526 



HOWDEN -HOWE. 



perty he has been the means of preserving is in- 

 calculable. A striking public acknowledgment of 

 his merit is contained in the report of the select 

 committee of the House of Commons, on ship- 

 wrecks, which refers to the highly valuable labours 

 of the East India Company's maritime officers, and 

 " the zealous perseverance and ability of their dis- 

 tinguished l:\drographer, the late captain Hors- 

 burgb, whose directory and charts of the eastern 

 seas have been invaluable safeguards to life and 

 property in those regions." 



In person, Mr Horsburgh was of the middle size, 

 athletic and well-proportioned ; his complexion 

 dark, his countenance mild, intelligent, and prepos- 

 sessing; his manners were simple and nnastaming. 



HOWDEN ; a market-town and parish in How- 

 denshire wupentake, in the East Riding of York- 

 shire, twenty-one miles from York, and 180 from 

 London. Population in 1841.4800. The horse 

 fair which is held here is one of the most cele- 

 brated in the kingdom, and is numerously attended. 

 The steam-boats which pass and repass Howden 

 many times a day, between Hull and Selby, offer 

 convenient means of communication with Howden. 

 Selby, which is only ten miles distant, places Leeds 

 and the busy district around it in close contact 

 with Howden. The steam-boats to Thorne ren- 

 der the communication with Sheffield nearly as 

 rapid ; and from Goole, which is so short a distance 

 from Howden, there are steam-boats to Hamburgh, 

 London, and Yarmouth. 



The wapentahe of Howdenshire, is bounded on 

 the south by the river Ouse ; but as the Trent 

 joins that river nearly opposite the eastern limits 

 of Howdenshire, the Humber forms its south-eas- 

 tern boundary line. A very small part of How- 

 denshire is west of the river Derwent, and there 

 are two small portions which are altogether de- 

 tached, and are situated east of the wapentake, on 

 the banks of the Humber. The population of the 

 whole wapentake was 8,246 at the last census. 

 The country is flat, and was formerly subject to 

 frequent inundations. 



The manor and church of Howden, or Hoveden, 

 as it was anciently called, originally belonged to 

 the abbey of Peterborough ; but previous to the 

 conquest, they had been wrested from that mon- 

 astery, on account of its inability to pay the tax 

 called dane-gelt, which was levied with such rigour, 

 that those who failed in raising the required con- 

 tribution forfeited their lands. This church and 

 manor were in possession of the crown at the 

 period of the conquest, and were given by the 

 Norman monarch to the bishop of Durham, who 

 obtained a confirmation of the grant from pope 

 Gregory VII. The bishop vested the church in 

 the monks of Durham, but retained the manor. 

 Thus the prior and convent of Durham obtained 

 ecclesiastical jurisdiction in Howdenshire. The 

 collegiate church of Howden was dissolved in the 

 first year of Edward VI., and the temporalities 

 thereby became invested in the crown. Thus 

 they remained till 1582, when queen Elizabeth 

 granted them by letters patent to Edward Frost 

 and John Walker, their heirs and assigns for ever. 

 The tithes are now in the hands of several impro- 

 priators. Towards the close of the sixteenth cen- 

 tury, the church of Howden fell into decay. The 

 choir becoming altogether unsafe, the parishioners, 

 in 1634 and 1636, fitted up the nave for the cele- 

 bration of public worship. In 1696 the groined 

 roof fell in, and from that time the east end has 



been but a venerable memorial of its former rr>fif 

 nificence. The church is built in the form of a 

 cross, with a square tower, 135 feet in height. 

 The chapter house was formerly the most cele- 

 brated portion of the edifice. It was built in the 

 thirteenth century, and contained thirty stalls, 

 each under a gothic arch, separated by clustered 

 pilasters, very small, and of delicate form, having 

 foliated capitals of pierced work, from which rich 

 tabernacle work rose, and formed a canopy for 

 each stall. The tower of the chapter-house fell 

 in 1750. The whole length of the church, includ- 

 ing the ruins, is 255 feet, and the breadth sixty- 

 six feet. The length of the choir is 120 feet, and 

 of the nave 105 feet, and the breadth of each is 

 sixty-six feet. Nearly close to the church the 

 bishops of Durham had an ancient palace, which 

 was their frequent summer residence. A park ex. 

 tended from it to the Ouse, distant about a mile. 

 The ruins of this ancient edifice have been occu- 

 pied as a farm-house. 



HOWE, JAMES; an eminent painter of animals, 

 was born in the parish of Skirling, in the county 

 of Peebles, Scotland, on the 30th August, 1780. 

 His father was minister of the parish, but being 

 in humble circumstances, James received only such 

 elementary instruction as the parish school could 

 supply, and having early displayed a taste for 

 drawing, he was sent, at the age of thirteen, to 

 Edinburgh, in order that he might learn the trade 

 of house-painting. Even when an apprentice, he 

 became known for his peculiar talent, and, among 

 other jobs, was employed, during his spare hours, 

 to paint for Marshall's panoramic exhibitions, at the 

 rate of five shillings an hour. On the expiration 

 of his apprenticeship he commenced business on his 

 own account as animal painter, in Greenside street, 

 where he attracted the notice of various persons of 

 distinction, and among others, the earl of Buchan, 

 by whom he was induced to pay a visit to London, 

 with the view of taking portraits of some horses 

 in the royal stud, and of thus securing the highest 

 patronage in the realm. Howe accordingly painted 

 likenesses of some of these in his very best style, 

 but it unfortunately happened that George III. was 

 at this period seized with blindness, and could not 

 appreciate the painter's power. Howe was in con- 

 sequence obliged to return to Scotland, and throw 

 himself on his old patrons. For a number of 

 years, Howe continued to hold the rank of the first 

 animal-painter in Scotland, if not in Britain. His 

 cattle-portraits and pieces found their way into 

 the houses of many of the nobility and gentry 

 of the country. Some little time subsequent to 

 1810, Sir John Sinclair gave him a commission to 

 travel through various parts of Scotland, for the 

 purpose of painting the different breeds of cattle 

 to be found in the country. A series of valuable 

 pictures was the result of this journey, most of 

 which are still in the possession of Sir John's 

 family. The faithfulness of these delineations 

 rendered them of much use to Sir John in the 

 composition of his agricultural works. Various of 

 Howe's paintings of this date were engraved, and 

 it was in this form that the public chiefly became 

 acquainted with them. One piece, for example, 

 engraved by the famous artist Turner, still keeps 

 possession of the print-shops. It represents a 

 Hawking Party, and contains figures of men and 

 horses, as well as of hawks. The most striking 

 feature of this and the works pieviously men- 

 tioned, was the character which Howe threw into 



