BOWDLER  .

THOMAS (1754—1825), editor of the "` family " Shakespeare, younger son of Thomas Bawdier, a gentleman ofindependent fortune, was born at Ashley, near Bath, on the 1th of July 1754 . He studied medicine at the universities of St Andrews and Edinburgh, graduating M.D. in 1776 . After four years spent in foreign travel, he settled in London, where he became intimate with Mrs Montague and other learned ladies . In 1800 he left London to live in the Isle of Wight, and later on he removed to South Wales . He was an energetic philanthropist, and carried on John Howard's work in the prisons and penitentiaries . In 1818 he published The Family Shakespeare " in ten volumes, in which nothing is added to the original text; but those words and expressions are omitted which cannot with propriety be read aloud in a family." Criticisms of this edition appeared in the British Critic of April 1822 . Bowdler also expurgated Edward Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (published posthumously, 1826); and he issued a selection from the Old Testament for the use of children . He died at Rhyddings, near Swansea, on the 24th of February 1825 . From Bowdler's name we have the word to " bowdlerize," first known to occur in General Perronet Thompson's Letters of a Representative to his Constituents during the Session of 1836, printed in Thompson's Exercises, iv . 126 . The official interpretation is " to expurgate (a book or writing) by omitting or modifying words or passages considered indelicate or offensive." Both the word and its derivatives, however, are associated with false squeamishness .

In the ridicule poured on the name of Bowdler it is

worth noting that Swinburne in " Social Verse " (Studies in Prose and Poetry, 1894, p .