Portuguese, Icelandic, Biscayan, and several other languages, and also many volumes of hymns, original poems, and other works, amounting altogether to more than fifty volumes.

Tom Hood addressed to him the following extravaganza, which, we believe, has not been before published:

:

To Bowring, man of many tongues,

All over tongues like rumour,

This tributary verse belongs,

To suit his learned humour.

All kinds of gabs he knows, I wis,--
Servian, Slavonian, Scottish;

As fluent as a parrot is,

But far more Polly-glottish.

No language too obscure he meets,
However dark and verby;

He gabbles Greek about the streets,
And often Rus(s) in urbe.

Strange tongues, whate'er men may them call,
In short, the man is able

To tell you "What's o'clock" in all
The dialects of Babel.

He talks them all with equal ease,—

The German and the Danish,

The Magyar, Polish, Portuguese,
Bohemian, Tuscan, Spanish.

Try him with these and twenty such,
His skill will not diminish,

Although you should begin with Dutch,
And end, like me, in Finnish.

He had the advantage of personal acquaintance with most of the eminent authors and poets of the last generation, and was assisted by them in a purpose, never fully carried out, of writing the history and giving translated specimens of the popular poetry, not only of the western, but of the oriental world. In this object he had the co-operation of Rask and Finn Magnusen (Icelandic), Oehlenschläger and Munter (Danish), Franzén (Swedish), in the Scandinavian field; of Karamsin and Kriulov (Russian), Niemcewicz and Mickiewicz (Polish), Wuk (Servian), Hanka and Çelakowsky (Bohemian), Talvj (von Jakob), and many

C

coadjutors in the Moravian, Illyrian, and other branches of the Slavonic stem. In the Magyar, Toldy (Schedel) and Kertbeny lent him their aid; in Romaic, Fauriel; in Finnish, Tengström ; while in the various kingdoms of southern Europe he was enabled to gather together extensive materials for a work which would have demanded the dedication of a life afterwards destined to other objects;-but scattered translations from Chinese, Sanskrit, Cingalese, and other Oriental tongues, which have appeared in different periodicals, show that the subject has never been wholly abandoned, though nothing comprehensive, exhaustive, or really worthy of a scheme so extensive has been produced.

In 1829 he gleaned at Copenhagen the materials for a Collection of Danish Poetry, and he also translated Peter Schlemihl' from the German, at the suggestion of Adelung.

On the recommendation of Mr. Alexander Baring (afterwards Lord Ashburton) and the Parliamentary Finance Committee, Mr. Bowring was, in 1828, sent by the late Mr. J. C. Herries, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, to report on the public accounts of Holland, and it was during this period that he received the diploma of LL.D. from the University of Groningen. For this mission, Dr. Bowring received from Parliament nothing but the bare expenses of his journey, the Duke of Wellington having refused to confirm the appointment of so notorious a "radical" as a Commissioner for the reform of the Public Account. It is to the credit of the Duke that after Dr. Bowring's unsuccessful motion in Parliament for the abolition of flogging in the army, his Grace said that he hoped the time would come in which it might be possible to put an end to a system so little creditable to the character of our soldiers, and which had been so strongly reprobated by the Member for Bolton.

While in Madrid, he published in Spanish his 'Contestacion á O'Gavan,' being an exposure of the arguments in favour of African slavery in Cuba; and he has also translated into French the 'Opinions of the Early Christians on War,' written by Thomas Clarkson. His 'Matins and Vespers' have gone through many editions, both in England and the United States; and we believe his Minor Morals,' in three volumes, being recollections of travel, for the use of young people, are now out of print. For his two volumes of Russian Anthology' he received a diamond ring from Alexander I.; and for his works on Holland, some of which

have been translated into Dutch, a gold medal from the King of the Netherlands, and he was made a Member of the Institute of Holland.

From the time of his connection with the Westminster Review' he had directed much of his attention to subjects of political economy, especially with respect to the commercial relations between Great Britain and the Continental Governments; and in 1831, he was appointed, with the Earl of Clarendon (then Mr. George Villiers, whose aptitude for so important an office had been strengthened by his having been a Commissioner of Customs and by diplomatic services abroad), Commercial Commissioner to France. Though not successful to the extent that had been anticipated, some liberal modifications of the tariff were obtainedthe first concessions made. The export trade of the United Kingdom to France was, in 1831, £602,688; in 1866, it rose to £11,696,016. The import trade of French produce from France to Great Britain and British colonies in 1831 was, according to the French official returns, £3,192,300, whilst in 1864 it amounted to £35,600,000 to Great Britain alone. On our commercial relations with France, two elaborate reports were presented to Parliament by Lord Clarendon and Dr. Bowring.

The reports of his commercial missions undertaken at various times, and which have been published for the information of Parliament, are:-those to Egypt and Syria; to Lombardy, Tuscany, and Rome; and to Switzerland. He afterwards visited the different States of the German Customs' Union. His reports on the two latter countries were translated and published in German.

On Lord John Russell's appointment, he discharged the duties of an unpaid Commissioner to inquire into the state of extraparochial records of births and deaths, and examined and reported on more than seven thousand volumes, which occupied him for many months.

He took an active part, both in Parliament and elsewhere, in the reform of our sanitary laws as bearing upon our commercial interests, and published a paper, read at the meeting of the British Association, in 1838, at Newcastle, " On Oriental Plague and Quarantines," proving the non-contagious character of the disease.

He was nominated in 1832, under Lord Grey's Government, Secretary to the Commission for the Reform of the Public Ac

counts, of which Sir Henry Parnell was Chairman, and in that capacity he visited and examined in the greatest detail the Comptabilité of the French Government, and presented two reports, which were published for Parliament, and which form the groundwork of our present improved system. Sir Henry Parnell and Dr. Bowring wrote the Reports on the Exchequer, and prepared those resolutions which, after long delays, have become the law of public accountancy in Great Britain and the Colonies. Dr. Bowring also acted as Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Colonial Accounts, whose recommendations have led to some of the most important improvements. He carried, in opposition to the Government, a resolution that the gross revenues of all taxes should be paid, without reduction, into the Exchequer, and no payments be made without preliminary Parliamentary authority,—a principle which has become the groundwork of reform in our national accountancy.

He sat in Parliament as member for the Kilmarnock burghs, from 1835 to 1837, when he was an unsuccessful candidate, and he sat as the representative of Bolton from 1841 to 1849. He unsuccessfully contested Blackburn in 1832, and again in 1835, and was defeated on both occasions by a very few votes; he stood for the Kirkcaldy burghs in January, 1841.

He twice visited Belgium with a view to modification of the commercial system of the country, and heard from the lips of the king that he had been the main instrument in converting the Belgians to the advocacy of free-trade, in furtherance of which he had published two pamphlets, one On the Restrictive and Prohibitory System, from the MSS. of Bentham,' another On the Political and Commercial Importance of Peace.' He represented Great Britain at the meeting of the Zollverein in Berlin in 1838. His communications with Sir Robert Peel at that period were not without their influence in bringing about that change in our commercial system which has in its results proved so beneficial. inay be mentioned here that Dr. Bowring wrote the greater part of the report of Mr. Hume's Committee on Import Duties—a report which has been translated into all the commercial languages of Europe, and circulated to the extent of hundreds of thousands of copies, and that many of its recommendations were adopted by Sir Robert Peel.

It

He received a handsome service of plate from the inhabitants

of Blackburn, as a tribute to "the purity" which distinguished his conduct amidst the corruptions which surrounded him, when he was left in a minority of five votes in the election of 1832; another from the Manxmen for the services he had rendered by obtaining an Act of Parliament for their emancipation from feudal tyranny; and from the Maltese, in recognition of the success of his advocacy as their unofficial representative in the House of Commons; a beautiful silver urn from his Kilmarnock constituents, and a large silver salver from the electors of Kirkcaldy, for the representation of which borough he had unsuccessfully contended. Aided by the powerful support of the late Prince Consort, he obtained, after a discussion in the House of Commons, the issue of the florin, which was the first step towards the introduction of the decimal system into our currency. In January, 1849, he was nominated to the British Consulship at Canton, and in 1853 he was made Superintendent of Trade and Plenipotentiary to China, and subsequently held the appointment of Governor, Commander-in-Chief, and Vice-Admiral of Hongkong and its dependencies, as well as Chief Superintendent of Trade in China. He was also accredited to the Courts of Japan, Siam, CochinChina, and the Corea, though the time had not arrived for the establishment of personal diplomatic intercourse with those regions. On receiving these last offices, and while on leave of absence in England, in February, 1851, he received the honour of knighthood. He was afterwards nominated a Knight Commander of the Belgian Order of Leopold, a Knight-Commander of the Hawaiian Order of Kamehameha I., and a Companion of the Order of Christ of Portugal. While in China, he was nominated a Fellow of the Royal Society, and was President of the Chinese Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. He is also an honorary member of many of the literary societies of Europe.

In 1854, he published an octavo volume on The Decimal System in Numbers, Coins, and Accounts, especially with reference to the Decimalization of the Currency and Accountancy of the United Kingdom.'

In the spring of 1855, Sir John Bowring proceeded on a special mission to Siam, and concluded a treaty of commerce with the two kings of that country,-a task in which several previous plenipotentiaries had failed. This treaty will, it is believed, in its realized results, be found one of the most satisfactory that