Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Howell, James
HOWELL, JAMES (1594?–1666), author, was fourth child and second son of Thomas Howell by a daughter of James David Powell of Bualt. Howell states that his brothers and sisters numbered fourteen, but three sons, including Thomas, bishop of Bristol [q. v.], and three daughters composed the family according to the pedigree in Brit. Mus. MS. Harl. 4181, p. 258. The pedigree is traced back by modern representatives to Tudwal Glôff (fl. 878), son of Rhodri the Great. Howell's father, curate of Llangammarch, Brecknockshire, and afterwards rector of Cynwil and Abernant, Carmarthenshire, died in 1632, when James recounted his virtues in a pathetic letter to Theophilus Field, bishop of St. David's (Fam. Epist. i. § 6, vii.) Wood states that James was born at Abernant, where his father was residing in 1610, but, according to Fuller, Howell's elder brother, Thomas, afterwards bishop of Bristol [q. v.], was born at the Brynn, Llangammarch, and Howell, in his 'Letters,' mentions that place as the residence of his family. The Oxford matriculation register states that he was sixteen in 1610; he was, therefore, born about 1594. In a letter dated 1645 (i. § 6, 60) he vaguely speaks of himself as forty-nine years old, but Howell's dates are usually inexact. He was educated at Hereford Free School under 'a learned though lashing master' (Epist. i. § 1, 2). On 16 June 1610 he matriculated as 'James Howells' of Carmarthenshire from Jesus College, Oxford, and graduated B.A. on 17 Dec. 1613. Dr. Francis Mansell, Sir Eubule Thelwall, and Dr. Thomas Prichard, with whom he corresponded later on friendly terms, took much interest in him as an undergraduate. In 1623 he was elected, according to his own statement, fellow of Jesus on Sir Eubule Thelwall's foundation. He usually wrote of Oxford as 'his dearly honoured mother.'
Soon after taking his degree Howell, a 'pure cadet,' who was 'not born to land, lease, home, or office' (i. § 6, lx.), was appointed by Sir Robert Mansell, the uncle of his tutor, Francis Mansell, steward of a glassware manufactory in Broad Street, London. In 1616 he was sent by his employers to the continent to obtain materials and workmen. A warrant from the council enabled him to travel for three years, provided that he did not visit Rome or St. Omer. He passed through Holland, France, Spain, and Italy, became an accomplished linguist, and engaged competent workmen at Venice and Middleburg. On returning to London about 1622 he gave up his connection with the glasshouse, and, seeking to turn his linguistic capacity to account, made a vain application to join the embassy of Sir John Ayres to Constantinople. Sir James Croft, a friend of his father, recommended him as tutor to the sons of Lord Savage; but owing to his youth, and to the fact that his pupils were Roman catholics, he filled the post for a very short time. During 1622 he made a tour in France with a young friend, Richard Altham, son of Baron Altham, 'one of the hopefullest young men of this kingdom for parts and person.' At Poissy Howell endangered his health by close study, and on returning to London was attended by Dr. Harvey, the great physician.
Towards the end of 1622 Howell was sent to Spain on a special mission to obtain satisfaction for the seizure by the viceroy of Sardinia of a richly laden ship called the Vineyard, belonging to the Turkey company. Sir Charles Cornwallis and Lord Digby had already tried in vain to obtain redress, but Howell's importunate appeals to the Spanish ministers led to the appointment of a committee of investigation and to a declaration in favour of the English owners of the captured ship and merchandise. Howell visited Sardinia and induced the viceroy to offer compensation, but the viceroy proved insolvent, and Howell on his return to Madrid found the situation altered by the presence there of Prince Charles and Buckingham. Cottington, the prince's secretary, directed him to abstain from further action, and after the departure of the prince and his suite Olivarez made it plain that the Spanish government had no intention of aiding him. While the royal party was at Madrid Howell made the acquaintance of many of Prince Charles's retainers, including Sir Kenelm Digby and Endymion Porter, and wrote home spirited accounts of the prince's courtship of the infanta. Digby relates that Howell was accidentally wounded in the hand while in his society at Madrid, and that his `sympathetic powder' worked its first cure in Howell's case (A Late Discourse, 1658). Howell returned to England at the close of 1624 in company with Peter Wych, who was in charge of the prince's jewels. He made suit for employment to the all-powerful Duke of Buckingham, but his intimate relations (according to his own story) with Digby, earl of Bristol, Buckingham's enemy, ruined his prospects. A suggestion, which Howell ascribes to Lord Conway in 1626, that he should act as 'moving agent to the king' in Italy, came to nothing, because his demand for 100l. a quarter was deemed exorbitant. But he was in the same year appointed secretary to Emanuel, lord Scrope (afterwards Earl of Sunderland), who was then lord-president of the north. The office required his residence at York, and in March 1627 the influence of his chief led to his election as M.P. for Richmond, Yorkshire. Late in 1628 Wentworth succeeded Scrope as lord-president. Howell seems to have remained private secretary to the latter until Scrope's death in 1630, and lived for the time in comfort. In December 1628 Wentworth bestowed on him the reversion of the next attorney's place which should fall vacant at York; but when a vacancy occurred in 1629 Howell sold his interest and sent Wentworth (5 May 1629) an effusive letter of thanks (Strafford Letters, i. 50). In 1632 he accompanied, as secretary, the embassy of Robert Sidney, earl of Leicester, which was sent to the court of Denmark to condole with the king on the death of his mother, the queen-dowager. His official Latin speeches made, he tells us, an excellent impression, and he obtained some new privileges for the Eastland company. A short `diarium' of the mission by Howell is in Bodl. Libr. MS. Rawl. c. 354. In 1635 he forwarded many news-letters to Strafford from Westminster, and spent a few weeks in the same year at Orleans on the business of Secretary Windebank. Still destitute of regular employment, he crossed to Dublin in 1639, was well received by Strafford, the lord-deputy, was granted a reversion of a clerkship of the council, and was sent by Strafford on a political mission to Edinburgh and London.
In London the chief literary men were among his acquaintances. Ben Jonson was especially friendly with him, and in a letter dated from Westminster, 5 April 1636, Howell describes 'a solemn supper' given by Jonson, at which he and Carew were present. On Jonson's death in 1637 he sent an elegy to Duppa, who included it in his 'Jonsonus Virbius.' Lord Herbert of Cherbury and Sir Kenelm Digby were among his regular correspondents. In 1640 he began his own literary career with the publication of his 'maiden fancy,' a political allegory in prose dealing with events between 1603 and 1640, entitled 'Δενδρολογ: Dodona's Grove, or the Vocall Forest.' A 'key' was added, and with the second and third editions of 1644 and 1645 were issued two political tracts, 'Parables reflecting upon the Times,' and 'England's Teares.' A Latin version was published in 1646; a second part appeared in 1650. When, in the year of its first publication, Howell went on some diplomatic business to France, he carried with him a French translation which he had made of the book, and this, after revision by friends in Paris, was published there before he left in the same year. On 1 Jan. 1641-2 he presented to the king a printed poem entitled `The Vote, or a Poem presented to His Majesty for a New Year's Gift,' London, 4to, 1642, and shortly afterwards issued his entertaining `Instructions for Forreine Travel,' with a dedication in verse to Prince Charles. Accounts of France, Spain, and Italy are supplied, to which in a new edition of 1650 was added an appendix on ‘travelling into Turkey and the Levant parts.’ The work was reprinted by Prof. Arber in 1868.
On 30 Aug. 1642 Howell was sworn in at Nottingham as clerk of the council, but the existing vacancy caused by the promotion of Sir Edward Nicholas to a secretaryship of state was filled by Sir John Jacob, and Howell was promised the next clerkship that fell vacant (Letters, ed. Jacobs, Suppl. p.667). The civil wars rendered the arrangement nugatory, and while Howell was paying what he intended to be a short visit to London early in 1643 he was arrested in his chambers by order of the Long parliament, his papers were seized, and he was committed to the Fleet. According to his own account, his only offence was his loyalty. Wood states that he was imprisoned as an insolvent debtor, and in his letters from the Fleet he twice refers to the pressure of his debts (ib. i. § 6, lv., lx.) It is possible that his imprisonment was prolonged at the instigation of his creditors. In spite of his frequent petitions for release, he remained in the Fleet for eight years, i.e. till 1651. Deprived of all other means of livelihood, he applied himself with remarkable industry to literature. At first he confined himself mainly to political pamphleteering. He claimed that his ‘Casual Discourses and Interlocutions between Patricius and Peregrine touching the Distractions of the Times’ was the first pamphlet issued in defence of the royalists; a second part, entitled ‘A Discourse or Parly continued betwixt Patricius and Peregrine upon their landing in France, touching the civill wars of England and Ireland,’ appeared on 21 July 1643 (both are reprinted in the ‘Twelve Treatises,’ 1661). In 1643 he wrote his ‘Mercurius Hibernicus’ (Bristol, 1644, 4to), an account of the recent ‘horrid insurrection and massacre in Ireland,’ dated from the Fleet, 3 April 1643. Prynne, in his ‘Popish Royal Favourite’ (1644), referring to Howell's account of Prince Charles's visit to Spain in ‘Dodona's Grove,’ described him as ‘no friend to parliament and a malignant.’ Howell repudiated the charge in his ‘Vindication of some passages reflecting upon him’ (1644), to which he added ‘A Clearing of some Occurrences in Spain at His Majesty's being there.’ Howell returned to the topic in ‘Preeminence and Pedigree of Parliaments’ (1644; reissued 1677), in which he described the Long parliament as ‘that high Synedrion wherein the Wisdom of the whole Senate is epitomized.’ Prynne adhered to his original statement in ‘A moderate Apology against a pretended Calumny,’ London, 1644, 4to. ‘England's Tears for the present Wars.’ an appeal for peace, followed immediately, and was translated into Latin as ‘Angliæ Suspiria et Lacrymæ,’ London, 1646, and into Dutch in 1649 (cf. reprinted in Harl. Misc. and Somers Tracts). It was reported to Howell in 1644 that the king was dissatisfied with some of his recent utterances on account of their ‘indifferency and lukewarmness,’ and he thereupon sent by letter to the king mild assurances of his loyalty, 3 Sept. 1644 (Epist. ii. lxiii.) On the same day he completed ‘A sober and seasonable memorandum sent to Philip, Earl of Pembroke,’ with whom he claimed a distant relationship [see Herbert, Philip]; on 3 May 1645 ‘The Sway of the Sword,’ a justification of Charles's claim to control the militia; and on 25 Feb. 1647-8 a defence of the Treaty of the Isle of Wight. In 1649 he issued, in English, French, and Latin, Charles I's latest declaration ‘touching his constancy in the Protestant religion,’ and also published an amusing, if ill-natured, ‘Perfect Description of the People and Country of Scotland,’ which was reprinted in No. 13 of Wilkes's ‘North Briton’ (August 1762), at the time of the agitation against Lord Bute. In 1651 he dedicated to the Long parliament his ‘S.P.Q.V. A Survey of the Seignorie of Venice’ (London, 1651, fol.) He was admitted to bail, and released from the Fleet in the same year.
As soon as Cromwell was installed in supreme power, Howell sought his favour by dedicating to him a pamphlet entitled ‘Some sober Inspections made into the carriage and consults of the late Long Parliament,’ London, 1653, 12mo, in the form of a dialogue between Phil-Anglus and Polyander (reissued in 1660). Howell commends Cromwell for having destroyed the parliament; compares the Protector to Charles Martel: argues in favour of rule by ‘a single person,’ and condemns 'the common people' as ‘a wavering windy thing’ and ‘an humersome and cross-grained animal.’ Dugdale, writing on 9 Oct. 1655, declared that Howell had spoken in the tract more boldly of the parliament ‘than any man that hath wrote since they sate’ (Hist. MSS. Comm. 5th Rep. p.17). On 2 Oct. 1654 Howell addressed ‘an admonition to my lord Protector and his council of their present danger,’ in which, while urging the need of an hereditary monarchy, he advised Cromwell to conciliate the army by admitting the officers to political influence, and to negotiate with Charles Stuart a treaty by which Charles should succeed him under well-defined limitations. In 1657 he offered to write for the council of state ‘a new treatise on the sovereignty of the seas’ (Hist. MSS. Comm. 5th Rep. p.314). Throughout the Commonwealth Howell's pen was busy. His most popular publication of the period was `Londinopolis. An Historical Discourse; or, Perlustration of the City of London and Westminster,' London, 1657, fol., a gossipy book largely borrowed from Stow, with plates by Hollar. On 23 March 1659-60 Howell wrote to Sir Edward Walker at Brussels of the necessity of 'calling in King Charles.' A broadside by him, entitled 'England's Joy Expressed … to Monck,' appeared in 1660.
On Charles II's restoration, Howell begged for an appointment as clerk of the council or as assistant and secretary to a royal commission for the regulation and advancement of trade. He pointed out to Lord Clarendon that his linguistic acquirements qualified him to become 'tutor for languages' to Queen Catherine of Braganza. In February 1661 he received a free gift from the king of 200l. He was appointed at a salary of 100l. a year historiographer royal of England, a place which is said to have been especially created for him, and republished twelve of his political tracts in a volume entitled in one form 'Twelve Treatises of the Later Revolutions' (1661), and in another 'Divers Historicall Discourses,' dedicated to Charles II. A second volume was promised, but did not appear. In 1661 also he issued a `Cordial for the Cavaliers,' professing somewhat cynically to console those supporters of the king who found themselves ill-requited for their services in his cause. His equivocal attitude led him into a bitter controversy with Sir Roger L'Estrange, who attacked his `Cordial' in a `Caveat for the Cavaliers.' Howell replied in `Some sober Inspections made into those Ingredients that went to the composition of a late Cordial call'd A Cordial for the Cavaliers.' L'Estrange retorted at the close of his 'Modest Plea both for the Caveat and Author of it' with a list of passages from Howell's earlier works to prove that he had flattered Cromwell and the Long parliament. Other political tracts of more decided royalist tone followed. His `Poems on severall Choice and Various Subjects occasionally composed by an eminent author,' were edited by Payne Fisher [q.v.], with a dedication to Henry King, bishop of Chichester, in 1663. As `Poems upon divers Emergent occasions' they reappeared in 1664. The enthusiastic editor declares that not to know Howell 'were an ignorance beyond barbarism' (cf. Censura Lit. iii. 277). He died unmarried in the parish of St. Andrew's, Holborn, and was buried on 3 Nov. 1666 `in the long walke neare the doore which goes up the steeple' of the Temple Church (Reg.) He had left directions, which were duly carried out, for a tomb with a Latin inscription to be set up in the Temple Church at a cost of 30l. The monument is now well preserved in the Triforium gallery of the round church at the Temple. By his will, dated 8 Oct. 1666 and proved 18 Feb. 1666-7, he left small bequests of money to his brother Howell, his sisters Gwin and Roberta-ap-Rice, and his landlady Mrs. Leigh. Three children of his brother Thomas, viz. Elizabeth, wife of Jeffrey Banister, Arthur and George Howell, besides one Strafford, a heelmaker, were also legatees. Another nephew, Henry Howell, was made sole executor. Many descendants of James's brother Howell Howell still survive in Wales.
Howell is one of the earliest Englishmen who made a livelihood out of literature. He wrote with a light pen; and although he shows little power of imagination in his excursions into pure literature, his pamphlets and his occasional verse exhibit exceptional faculty of observation, a lively interest in current affairs, and a rare mastery of modern languages, including his native Welsh. His attempts at spelling reform on roughly phonetic lines are also interesting. He urged the suppression of redundant letters like the e in done or the u in honour (cf. Epist. Ho-el. ed. Jacobs, p.510; Parley of Beasts, advt. at end). But it is in his 'Epistolæ Ho-elianæ: Familiar Letters, Domestic and Foreign, divided into Sundry Sections, partly Historical, Political, and Philosophical,' that his literary power is displayed at its best. Philosophic reflection, political, social, and domestic anecdote, scientific speculation, are all intermingled with attractive ease in the correspondence which he professes to have addressed to men of all ranks and degrees of intimacy. The first volume was issued in 1645, dedicated to Charles I, and with 'the Vote' prefixed ; a 'new,' that is the second volume, was issued in 1647; and both together appeared with a third volume in 1650. The first three volumes were thus published while Howell was in the Fleet. A fourth volume was printed in a collected edition of 1655. Later issues by London publishers are dated 1678, 1688, 1705, 1726, 1737, and 1754. The last three, called respectively the ninth, tenth, and eleventh editions, were described as 'very much corrected.' In 1753 another ' tenth ' edition was issued at Aberdeen. An eighth edition without date appeared after 1708 and before 1726. The first volume alone was reissued in the Stott Library in 1890. A complete reprint, with unpublished letters from the 'State Papers' and elsewhere, was edited by Mr. Joseph Jacobs in 1890; a complete commentary is to follow in a second volume (1891). Most of Howell's letters were in all probability written expressly for publication `to relieve his necessities' while he was in the Fleet. In the opening letter of the second and later editions it is not in the first Howell, while professing to return to Sir J. S. of Leeds Castle a copy of Balzac's letters, discusses the capacity of epistolary correspondence, and almost avows that he was prefacing a professedly literary collection. The series of letters on languages (bk. ii. lv-lx.), like that on religions (ib. viii-xi.), is a literary treatise with small pretence to epistolary form; while letters on wines (ii. liv.), on tobacco (bk. iii. vii.), on the Copernican theory (ib. ix.), or presbyterianism (ib. iii.), are purely literary essays. In the first edition of the first volume no dates were appended to the letters, but these were inserted in the second and later series and in the second and all later issues of the first. They run from 1 April 1617 to Innocents day, i.e. 28 Dec. 1654. All dated between 26 March 1643 and 9 Aug. 1648 profess to have been written from the Fleet. Throughout the dates are frequently impossible. Thus a letter (bk. i. § 2, xii.), dated 19 March 1622, relates successively, as of equally recent occurrence, five events known to have happened respectively in April 1621, in February 1623, in the spring of 1622, at the close of that year, and in 1619 (Gardiner, Hist. iv. pp. vi, vii). In letters dated 1635 and 1637 (i. § 6, xxxii. and ii. 1) Howell clearly borrows from Browne's 'Religio Medici,' which was not issued till 1645. Inaccuracy in the relation of events is also common. The letters are all from Howell to other persons, and it is obvious that, if genuine, they were printed from copies of the originals preserved by Howell. But Howell himself states that all his papers were seized by officers of the Long parliament before he entered the Fleet prison. If the letters were genuine, one would moreover expect to find some of the original manuscripts in the archives of the families to members of which they were addressed, but practically none are known. A few letters assigned to Howell, and dated from Madrid in 1623, belonged to the Earl of Westmorland in 1885 (Hist. MSS. Comm. 10th Rep. iv. 23), but these have since been sold, and have not been traced. Some undoubtedly genuine news-letters which Howell sent to Strafford and Windebank are printed in the 'Strafford Letters' and the 'Calendar of State Papers' (1633-5), and are far simpler productions than the 'familiar epistles,' in which Howell failed to include them. In the second and later books a few letters may be judged on internal evidence to be what they purport to be, or to have been at any rate based on the rough notes of a genuine correspondence. Such are the letters which profess to have accompanied presentation-copies of Howell's books. But the 'familiar epistles' as a whole, although of much autobiographic interest, cannot rank high as an historical authority. They may, however, be credited with an immediate literary influence in making the penning of fictitious correspondence a fashionable art. The collections of letters by Thomas Forde [q. v.] in 1661, by Robert Loveday [q. v.] in 1662, and by the Duchess of Newcastle in 1676, were doubtless inspired by Howell (cf. Evelyn, Diary, ed. Wheatley, iv. 55); while Defoe seems subsequently to have drawn from the 'Epistolæ Ho-elianæ' some hints for his realistic fictions.
Besides the works already mentioned, Howell's more or less imaginative work includes: 'A Nocturnal Progress, or a Perambulation of most Countries in Christendom, Performed in one night by strength of Imagination,' dated by Howell in 1645 (in 'Twelve Treatises,' 1661); 'Apologs or Fables Mythologized,' a political allegory, 1645 (in 'Twelve Treatises,' 1661); 'Winter Dream,' 1649 (prose); 'A Trance, or News from Hell,' 1649; 'A Vision, or Dialogue between the Soul and Body,' 1651; 'Ah! Ha! Tumulus, Thalamus. Two counter poems,' one on the death of Edward Sackville, earl of Dorset, the other on the marriage of the Marquis of Dorchester, with `a bridal sonnet,' set to music by William Webb, London, 1653, 4to; and 'Θηρολογια. The Parly of Beasts, or Morphandra, Queen of the Inchanted Iland,' 1660, an allegory in the style of 'Dodona's Grove.'
His political and historical pamphlets other than those already mentioned are 'Lustra Ludovici, or the History of Lewis XIII,' 1643; 'An Account of the Deplorable State of England in 1647,' 2 Aug. 1647; 'Bella Scot-Anglica. A Brief Account of all the Battles betwixt England and Scotland,' 1648; 'The Instruments of a King … the Sword, Crown, and Sceptre,' 1648; 'Inquisition after Blood to the Parliament,' 1649 ; `The German Diet on the Ballance of Europe,' 1653; 'A Discourse of the Empire and of the Election of the King of the Romans,' 1658, dated from Holborn, 1 Jan. 1658; 'A Brief Character of the Low Countries,' 1660; 'A Briefe Account of the Royal Matches … since the year 800,' London, 1662; 'Προεδρία βασιλική. Discourse concerning the Presidency of Kings,' 1664, fol., dedicated to Charles II published with 'A Treatise concerning Ambassodors,' 1664 (both reissued in Latin translations in the same year, the former translated by B. Harris, the latter by John Harman); 'Concerning the Surrender of Dunkirk, that it was done upon good grounds,' London, 1664.
To philology and lexicography Howell contributed 'Lexicon Tetraglotton, or an English-French-Italian-Spanish Dictionary,' London, 1659-60, fol., with 'A Particular Vocabulary' in the four languages of technical terms, and an appendix (published separately in 1659) of 'Proverbs or old Sayed Saws and Adages in English or the Saxon tongue, Italian, French, and Spanish: whereunto the British [i.e. Welsh] for their great antiquity and weight are added.' Worthington, writing in his 'Diary' (Chetham Soc. i. 350) in August 1661, recommended the separate republication of the appendix, and especially of the collection of Welsh proverbs. Howell revised and expanded Cotgrave's `French and English Dictionary,' 1650, fol. (other editions 1660 and 1673), and wrote 'New English Grammar … for Foreigners to learn English …, with `Another Grammar of the Spanish or Castilian toung, with some special remarks in the Portugues dialect,' and notes on travel in Spain and Portugal `for the service of Her Majesty' (in both English and Spanish [printed on opposite pages), 1662. After Howell's death appeared 'A French Grammar, a Dialogue consisting of all Gallicisms, with Additions of … Proverbs,' 1673.
His translations include `St. Paul's late Progress upon Earth,' 1644, from the Italian; 'A Venetian Looking-glass … touching the present Distempers in England,' 1648, from the Italian; `An exact History of the late Revolutions in Naples,' 1650, from the Italian of Alexandro Giraffi; `The Process and Pleadings in the Court of Spain upon the death of Antony Ascham,' from the Spanish, 1651; Josephus's `History of the Jews,' 1652; `The Nuptials of Peleus and Thetis,' 1654, from the French; `Paracelsus, his Aurora. … As also the Water-Stone of the Wise Men,' 1659; Basil Valentine's `Triumphant Chariot of Antimony,' 1661; Paracelsus's 'Archidoxis,' 1661.
He edited Cotton's 'Posthuma,' 1657, with a dedication to Sir Robert Pye [see Cotton, Sir Robert Bruce]; 'Finetti Philoxenis,' 1656 [see Finet, Sir John]; ' Parthenopœia, or the History of … Naples,' 1654, pt. i. translated from the Italian of Mazella by Sampson Lennard, and pt. ii. compiled by Howell from various Italian writers.
Commendatory verses or letters by Howell are prefixed to Hayward's `Eromena,' 1632; Cartwright's `Poems,' 1651; and other books of the time. Many such poetic pieces are collected in Howell's 'Poems.' Howell, rather than John Hewit, is the I. H. who prefixed verses to the Εἱκὼν Βασιλική.
A fine portrait of Howell leaning against a tree, engraved by Claude Melan or Mellan and Abraham Bosse, was first prefixed to the French translation of his 'Dodona's Grove,' 1641. It reappeared in his 'England's Teares,' 1644, his 'German Diet,' 1653, his `Londinopolis,' 1657, and his ' Proverbs,' 1659, and it is inserted in many other of his books in the British Museum Library. An oil painting, probably made from the engraving, belongs to the Rev. H. Howell of Blaina. A small vignette by Marshall forms one of the nine compartments of the plate prefixed to the 'Letters,' 1645.
[Notes kindly sent by C. E. Doble, esq., and C. H. Firth, esq.; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, iii. 744-52; Biog. Brit ; Lowndes's Bibl. Man. ed. Bohn; Epistolæ Ho-el. ed. Jacobs, 1890-1; Strafford Letters; Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 24492, p.372 (Hunter's Chorus Vatum); pedigree lent by J. Bagnall Evans, esq.; curious expressions and allusions in the Letters are discussed in Notes and Queries, 3rd and 5th ser.]
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.161
N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 112 | ii | l.l. | Howell, James: for to follow read issued and for (1891) read (1892) |
| 113 | i | 14 f.e. | for A few letters read Two letters |
| 13 f.e. | after 1623 insert (not included in the 'Epistolæ') | ||
| 11-10 f.e. |
for but these have . . . . not been traced. read and were purchased by the British Museum in 1892. |