November 18.
Chronology.
On the 18th of November, 1777, died William Bowyer, an eminent printer of London, where he was born on the 17th of December, 1699. He had been always subject to a bilious colic, and for the last ten years of his life was afflicted with the palsy; yet he retained a remarkable cheerfulness of disposition, and his faculties, though somewhat impaired, enabled him to maintain the conversation of his literary friends, pursue a course of incessant reading, which was his principal amusement, and correct the learned works, especially the Greek books, printed at his press. Within a few weeks before his death, he sunk under his maladies and the progress of decay. His numerous critical writings afford ample evidence of his ability as a scholar; and as a learned printer, he had no rival for more than half a century. Of his regard to religion and morals, both in principle and practice, his whole life bore unquestionable evidence. His probity was inflexible. The promptitude with which he relieved every species of distress, and his modesty in endeavouring to conceal his benefactions, marked the benevolence and delicacy of his disposition. In the decline of life, and in his testamentary arrangements, he seems to have been influenced by a regard to two great objects; one was to repay the benefactions which had been conferred on his father at a time when he peculiarly needed assistance, and the other was to be himself a benefactor to the meritorious in his own profession. By his will, after liberally providing for his only surviving son, and allotting various private bequests, he appropriated several sums to “the benefit of printing,” particularly with a view to the relief of aged printers, compositors or pressmen, and to the encouragement of the journeyman compositor, whom he particularly describes, and who is required to be capable of reading and construing Latin, and, at least, of reading Greek fluently with accents. These latter bequests he committed to the direction and disposal of the master, wardens, and assistants of the Company of Stationers.
Mr. Bowyer was buried, agreeably to his own direction, at Low-Layton, in Essex, and a monument erected, at the expense of his friend, Mr. Nichols, to his father’s memory and his own, with a Latin inscription written by himself. There is a bust of him in Stationers’-hall, with an English inscription annexed, in his own words: and beside it are a portrait of his father, and another of his patron, Mr. Nelson, all presented to the Company by Mr. Nichols, who was his apprentice, partner, and successor; and who has done ample justice to his eminent predecessor’s memory, by an invaluable series of “Anecdotes” of Mr. Bowyer, and many celebrated literary characters of the last and present century, whose persons or writings Mr. Nichols’s professional labours and varied erudition had acquainted him with.