MEMOIR OP WILLIAM HOWITT. 
3 69 
continued in it. This might confirm those habits of prudence, sobriety, and good 
sense which always distinguished him, but for which his forefathers were any 
thing but remarkable. 
Mr. William Howitt is one of six brothers, the eldest of whom died in 
America, and the remainder of whom are all settled in their native part of the 
country. Mr. Richard Howitt, of Nottingham, a younger brother of our 
author, is a genuine poet of rising reputation; and Dr. Godfrey Howitt, the 
youngest brother, is a physician there, and a most devoted and accomplished 
naturalist. Mr. William Howitt was educated at different schools of the 
Friends; but, as we have frequently heard him declare, was much more indebted 
to a steady practice of self-instruction than to any school or teacher whatever. 
He early shewed a predeliction for Poetry, and in a periodical of that day, called 
Literary Recreations, a copy of some verses “On Spring” may be found, stated 
to be by “ William Howitt, a boy 13 years of age.” During the time that he 
was not at school, he was accustomed, with his eldest brother, to stroll all over 
the country, shooting, coursing, and fishing with an indefatigable zeal which 
would have delighted any of the Nimrods from whom he was descended. As a 
boy he had been an eager birds’-nester, and these after-pursuits, together with a 
strong poetical temperament, and a keen perception of the beauties of Nature, made 
him familiar with all the haunts, recesses, productions, and creatures of the 
country. In this manner the greatest portion of his early life was spent. After 
he arrived at manhood, however, those country pleasures were blended with an 
active study of Chemistry, Botany, Natural and Moral Philosophy, and of the 
w T orks of the best writers of Italy, France, and his own country. He also turned 
the attention of his youngest brother, now Dr. Howitt, to the study of British 
Botany, and the Doctor has since prosecuted it with more constancy and success 
than himself. General literature, and Poetry, soon drew his attention more 
forcibly, and his marriage, in his twenty-eighth year, no doubt naturally con¬ 
tributed to strengthen this tendency. The lady of his choice was Miss Mary 
Botham, of Uttoxeter, in Staffordshire, also a member of the Society of Friends, 
and now familiar to the public as the delightful poetess, Mary PIowitt. She is 
by her mother’s side, directly descended from Mr. William Wood, the Irish 
patentee, about whose halfpence, minted under a contract from the Government 
of George II., Dean Swtft raised such a disturbance with his “Drapier’s Letters,” 
successfully preventing the issue of the coinage, and saddling Mr. Wood with a 
loss of £60,000, Sir Robert Walpole, the minister, resisting all recompense 
for his loss, although Sir Isaac Newton, who was appointed to assay the coinage, 
pronounced it better than the contract required, and Mr. Wood, of course, justly 
entitled to remuneration.* His son, Mr. Hharles Wood, the grandfather of 
* See Ruding’s Annals of Coinage. 
