Bowles

Bowles, William Leslie (or Lisle) (1762-1850), English poet. Born at King's Sutton, Northamptonshire, where his father was vicar, he went to Winchester College, and then to Trinity College, Oxford, and afterwards became prebendary of Salisbury, and rector of Bremhill, Wiltshire. He is perhaps less known for his own poetry than for his influence in forming the Lake School, and has been even more neglected than they now are. He inaugurated the poetry of nature; and his criticism of Pope, in an edition he brought out in 1807, gave rise to a controversy with Byron and Campbell, in which Bowles did not come off worst.