BOUNTIFUL (Lady), widow of sir Charles Bountiful.  Her delight was curing the parish sick and relieving the indigent.

“My lady Bountiful is one of the best of women.  Her late husband, sir Charles Bountiful, left her with L1000 a year; and I believe she lays out one-half on’t in charitable uses for the good of her neighbors.  In short, she has cured more people in and about Lichfield within ten years than the doctors have killed in twenty; and that’s a bold word.”—­George Farquhar, The Beaux’ Stratagem, i. 1 (1705).

BOUNTY (Mutiny of the), in 1790, headed by Fletcher Christian.  The mutineers finally settled in Pitcairn Island (Polynesian Archipelago).  In 1808 all the mutineers were dead except one (Alexander Smith), who had changed his name to John Adams, and became a model patriarch of the colony, which was taken under the protection of the British Government in 1839.  Lord Byron, in The Island, has made the “mutiny of the Bounty” the basis of his tale, but the facts are greatly distorted.

BOUS’TRAPA, a nickname given to Napoleon III.  It is compounded of the first syllables of Bou [logne], Stra [sbourg], Pa[ris], and alludes to his escapades in 1836, 1840, 1851 (coup d’etat).

No man ever lived who was distinguished by more nicknames than Louis Napoleon.  Besides the one above mentioned, he was called Badinguet, Man of December, Man of Sedan, Ratipol, Verhuel, etc.; and after his escape from the fortress of Ham he went by the pseudonym of count Arenenberg.

BOWER OF BLISS, a garden belonging to the enchantress Armi’da.  It abounded in everything that could contribute to earthly pleasure.  Here Rinal’do spent some time in love-passages with Armi’da, but he ultimately broke from the enchantress and rejoined the war.—­Tasso, Jerusalem Delivered (1575).

Bower of Bliss, the residence of the witch Acras’ia, a beautiful and most fascinating woman.  This lovely garden was situated on a floating island filled with everything which could conduce to enchant the senses, and “wrap the spirit in forgetfulness.”—­Spenser, Faery Queen, ii. 12 (1590).

BOWKIT, in The Son-in-Law.

In the scene where Cranky declines to accept Bowkit as son-in-law on account of his ugliness, John Edwin, who was playing “Bowkit” at the Haymarket, uttered in a tone of surprise, “Ugly?” and then advancing to the lamps, said with infinite impertinence, “I submit to the decision of the British public which is the ugliest fellow of us three:  I, old Cranky, or that gentleman there in the front row of the balcony box?”—­Cornhill Magazine (1867).

BOWLEY (Sir Joseph), M.P., who facetiously calls himself “the poor man’s friend.”  His secretary is Fish.—­C.  Dickens, The Chimes (1844).

BOWLING (Lieutenant Tom), an admirable naval character in Smollett’s Roderick Random. Dibdin wrote a naval song in memoriam of Tom Bowling, beginning thus: