HOWELL, JAMES, the son of a clergyman in Wales, was born near Brecknock, about the year 1596. He was educated at Jesus College, Oxford, where in 1513 he took his bachelor's degree, but then left the university. His father's family was numerous, and he had to shift for himself. Several men of rank having set up a patent glass-manufactory in London, Howell was appointed to be their steward or manager; and in 1619 he undertook for his employers a tour on the Continent, in the course of which he visited Holland, Flanders, France, Spain, and Italy. Returning home in 1621, he was elected a Fellow of Jesus College. He next travelled as tutor to a young gentleman ; after which he was sent to Madrid to negotiate the restoration of a confiscated merchant vessel. His skill and activity in business had now made him well known. In 1626, after having been treated with for a diplomatio appointment, he became secretary to Lord Scropc, the president of the North, and was noxt year chosen to sit in parliament for the borough of Richmond. In 1632 he went to Denmark as secretary to an extraordinary embassy ; and on his return he continued to be for some time unemployed, visiting Ireland to seek service under Strafford, but being disappointed by that nobleman's fall. Iu 1610 his diversified services were rewarded by an appointment to the clerkship of the Council at Whitehall; but the breaking out of the civil war soon made his place daugerous, and in no long time deprived him of it. In 1643 he was committed to the Fleet, where he was detained till after the king's death. He was penniless, and even in debt; but, with
his characteristic versatility and spirit, be set about writing for the press, by which he contrived to maintain himself, both during his imprisonment and afterwards under the Protectorate. A little flattery which he had found it convenient to administer to Cromwell was for given at the Restoration, when the place of historiographer-royal was created as a moans of providing for him. Ho retained this office till his death, which happened in November 1666. He was buried in the Temple church.
Howell's writings are very numerous. A few of them are in verse, the principal being his Dodona's Grove, or the Vocal Forest,' 1610, which he himself translated into French. But his prose works alone deserve remembrance; and of these there are not a few which either were pamphlets of temporary interest or translations of historical pieces from the French and Italian, and were forgotten even in his owe time. Howell's name is preserved by the good sense, sagacity, and liveliness of his letters, which were the earliest collection of the kind poblished in our country. They were whimsically called 'Epistolas Ho-Elianas : familiar Letters, domestic and foreign, partly historical, partly political, and partly philosophical. The first volume appeared in 1645, the fourth and last in 1655, and they have since gone through many editions.