Howell

Howell, James (1594-1666), an English author, was the first to write an English handbook of foreign travel. He was the son of a Welsh minister in Carmarthenshire, and graduated at Jesus College, Oxford. Being sent abroad to find foreign workmen for some glassworks of which he was steward, he visited France, Spain, Italy, and Holland. Soon after be was sent with Lord Digby's embassy to Spain, and in 1632 he accompanied the Earl of Leicester's embassy to Denmark. In 1626 he had been appointed secretary to Lord Scrope, Lord President in the North, and in 1627 he sat in Parliament for Richmond, and in 1642 was made clerk of the Privy Council. From 1643-48 he was imprisoned for his royalist views. In 1660 he was appointed historiographer to the king. Besides tiis book on foreign travel his best-known works are a collection of Letters (Epislolce Ho-EUancs), an English, French, Italian, and Spanish Dictionary, allegorical Discourses of Trees, a Spanish English Grammar, several Italian and Spanish translations, and a Life of Louis XIII.