Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 22.djvu/301

 cially of reels and strathspeys, Gow was in his time without superior or rival. The power of his bow, particularly in the upward ‘stroke,’ is remarked on by his contemporaries, and to this power ‘must be ascribed the singular felicity of expression which he gave to all his music’. He composed a large number of melodies, nearly a hundred of which are included in the volumes published by his son Nathaniel. They are mostly of a lively character, chiefly reels, strathspeys, and quicksteps. The air ‘Locherroch Side’ (to which Burns wrote, ‘Oh! stay, sweet warbling woodlark, stay’), the ‘Lament for Abercairney,’ and ‘Farewell to Whisky,’ are deserving of special mention.

[Chambers's Eminent Scotsmen, 1855, ii. 487; Dr. M'Knight in Scots Mag. 1809; Drummond's Perthshire in Bygone Days; Grove's Dict. i. 615, where ‘Strathband’ is printed for ‘Strathbraan,’ his native district.] 

GOWAN, THOMAS (1631–1683), writer on logic, was born at Caldermuir, Scotland, in 1631. About 1658 he went to Ireland, and became minister of Glasslough, co. Monaghan, enjoying, though a presbyterian, the tithes and other temporalities like others of his fellow-churchmen at the time. He was one of the sixty-one Ulster ministers ejected in 1661 for nonconformity (, i. 325); but although he removed in 1667 to the neighbourhood of Connor, co. Antrim, and supplied that congregation with preaching, besides teaching languages and philosophy, the pastoral tie between him and Glasslough was not loosed till August 1672, when he was installed as minister of Antrim. Here he opened a ‘school of philosophy,’ which in 1674 was taken under the care of the church. A divinity school was added to it in 1675, in which Gowan was assisted by the celebrated John Howe, then chaplain at Antrim Castle. Both of these ministers were allowed, through an arrangement made by Lord Massareene, to officiate in the parish church. Gowan died 13 Sept. 1683, and was buried in Antrim churchyard, where a monument to his memory may still be seen.

He was the author of two treatises on logic, viz. ‘Ars Sciendi, sive Logica novo methodo disposita, et novis præceptis aucta’ (pp. 464, 12mo, London, 1681), and ‘Logica Elenctica, sive summa controversiarum quæ circa materiam et præcepta logicæ agitari solent, in qua etiam novæ aliquot quæstiones tractantur’ (pp. 505, 12mo, Dublin, 1683). Appended to the latter work is a small tract of twelve pages, entitled ‘Elementa Logicæ paucis aphorismis comprehensa, per eundem auctorem.’ He bases his logic, he says, ‘on the systems of Keckerman and Burgersdicius, but more particularly on the logic of Claubergius, and a French work, the “Ars Cogitandi,” by an anonymous author.’ He also appears to have written a book against the quakers (Minutes of Laggan, pp. 237, 246), but there is no record of its having been ever printed, and it is now lost.

[Ware's Writers of Ireland; Reid's Hist. of the Presb. Church in Ireland; Witherow's Memorials of Presb. in Ireland.] 

GOWER. [See also .] GOWER,. [See, 1675–1709.]

GOWER,. [See, d. 1754.]

GOWER, ERASMUS (1742–1814), admiral, eldest son of Abel Gower of Glandoven in Pembrokeshire, entered the navy in 1755, under the care of his maternal uncle, Captain Donkley. After serving through the war on the North American and home stations, he passed for lieutenant in 1762, and was then lent for service in Portugal, against which the allied houses of Bourbon had declared war. After the peace he was appointed as master's mate of the Dolphin with Commodore John Byron [q. v.], and again as lieutenant of the Swallow with Captain Philip Carteret [q. v.] Towards the end of 1769 he was appointed to the Swift with Captain George Farmer [q. v.], with whom he returned to England in the Favourite. He was directly afterwards appointed to the Princess Amelia, going out to Jamaica with Sir George Rodney's flag. In 1777 he served in the Levant frigate with Captain George Murray in the Mediterranean; in 1779 he was selected by Rodney as first lieutenant of his flagship, the Sandwich, and, on the capture of the Spanish convoy off Cape Finisterre on 9 Jan. 1780, was promoted to command the Guipuscoa prize, commissioned as the Prince William. After holding some temporary appointments in the Channel and on the home station, Gower was in November 1781 appointed to the Medea frigate for service in the East Indies. At Cuddalore, on 30 Jan. 1783, she captured the Vryheid, a Dutch ship of 50 guns, lying under the batteries, and apparently trusting for safety to their protection (, Nav. and Mil. Mem. v. 606), and a few weeks later recaptured the Chaser sloop with important despatches to Suffren. She was afterwards present in the last engagement between Suffren and Sir Edward Hughes [q. v.] off Cuddalore. From 1786 to 1789 Gower served as flag-captain to Commodore (afterwards