John Bowring - Early Life

Early Life

Bowring was born in Exeter of Charles Bowring (1769–1856), a wool merchant from an old Unitarian family, and Sarah Jane Anne (d. 1828), the daughter of Thomas Lane, vicar of St Ives, Cornwall. His last formal education was a Unitarian school in Moretonhampstead and he started work in his father's business at age 13. Bowring at one stage wished to become a minister. In early life he came under the influence of Jeremy Bentham, and later became his friend. He did not, however, share Bentham's contempt for belles lettres. He was a diligent student of literature and foreign languages, especially those of Eastern Europe.

Bowring ranked with Giuseppe Caspar Mezzofanti and Hans Conon von der Gabelentz among the world's greatest hyperpolyglots – his talent enabling him at last to say that he knew 200 languages, and could speak 100. His chief literary work was the translation of the folk-songs of most European nations, although he also wrote original poems and hymns, as well as works on political and economic subjects. The first fruits of his study of foreign literature appeared in Specimens of the Russian Poets (1821–1823). These were followed by Batavian Anthology (1824), Ancient Poetry and Romances of Spain (1824), Specimens of the Polish Poets, and Serbian Popular Poetry, both in 1827, and Poetry of the Magyars (1830).