HOWELL, JAMES (1594-1666), a voluminous English author, best known by his collection of letters (Epistolee HoEliance) and his Instructions for Forreine Travell, which, in Mr Arber's phrase, form our first handbook for the Continent. Howell, as he was proud to acknowledge, was a Welshman ; he was born probably at Abernaut in Carmarthenshire, where his father was minister. From the free grammar school at Hereford be proceeded to Jesus College, Oxford, in 1610, and there he took his degree of B.A. in 1613. About 1617 we find him holding the post of 'steward in Sir Robert Mansell's glass-works in Broad Street, and in the following year he was commissioned to go abroad to procure the services of some high-class workmen. It was not till 1622 that he returned home, having visited Holland, France, Spain, and Italy ; and these three or four years of foreign experience made a lasting impression on his character and his career. Not long after his return lie was despatched to Spain in company with Lord Digby's embassy to try and settle a dispute about the unlawful seizure of an English vessel ; but though he remained till the end of 1624 he was obliged to return without success: the Spaniards, irritated at the breaking off of the famous match, were in no mood for concessions. For some time Howell had no stable employment, but at length, in 1626, he went to York as secretary to Lord Scroop, lord president of the north, and for a season he appears to have been wonderfully fortunate. In 1627 he was elected M.P. for Richmond ; in 1632 he was sent as orator with the embassy of the earl of Leicester to Denmark ; and in 1642 the king appointed him one of the clerks of the privy council. On suspicion of royalist leanings he was committed to the Fleet prison by the Parliament in 1643, and, though he professed himself most humbly submissive to its authority, he was allowed to languish in confinement till 1618. fie had acquired considerable fame by his allegorical Acv8poXoyia, published in 1640, and his Instructions fur Forreine Travell, 1642 ; and now he was driven to maintain himself by his pen. Ile edited and supplemented Cotgrave's French and English dictionary, compiled Lexicon Tetraglotton, or an English, French, Italian, and ,Spanish Dictionary (London, 1660), translated various works from Italian and Spanish, and wrote a life of Luuis XIII. In 1660 he presented a petition for confirmation in the place of clerk of the privy council ; and, though this was not granted him, the post of historiographer royal was created for his benefit. In 1661 be made application for the office of tutor in foreign languages to the infanta Catherine of Braganza, and in the following year published an English Grammar translated into Spanish. He died in 1666, having realized to the last his favourite motto, " Senesco non segnesco." Howell had no small ability and learning ; and all his writings are imbued with a certain simplicity and quaintness. His elaborate allegories, Discourses of Trees and the like, are now dead to the root ; his linguistic labours, though of worth in their time, are a hundred times superseded ; but his Letters (10th ed., 1737) are still almost models of their kind, and his instructions, with their subtle observations and pithy parallels, are well worthy of their place in Mr Arbor's series (London, 1869).