HOWELL, JAMES (1594?-1666).—­Miscellaneous writer, s. of a clergyman at Abernant, Caermarthenshire, was at Oxf. and spent the greater part of his earlier life travelling in various Continental countries, including the Low Countries, France, Spain, and Italy, on various matters of business, during which he became versed in many languages, and amassed stores of information and observations on men and manners.  He was a keen Royalist, and was on this account imprisoned in the Fleet, 1643-51.  He wrote a large number of books, including Dodona’s Grove, a political allegory, Instructions for Foreign Travel (1642), England’s Tears for the Present Wars, A Trance, or News from Hell, and above all, Epistolae Ho-Elianae, Familiar Letters, chiefly written in the Fleet to imaginary correspondents, but no doubt based upon notes of his own travels.  It is one of the most interesting and entertaining books in the language.

HOWIE, JOHN (1735-1793).—­Biographer, a Renfrewshire farmer, who claimed descent from an Albigensian refugee, wrote Lives of the martyrs of Scotland from Patrick Hamilton, the first, to James Renwick, the last, under the title of Scots Worthies.  The work of an unlettered man, it has considerable merit as regards both matter and style, and was long a classic among the Scottish peasantry as well as higher orders of the people.

HOWITT, WILLIAM (1792-1879), HOWITT, MARY (BOTHAM) (1799-1888).—­Miscellaneous writers.  William H. was b. at Heanor, Derbyshire, and was apprenticed to a builder; Mary was b. at Coleford, Gloucestershire; they m. in 1821, and settled at Hanley, where they carried on business as chemists.  Two years later they removed to Nottingham, where they remained for 12 years, and where much of their literary work was accomplished.  Thereafter they lived successively at Esher, London, Heidelberg, and Rome, at the last of which they both d. Their literary work, which was very voluminous, was done partly in conjunction, partly independently, and covered a considerable variety of subjects—­poetry, fiction, history, translations, and social and economical subjects.  Useful and pleasing in its day, little of it is likely to survive.  William’s works include A History of Priestcraft (1833), Rural Life in England (1837), Visits to Remarkable Places, Homes and Haunts of the Poets, Land, Labour, and Gold (1855), Rural Life in Germany, History of the Supernatural, and History of Discovery in Australia.  Mary translated the Swedish novels of Frederica Bremer, H.C.  Andersen’s Improvisatore, and wrote novels, including Wood Leighton and The Cost of Caergwyn, many successful tales and poems for children, and a History of the United States.  Their joint productions include The Forest Minstrel, Book of the Seasons, and Ruined Abbeys and Castles of Great Britain.  Both brought up as Quakers, they left that communion in 1847, and became believers in spiritualism; and in 1882 Mary joined the Church of Rome.