Bowles, William Lisle, Ma

Bowles, William Lisle, M.A., poet and preacher, was born at King's Sutton 1762, an educated a Winchester, whence, in 1781, he was elected a scholar of Trinity College, Oxford. He became vicar of Chicklade 1792, rector of Dumbleton 1797, vicar of Bremhill and prebendary of Salisbury 1804, canon residentiary 1828. He died 1850. His sonnets are among the best in the English language; and he is of note in the history of English literature as the harbinger of the "natural" school of poetry, as opposed to the artificial school of Pope and Dryden. His " Sonnets" have appeared in many editions. The "Missionary" is perhaps the best of his longer poems. He published also Ten Plain Parochial Sermons (8vo, 1814) :-Paulus paraochialis; or, a plain View of the Objects of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans (Bath, 1826, 12mo) :- The Life of Bishop Ken.