not seldom effective. They have never been collected. Many of them are included in the acting national drama of Webster, and the collections of Lacy, French, and Dicks. Boucicault's brilliant literary and histrionic qualities were not supported by any very rigorous moral code. He was for a time a strong advocate of Irish home rule.
[Personal knowledge; Pascoe's Dramatic List; Scott and Howard's Blanchard; Cook's Nights at the Play; Cole's Life of Charles Kean; Era; Era Almanack; Athenæum, 27 Sept. 1890; Sunday Times, various years; Men of the Time, 12th edit.]
BOWEN, CHARLES SYNGE CHRISTOPHER, Baron Bowen (1835–1894), judge, born at Woolaston on 1 Jan. 1835, was eldest son of Christopher Bowen, a member of a co. Mayo family who was successively curate of Woolaston, near Chepstow, and of Bath Abbey church, rector of Southwark, and rector of St. Thomas's, Winchester. His mother was daughter of Sir Richard Steele, 4th dragoon guards, and her mother was of mixed Austrian and Irish descent. The son Charles from 1845 to 1847 was at school at Lille, and in the latter year went to the proprietary school at Blackheath. At the age of fifteen, when he went to Rugby, he had greatly impressed his masters with his proficiency as a scholar. At Rugby he was in the school house under Edward Meyrick Goulburn [q. v. Suppl.],his tutors being first Mr. Cotton (afterwards bishop of Calcutta), and subsequently Mr, Bradley (now dean of Westminster). As a schoolboy he was most remarkable for his combination of scholastic and athletic distinction. He always occupied the highest place in the school open to a boy of his age and standing. In November 1853 he was elected a scholar of Balliol, and at Rugby in July 1854 obtained the first exhibition {facile princeps), the queen's medal for modern history, and the prize for a Latin essay. He was a distinguished member of the cricket eleven, and is said to have been the best football player in the school. He also obtained the cup given at the athletic sports to the boy who had been successful in the greatest number of competitions. His brother wrote of him, 'He is the only person I ever knew to jump a cow as it stood.' He went into residence at Balliol in 1854, and won the Hertford scholarship in 1855, and the Ireland in 1857. In the latter year, while yet an undergraduate, he was elected a fellow of Balliol. In 1858 he obtained a first class in 'greats,' and was president of the union in the same year; and in 1859 he won the Arnold historical prize. He graduated B.A. in 1857, M.A. in 1872, and was created D.C.L. on 13 June 1883. During his undergraduate life Bowen became, and remained to the end of his life, the intimate friend and warm admirer of Benjamin Jowett [q. v. Suppl,], subsequently master of Balliol, upon whose proposal in 1885 the college paid Bowen the highest compliment in its power by electing him as its visitor.
In April 1858 Bowen entered as a student at Lincoln's Inn (of which he was elected a bencher in 1879), and in the same year, upon leaving Oxford, became a pupil in the chambers of Mr. Christie, an eminent conveyancer. From 1859 to 1861 he was a frequent contributor to the 'Saturday Review,' then edited by John Douglas Cook [q. v.], but terminated his connection with it in the latter year because of his disagreement with the view taken by its conductors of the orthodoxy of Dr. A. P. Stanley (subsequently dean of Westminster), and of his friend Jowett. The editorship of a proposed rival journal was offered to and declined by him.
On 26 Jan. 1861 Bowen was called to the bar, and in the following October joined the western circuit, and records having had 'ten little briefs' when he went sessions for the first time. He continued to work successfully at his profession until 1865, when his health failed seriously. He spent the winter of that year and the spring of 1867 abroad, suffering much from fever and nervous prostration. From this time his health was always precarious, and his physical strength was probably never equal to the strain put upon it by his unremitting industry. After the general election of 1868 he was appointed a member of the Totnes election commission, but upon the discovery that his standing at the bar did not qualify him for that office the appointment was cancelled and that of secretary to the commission substituted for it. In 1869 he was made a revising barrister. In 1871–4 he was employed as junior counsel in the 'Tichborne Case,' appearing against the 'Claimant' both in the trial at nisi prius before Chief-justice Bovill, and in the criminal trial 'at bar' before Lord-chief-justice Cockburn and Justices Mellor and Lush [see Suppl. Orton, Arthur]. In the former of these trials he was brought into close connection with Sir John Duke (afterwards Lord) Coleridge [q. v. Suppl.], who led for the defendants, and the two men formed an affectionate intimacy which lasted throughout their lives. It is said that it was Bowen who invented in consultation the phrase, 'Would you be surprised to hear that?'
