1687 for the purpose of forming commercial relations with that empire, as well as of satisfying the curiosity of the learned academicians of France with respect to its geography and productions; born at Mans in 1682; died at Pekin in 1732. After a comfortable term of residence in the capital of the empire, during which, along with another missionary, he fulfilled the duties of mathematical master at court, Bouvet returned to Europe in 1677, bringing with him as a present to Louis XIV. forty-nine Chinese volumes. Louis acknowledged the gratification he derived from this courtesy by sending back the missionary with a magnificently-bound volume of engravings which he was charged to deliver to the emperor. "An Account of China," Paris, 1697; "A Historical Portrait of the Emperor," translated into Latin by Leibnitz, 1699; and some notices of the empire, inserted in various collections of letters, are the principal performances of Bouvet.—J. S., G.
BOUVIER, André Marie Joseph, a French physician, born at Dôle in 1746; died in 1827. Under the empire he was physician to the empress-mother. At the restoration he obtained some appointments, which he retained till an advanced age. He was at one time an enthusiastic musician, and latterly an agriculturist. He wrote "Experiences et Observations sur la Culture et l'Usage de la Spergale," 1798; and "Extrait d'un Memoire sur l'Hydropisie aiguë des Ventricules du Cerveau."
BOUYS, Andrew, a French artist, born in Provence in 1681. He studied under Francis de Troy, and became a well-known portrait painter in Paris. He engraved in mezzotint portraits of the marquis de Bellay, his old master, and Massillon, and died about 1730.—W. T.
BOUZONNET, Antony, a second-rate French painter, born at Lyons in 1694. He studied under his uncle, Stella, and died unsuccessful in 1682.—W. T.
BOVADILLA. See Bobadilla.
BOVET, François de, a French prelate, born in 1745; died at Paris in 1838. He was consecrated bishop of Sistéron in 1789, but the troubles of the Revolution prevented him from occupying that see, and on his return to France, after an exile of some years, he was named archbishop of Toulouse. He took possession of that see in 1819, but on account of ill health was obliged to resign it in the following year. His works—"Des Dynasties Egyptiennes," and "L'Histoire des derniers Pharaohs et des premiers rois de Perse, tirées des livres prophetiques et du livre d'Esther," are valuable and interesting.
BOVINI, Francesco, a Ferrara artist, who painted the well-known altarpieces in Andrew's city—"The Wise Men's offering," and "The Immaculate Conception"—and having made those two marks, died otherwise unknown.—W. T.
BOWDICH, Thomas Edward, a celebrated English traveller on the west coast of Africa, was born at Bristol in 1793. After he had completed his studies at Oxford, his father, who was a manufacturer in an extensive way of business, took him into his factory; but the young man having a great desire for travelling, soon entered the service of the African company, who sent him to Cape Coast Castle. From Cape Coast Castle he undertook an embassy to the king of Ashantee; after which, in 1818, he returned to England, where he published the account of his mission to Ashantee in 1819. This exceedingly interesting book raised him powerful enemies. He had freely exposed in it the misdeeds of the African company, and the latter in revenge refused to pay him the stipulated price for his services. His application to the government for the means of making a new voyage of discovery into the interior of Africa, was also defeated by the same influence; and thus, thrown upon his own resources, he visited Paris, where he studied the natural sciences, and devoted himself to literature with so much zeal, that, as early as 1822, he had got together a sufficient sum to carry out his plan. He accordingly embarked at Havre with his wife and two children; but his great exertions had so weakened his constitution that he fell ill just as he was on the point of ascending the Niger, and died in his thirty-first year, as a martyr to his zeal for science, in January, 1824. Mrs. Sarah Bowdich (afterwards married to a Mr. Lee) accompanied her husband on both his voyages, and assisted him in his natural history studies by her ready pencil; she is well known as the author of numerous books for the young, principally on subjects connected with zoology.—W. S. D.
BOWDITCH, Nathaniel, an eminent American mathematician and man of science, was born at Salem, Massachusetts, March 26, 1773; died at Boston, March 16, 1833. The poverty of his parents obliged him to leave school when he was but twelve years old; and he was then placed in a ship-chandler's shop, where he continued nine years. But he was an eager student during his leisure hours; and he made himself a good mathematician, performing all the calculations for an almanac complete, when he was but fifteen years of age. He afterwards studied Latin by himself, so as to be able to read Newton's Principia in the original; and he subsequently acquired Spanish, German, and Italian enough to read scientific books in those languages, all without an instructor. His zeal and success in the pursuit of knowledge attracting notice, private libraries were opened to him; and a fortunate accident brought within his reach a good collection of works on science. At the age of twenty-one he began a seafaring life, which he continued for nine years—first as captain's clerk, then as supercargo, and lastly as master. He made several voyages to the East Indies, in which his great delight was to obtain the ship's place from lunar observations; instructing the other officers, and many even of the crew, to do the same, and effecting many improvements in the processes of computation. In 1800 he published his "Practical Navigator," based on J. H. Moore's work on the same subject, which he issued at first only in a revised edition; but made so many corrections and improvements in it, that it was finally deemed proper that it should appear under his own name. All the tables were calculated anew, and were nearly doubled in number. The new work came immediately into universal use in the American marine, was republished in London, and was largely used in the English and French service. Quitting nautical life in 1803, Bowditch became president of an insurance company in Salem, a post which he held for twenty years, when he removed to Boston, to become the actuary of the Hospital Life Insurance Company, the largest institution of the kind in the United States. In this office he continued for the rest of his life, though he was successively offered a professorship of mathematics in Harvard college, in the university of Virginia, and in the national military academy at West Point. He was long a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, was its president for some years, and contributed many mathematical and astronomical papers to its Transactions, while he also wrote on similar topics for other journals. But the great work of his life was the translation, with a commentary, of Laplace's Mécanique Céleste, in four quarto volumes of over a thousand pages each, the annotations occupying even more space than the text. He commenced the work in 1815; the first volume appeared in 1829; the second in 1832; the third in 1834; and death interrupted him when he was correcting the proof-sheet of the 1000th page of the fourth. This work met with the most flattering reception both in Europe and America: it presents many important corrections and improvements of the original, which, without Bowditch's commentary, would be a sealed book to all but a few highly-gifted mathematicians. Dr. Bowditch was a member of the Royal Societies of London, Edinburgh, and Dublin, and of many other scientific associations. He was a fellow of Harvard college during the last twelve years of his life, and thus had a decisive voice in the control of its affairs. Many other literary and scientific bodies in New England are indebted to him either for their organization or for great improvements in their means of usefulness. The closing scenes of his life were happy, as his mind remained unclouded to the last, though his bodily frame was wasted by protracted disease. He achieved an honourable reputation by his scientific labours, and his life and character appear, even to the severest scrutiny, without a stain.
BOWDOIN, James, LL.D., F.R.S., was born at Boston, Massachusetts, on the 7th of August, 1726. His father was a wealthy merchant of that town, and a member of the colonial council of Massachusetts. He was the younger of two brothers, and had just attained to his majority when his father died. He entered at first into mercantile business, but soon found more congenial employment in philosophical and political pursuits. Two or three years after he left college, he made the acquaintance of the celebrated Benjamin Franklin, then in the maturity of his powers, and immediately occupied with his great electrical discoveries. Franklin, though twenty years older than Bowdoin, seems to have been impressed with a peculiar regard and respect for him, sent him all his papers on electricity to examine, and invited his opinion on them. A correspondence between Franklin at Philadelphia, and Bowdoin at Boston, was thus established,
