Bowdler, Dr Thomas
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- Bowdler, Dr Thomas
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(1754 - 1825), physician and editor of Shakespeare; yr. s. of Thomas Bowdler; St Andrew's U.; MD Edinb. 1776; FRS 1781; left medical profession 1785; m. 1806 Mrs Trevennon.
1778 - 9 Padua (Jul. - Aug. 1778), Venice (Aug.), Florence, Pistoia, Leghorn, Florence (Sep. - Oct.), Rome (Nov. - 29 Dec. 1778), Naples (by 3 Jan. - Mar. 1779), Rome (by 10 - 12 Apr.), Naples (14 - 21 Apr.), Sicily (29 Apr. - May), Naples, Leghorn (by 10 Jun. 1779), Genoa, Parma, Milan ( - 3 Jul.), Turin (3 - 11 Jul.) [England, by 28 Dec.]
1783 [dep. England 29 Nov. 1782] Florence (by 15 Jan. - 5 Feb. 1783)
Though destined to achieve notoriety as the expurgator of Shakespeare and Gibbon, Thomas Bowdler first graduated in medicine at Edinburgh University. He then travelled for some three years on the Continent, coming to Italy in the summer of 1778 after visiting Germany, Austria and Hungary. He 'visited every part of Italy and Sicily', his nephew later wrote, to return home 'familiarly acquainted with modern languages, his taste formed after the purest models, and his knowledge enlarged from the various sources of information which had been opened to him'.1 One such source was John Strange, the British resident in Venice, who appears to have stimulated an interest in natural history and geology, and obsequious letters written in Italy from Bowdler to Strange furnish some details of his travels.2
He had travelled out from London to Spa with Rowland Burdon, who then went off on his own to Switzerland and France (1 Jun. 1779). Bowdler was in Padua in July, where, he told Strange, 'my mornings are employed with my Books, & Italian Master; my evenings with some very kind friends to whom you was so good as to introduce me' (28 Jul. 1778). After staying with Strange in Venice he went to Florence, where it rained ceaselessly for six weeks and only Horace Mann's kindness redeemed the circumstances. He went on to find clear skies and English society in Rome, assuring Strange that meanwhile his 'Telescope and Thermometer' were well (7 Nov. 1778). He mentioned meeting the Bishop of Derry who, however, was not impressed with 'That would-be naturalist, and half-natural, poor Bowdler, whose mind and ideas seem to limp more than his body'.3 In January he was sight-seeing in Naples and becoming ashamed of how dissipated he had been (in his own terms) for the last three months (26 Jan. 1779). In March he again met Rowland Burdon, together with John Patteson, John Soane, John Stewart of Allanbank and Henry Greswolde Lewis; together they discussed visiting Sicily, but William Hamilton then deterred them. Bowdler returned to Rome with the intention of going, early in April, to Genoa, Turin and Milan and then Switzerland (27 Mar. 1779). But he changed his mind and made the deferred expedition to Sicily with John Stewart in May (while Lewis, Soane, Patteson and Burdon made a more protracted tour of the island). Bowdler told Strange of an ascent of Etna and described the volcanic islands of Lipari and Stromboli. Returning to Naples he saw an eruption of Vesuvius, 'glorious beyond imagination' (Leghorn, 10 Jun. 1779). He was weatherbound for a week in Leghorn before sailing to Genoa; he had then been to Parma to see his 'favorite Corregio' and had come to Turin via Milan (Turin, 3 Jul. 1779). He left Italy soon after and arrived in Bath on 28 December, having been abroad 'two Years & a half & travelled 8000 miles' (11 Jan. 1780). When he was elected FRS in 1781 John Strange and William Hamilton were among his sponsors.
In January 1783 he returned briefly to Italy as a physician, having been asked by Charles Gore to attend his daughter, Lady Cowper, in Florence. Writing from Strasbourg (29 Dec. 1782) he told Strange that 'the offer which was made was handsome, & I accepted it'; he had set out with Emily Gore and her father on 29 November 1782 and was travelling 'without seeing anything by the Road Side or enquiring into anything but the nearest road to Florence'. On 28 December Horace Mann wrote that the party would find Lady Cowper 'quite recovered'.4 They arrived between 4 and 15 January 1783, and left on 5 February, to go by 'Leghorn or Lerici to Genoa or Antibes by water, and not come near Venice'.5
In 1815, after he had travelled further on the Continent, Bowdler reflected that 'the great advantage to be derived by Englishmen from a view of foreign Countries in general, and of France in particular, is to increase their attachment to their native land'.6
1. Memoir of the late John Bowdler, [1825], 299 - 300. 2. Eg. 2001, ff.213, 216 [1778]; Eg.2002, ff.5, 10, 18, 26, 48 [1779 - 80], 151 [1782]. Dates given in brackets. 3. Childe-Pemberton, 2:230. 4. Wal.Corr., 25:352. 5. Parker letters MSS, B 2074 - 6 (4, 23 Jan., 5 Feb. 1783). 6. Bowdler, Life of Lt.Gen. Villettes, [1815], 128.