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MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HOWlTT. 
He was in a manner forced at once, and contrary to his habits and inclination 
into public life. He was called upon to arrange and address public meetings. 
He was made an Alderman of the borough, and looked to as the advocate of all 
popular measures. It was found that, although unused to public speaking, he 
possessed a vehement eloquence which excited his hearers to enthusiasm, and 
carried them according to his will. A speech of his in the Town Hall, on some 
Irish question, in which he introduced some remarks on O’Connell, so agitated 
his hearers, that they simultaneously announced their determination to invite 
O’Connell to a public dinner, which they forthwith did. It was hoped by the 
people of Nottingham that they had found a man amply capable and willing to 
advocate their interests ; but this was not the life which Mr. Howitt had marked 
out for himself. No sphere could have afforded a greater opportunity of doing 
good to his fellow men than the one he now occupied, but to do that it required 
an independent fortune. Mr. Howitt’s was limited; and finding his time and 
energies wholly absorbed by extraneous circumstances, he deemed it his duty to 
his children to withdraw to a more secluded place of residence. He therefore 
removed to Esher, in Surrey, a place which gave him the fullest retirement, in a 
beautiful country, while it afforded a ready communication with the metropolis. 
There he has resided rather more than two years. 
Before leaving Nottingham, his fellow townsmen, in a very numerous public 
meeting, voted him a silver inkstand, as an appropriate testimony of their esteem; 
and, before settling at Esher, he and Mrs. Howitt made another excursion into 
the North of England, Scotland, and the Western Isles, traversing the most 
interesting portions of their journey again on foot. They spent a short time 
with Mr. Wordsworth and his family at By dal, and in Edinburgh made the 
personal acquaintance of Professor Wilson, and most of the literary and eminent 
characters there. Mr. Howitt also attended a dinner given by the city of 
Edinburgh to the poet Campbell, and being requested to give as a toast “ the 
English poets Wordsworth, Southey, and Moore,” he took the opportunity of 
pressing on the attention of that brilliant company, that the true way to honour 
poets was to secure them their copy-right. 
Since Mr. Howitt’s residence at Esher, he has published the Rural Life of 
England , having previously traversed the country literally from the Land’s End 
to the Scottish borders, to make himself intimately acquainted with the manners 
and mode of life of the rural population. The work is eminently popular; and 
while it is full of the kindly and cheerful spirit of the Book of the Seasons , has 
yet higher claims to public favour even than that most pleasant work, from the 
more exalted nature of its subject, and the enlightened and philosophical views 
which it takes of society generally. 
In the course of last Summer Mr. Howitt published a work entitled Coloniza - 
