, entitled 'Details of the Imprisonment and Liberation of an Englishman by the Bourbon Government of Spain,' 1823. Time brought more than sufficient compensation; for, after the overthrow of Charles X., Dr. Bowring was the writer of the address of the citizens of London, adopted in the Guildhall, congratulating the French people on the overthrow of their "legitimate" rulers. He headed the deputation that bore the address to Paris, and was welcomed by a public dinner at the Hôtel de Ville. He was the first Englishman received by Louis Philippe after his recognition by the British Government; and the papers of the day recorded the strange augury that the "gilded chair," on which His Majesty was seated, was crushed by his too energetic action, and he was kept from falling by Odilon Barrot, the Prefect of the Scine, on one side, and Dr. Bowring on the other. He became in early life the political pupil of Jeremy Bentham, maintaining his master's principles in the 'Westminster Review,' of which he was for some years the editor. He published during Bentham's lifetime his 'Deontology' in two volumes; and on the death of Bentham, (with whom he had lived in habits of the strictest intimacy, and of whom he was the executor,) Dr. Bowring edited a collection of his works, accompanied by a biography of the great jurist, the whole consisting of twenty-three octavo volumes. He also distinguished himself by an extraordinary knowledge of European literature, particularly the lyrical, or rather the song-poetry of the different European nations, and in 1821-3 he gave to the public his Specimens of the Russian Poets' (2 vols.); this he followed up, in 1824, by his 'Batavian Anthology,' and 'Ancient Poetry and Romances of Spain;' in 1827, he published 'Specimens of the Polish Poets,' and Servian Popular Poetry;' in 1830, Poetry of the Magyars;' and in 1832, 'Cheskian Anthology.' Besides the above, he published translations of poems, songs, and other productions, from the Danish, German, Frisian, Dutch, Esthonian,