OF JOHN EDDOWES BOWMAN, ESQ. 81 
his private character—his aversion from the strife 
and vanity of the world—largely contributed. 
As he moved with noiseless step along the ‘cool 
sequestered vale of life,’ he fixed his clear eye 
with a tranquil delight on the glorious spectacle 
of nature’s works, and received back their ima- 
ges on the smooth unsullied mirror of a virtuous 
mind. 
With the modesty which belonged to him, he 
used sometimes to lament the contracted nature 
of his early education. It was not easy to per- 
ceive the traces of it in his writings or his con- 
versation. His ideas, clear, precise, and well ar- 
ranged, clothed themselves readily in a simple and 
unaffected phraseology: and the style of his pub- 
lished papers is admirably adapted to the purposes 
of instruction ;—it is perspicuous and descriptive, 
and possesses a kind of natural elegance. It may 
be questioned, however, whether in some depart- 
ments of human exertion, the absence of a scho- 
lastic education be so great a misfortune as has 
been generally supposed. In the ordinary modes 
of culture, the mind is often inundated with words 
which do not clearly convey the ideas of others, 
and has no opportunity of freely developing its 
own; its natural appetite for knowledge is anti- 
M 
