816 



HOWELLS 



HOWLER 



because vols. xi. to xxi. of this work were edite< 

 by Tlios. Bayly Howell (1768-1815), and vols. xxii 

 to xxxiii. by his son, Thos. Jones Howell (died 1858] 



Hqwells, WILLIAM DEAN, a popular American 

 novelist, was born at Martin's Ferry, Ohio, Isi 

 March 1837. His father's family was of Welsh 

 Quaker origin, and he himself was brought up a 

 Swedenborgian. From an early age he was familial 

 with press-work, as his father was a busy and noi 

 always prosperous printer and journalist ; but his 

 earliest serious work in journalism was in the 

 Cincinnati Gazette and Columbus State Journal. A 

 . life of Lincoln, written in 1860, procured him the 

 post of consul at Venice, which he held from 1861 to 

 1865, making himself master of Italian the while, 

 and writing his able papers, collected in Venetian 

 Life ( 1866 ). In America he wrote for the New York 

 Tribune and the Times, the Nation, and the A tlan 

 tic Monthly, editing the last-named from 1872 to 

 1881. His later work in periodicals was done for 

 the Century and Harper's Magazine. Already wel 

 known as a first-rate journalist, a fair poet, and a 

 clever critic, he found his real work as a writer oi 

 fiction in 1871, when his clever story, Their Wedding 

 Journey, brought him great popularity, which 

 steadily and deservedly increased with the issue of 

 succeeding novels, of which the best are A Chance 

 Acquaintance ( 1873), A Foregone Conclusion ( 1874), 

 A Counterfeit Presentment (1877), The Lady of the 

 Aroostook ( 1878), The Undiscovered Country ( 1880) 

 Doctor Breeds Practice (1883), A Modern Instance 

 (1883), A Woman's Reason (1884), The Rise of 

 Silas Lapham (1885), An Indian Summer (1886) 

 /iooS? K } lburn (1888), A Hazard of New Fortunes 

 (1889), An Imperative Duty ( 1891 ), The Quality of 

 Mercy (1892), The Coast of Bohemia ( 1893) The 

 Landlord at Lion's Jfead(18Q7), &c. ; and he has 

 produced several plays. 



These works reveal their author to us as an 

 artist of great conscientiousness and industry, but 

 of decided shortcomings as well as gifts. He is 

 humorous, brilliant, epigrammatic, and acute, but 

 he cannot tell a story, and his ambitious analysis 

 of commonplace characters is overdone to "the 

 extent of tediousness. With all his gifts he is 

 not a great artist in fiction, and he Tacks that 

 rare combination of sympathy and humour which 

 gave George Eliot and Mrs Gaskell their insight 

 into what was really generic and human at the 

 heart of the trivialities of everyday life. Howells 

 wastes his strength on the over-elaboration of 

 details, but too often these are not the really 

 significant, and thus the general effect of the whole 

 portrait is feeble, indistinct, and unsatisfactory. 

 His over-elaborated rather than really refined 

 Bostonians, and his Americans expanding spirit- 

 ually under the new conditions of an ancient 

 civilisation in some Italian city are always care- 

 fully painted and indeed striking portraits, but 

 almost always they fall a little short of the one 

 thing needful that look of the life which is 

 creation, and which evidently demands the intuition 

 of genius to catch. 



Howietoun. See PISCICULTURE. 



Howitt, WILLIAM and MARY, whose writings 

 charmed, interested, and instructed the public 

 during the earlier half of the 19th century, may best 

 be treated together. William Howitt, the son of a 

 land-surveyor of good descent, a member of the 

 Society of Friends, was born at Heanor, Derbyshire, 

 in 1792, and was educated at Ackworth and Tarn- 

 worth. With no intention of pursuing the busi- 

 ness, he served a four years' apprenticeship to a 

 builder, carpenter, and cabinet-maker. Possessed 

 of strong literary tastes, and fond of country 

 life and sports, he wrote poems, and an account 

 of a country excursion after the manner of 



Washington Irving. On April 16, 1821, William 

 Howitt married Mary Botham, a young lady of 

 kindred tastes (born at Uttoxeter, 12th March 

 1799), and they settled at Hanley, to conduct a 

 chemist's business. After a few months they 

 removed to Nottingham for twelve years of steady 

 and successful literary industry and mental im- 

 provement. Their later places of abode were 

 Esher, in Surrey, London, Heidelberg, and Rome. 

 The record of their after-life is a record of the books 

 they wrote, of pleasant travel for literary purposes, 

 while they were on terms of easy intercourse with 

 all their notable contemporaries. In 1852-54, at 

 the height of the gold-fever, William Howitt was 

 in Australia. The Howitts were instrumental in 

 getting 1000 for Miss Meteyard's life of Wedg- 

 wood, and it was at William Howitt's suggestion 

 that Mrs Gaskell wrote her first novel. They 

 quitted the Society of Friends in 1847 ; William 

 flowitt became a believer in spiritualism, and in 

 later life Mary Howitt joined the Catholic com- 

 munion. After a long life of blameless literary 

 industry William Howitt died at Rome, March 3, 

 1879. Mary Howitt, whose heart and mind ' ever 

 flowed with love and interest for all her surround- 

 ings,' composed and wrote from her earliest years, 

 and most people have seen or read some of her 

 poems, ballads, novels, or juvenile" tales, of which 

 she wrote many. By means of translations she 

 first made the works of F. Bremer and Hans 

 Andersen known to the English public. She 

 wrote for the annuals, for the People's Journal, 

 Howitt's Journal, Chambers's Journal, &c. A 

 pension was bestowed upon her in 1879 by Lord 

 Beaconsfield. She died at Rome, January 30, 1888, 

 and her remains were laid beside those of her hus- 

 band in the cemetery of Monte Testaccio. One 

 critic has justly said that W. Howitt and his wife 

 are inseparably associated with all that is enchant- 

 ing in rural England. In their poems, their novels, 

 and the stories of their country rambles they made 

 themselves the exponents of nature, blending the 

 idealism of poetic fancies with pictures that have 

 the realism of photographs. In politics William 

 Howitt was an extreme Radical. Joint produc- 

 tions of William and Mary Howitt were the Forest 

 Minstrel (1827), Desolation of Eyam ( 1827), Book 

 of the Seasons ( 1831 ), Literatiire and Romances of 

 Northern Europe (1852), Stories of English Life 

 ( 1853 ), and Ruined A bbeys of Great Britain. Wil- 

 liam Howitt's chief works, besides contributions to 

 newspapers and magazines, were History of Priest- 

 craft ( 1833 ) ; Pantika ( 1 835 ) ; Rural Life in England 

 ( 1837) ; Visits to Remarkable Places ( 1838 ; second 

 series, 1841 ) ; Colonisation and Christianity ( 1838 ) ; 

 Boy's Country Book (1839); Student Life of Ger- 

 many ( 1841 ) ; Homes and Haunts of the Poets ( 1847 ) ; 

 Land, Labour, and Gold ( 1855 ) ; flhistrated History 

 of England (6 vols. 1856-61); History of the Super- 

 natural (1863) ; Discovery in Australia, Tasmania, 

 and New Zealand ( 1865) ; Mad War Planet, and 

 other Poems ( 1 87 1 ). See Mary Howitt, an A utobio- 

 graphy, edited by her daughter, Margaret Howitt 

 '2 vols. 1889). 



Howitzers (Ger. Haubitzen) are guns which 

 ;ame into use early in the history of field artillery, 

 is portable instruments for discharging shell into a 

 lostile force. As for this purpose no great range 

 was necessary, a small charge of powder sufficed ; 

 and the howitzer could be made, in proportion to 

 ts large bore, extremely light. For modern how- 

 tzers, see CANNON. 



Howler, HOWLING MONKEY, or STENTOR, 

 Mycetes), a genus of Central and South Ameri- 

 can monkeys, remarkable for the dilatation of 

 bhe hyoid bone into a hollow drum, which com- 

 municates with the larynx, makes a conspicu- 



