HOWELL'S LETTERS.* HOWELL'S Letters, now more than two hundred years

old, although comparatively forgotten, have never fallen into absolute neglect; and the admiration expressed for them by more than one famous author of our century has, to some

extent, revived their reputation. Two years ago, a reprint in two little volumes appeared in the Stott Library, and was noticed in our columns ; but the production on an elaborate scale of an edition likely to prove of standard value, claims the recognition of the reviewer, and also of the public. Mr. Jacobs complains, and it would seem not unreasonably, of the edition published by Mr. Stott :—

"The present edition," he writes, "has already had its adven- tures before publication. Planned in 1887, a prospectus was issued in 1888, and the first volume, containing the text and sup. plement, was issued to subscribers in March, 1890 unbound, and without a proper title-page. The documents contained in Sup- plement I. were calmly utilised without acknowledgment in the Introduction to an edition of the First Book of the Letters, which was issued in two volumes as part of the Stott Library, in the autumn of 1890. Tardy recognition, owing to my protest, was made in a second issue of the edition ; but the calm use of whole documents, without acknowledgment, before their actual publica- tion, beats the record in such things."

High praise must be given to the form in which these well- known Letters are now published, and to the great care bestowed by the editor on the elucidation of their contents.

Mr. Jacobs has spared no labour on the work ; his notes, though abundantly copious, are not verbose, and there are few of them that could be spared. Very ample, also, is his intro- duction, and while we cannot accept all his criticisms, his knowledge of the period and accuracy in the statement of facts is not, we think, liable to be impugned. In a large work

like this, it is, of course, impossible to examine all the sources of an editor's information, or to test the trustworthiness of his references ; but to readers conversant with books, a careless writer will soon betray his carelessness, and an ignorant writer his ignorance, and on the surface of the work, at all events, there is no indication of either defect. To this we may add that the Letters of Howell merit the labour Mr. Jacobs has given to them. His estimate of their value is not ours, but that they contain a large amount of curious and interesting matter is beyond all question.

Howell, who was born in 1593, and lived, as the title-page of the Letters declares, to be Historiographer-Royal to Charles II., was a man of considerable ability, of which he had an amusing and unfailing consciousness. Modesty and humility were not among his virtues. He appears to have had no misgivings or doubts, and was as ready to impart his advice and knowledge to the Duke of Buckingham as to his friend Jack Toldervy. The son of a Welsh clergyman, and one of a large family, he "came tumbling into the world," to use his own words, " a poor cadet, a true Cosmopolite, not born to land, lease, house, or office." After a classical education at Hereford Grammar School, he went up, in 1610, to Jesus College, Oxford, and in 1613 was admitted Bachelor of Arts. Three years later, a factory was established in London for making glass on the Italian methods, and Howell's earliest appointment was that of Steward. To further this enterprise, or for some other reason, he was sent to Holland and France, to Spain and Italy; but, after a time, his association with the glass-making house terminated, and Howell undertook the office of travelling tutor. Then, as the agent of London merchants, who were aggrieved by the Spanish Government's appropriation of a valuable cargo, he was sent, with the approval of James I., to the Spanish Court, and witnessed the arrival of Prince Charles and Buckingham on their mad enterprise. He re-

• EpiatoLT flo.Eliana. The Familiar Letters of James Howell, Historio- grapher-Royal to Charles U. Edited, annotated, and indexed by Joseph Jacobs. 2 vole. London: Nutt.

turned to England without obtaining the £30,000 claimed by his employers, and, finding nothing better to do, taught the Marchioness of Winchester Spanish. After what appears to have been a long waiting time, he became, for a short period, secretary to Lord Scrope, Lord President of the North. At the Election of 1627, he was chosen M.P. for Richmond, in Yorkshire, but no record exists, says Mr. Jacobs, of his having ever spoken.

When, on the death of the Queen-Dowager of Denmark, an embassy was sent by Charles I., Howell was appointed to express the official grief in Latin, and made three orations in that language. The sorrow of the Danish Court, we may observe in passing, was drowned in wine. At one banquet thirty-five healths were drank, and the King had to be carried away in his chair. Returning to London, Howell was once more to know the misery of hanging about a Court without

employment. What means of living he had for the nert ten years, Mr. Jacobs is unable to say with certainty ; but there can be little doubt, he says, that he was a Royalist spy, and

that, although hopes were held out to him of a good appoint- ment, this work " was too well done for his masters to exchange the fidelity of expectation for the sluggishness of gratitude." The outbreak of the Civil War seemed to open better pros- pects for Howell ; but two months later he was committed to the Fleet by a warrant from Parliament, where he was con- fined for eight years, and spent his time in writing books and pamphlets. He lived for ten years after his release, and, as we have seen, was not forgotten on the Restoration. He died in 1666.

In an Appendix, Mr. Jacobs gives an elaborate list of sixty works or more, "ranging from mere broad-sheets to folios," that came from Howell's prolific pen. They are virtually dead, and were it not for the " Familiar Letters," Howell would be forgotten. So highly are these Letters

esteemed by the editor, that he declares it is not till we read what may be called the Epistoler: Elianw of Charles Lamb that we find Howell surpassed in ease and brightness. " Horace Walpole, indeed, puts in a fair claim to take the

second place in the triumvirate of the brightest letter-writers in English. Yet Horace always seems to write with ruffles on his wrists, and the vast bulk of his nine volumes must always stand in the way of his general popularity." And Mr. Jacobs goes on to praise the skill with which Howell can alternate grave and gay, argument and chaff, expostulation and narrative, consolatory or merely occasional."

He is at his best," he says, "in the lightly sportive vein," and in proof of it be refers the reader to three notelets on page 216, and to the writer's recommendation of a cook on page 286. Fortunately, these specimens of Howell's sportive vein are very brief, and can be quoted without abridgment :—

" To MR. ROWLAND GWIN.

" Cousm,—I was lately sorry, and I was lately glad, that I heard you were ill, that I heard you are well.—Your affectionate cousin, " To THOMAS JONES, ESQ.

" Tom,—If you are in health 'tie well ; we are here all so ; and we should be better had we your company. Therefore, I pray leave the smutty air of London, and come hither to breathe sweeter, where you may pluck a rose, and drink a Cillibub.—Your faithful friend, J. H." " To D. C.

" The bearer hereof has no other errand but to know how you do in the country, and this paper is his credential letter. Therefore, I pray hasten his despatch, and, if you please, send him back like the man in the moon, with a basket of your fruit on his back.—Your true friend, J. H."

" To MY NOBLE LADY, THE LADY CORE.

" MADAM,—You spoke to me for a cook who had seen the world abroad, and I think the bearer hereof will fit your Ladyship's turn. He can marinate fish, make jellies ; he is excellent for a piquant sauce and the Haug ou ; beside, Madam, he is passing good for an 011ia. He will tell your Ladyship that the reverend Matron, the 011a podrida, hath intellectuals and senses; mutton, beef, and bacon are to her as the will, understanding, and memory are to the soul ; cabbage, turnips, artichokes, potatoes, and dates are her five senses, and pepper the common-sense; she must have marrow to keep life in her, and some birds to make her light ; by all means, she must go adorned with chains of sausages. He is also good at larding of meat after the Mode of Prance. Madam, you may make proof of him, and if your Ladyship find him too saucy or wasteful, you may return him whence you had him.—So I rest,

Madam, your Ladyship's humble servitor, J. H."

A letter recommending a footman, written in the same strain of conceit, is also praised by Mr. Jacobs. In our judgment, Howell's attempts at humour are absurdly pedantic, and in his more serious letters he labours to

say fantastically what his taste did not allow him to say simply. This is evident throughout the volumes, but two or three short extracts must suffice to illustrate our assertion :-

" Life itself," he writes to a friend, "is not so dear to me as your friendship, nor Virtue, in her best colours, as precious as your Love, which was lately so lively portrayed unto me in yours of the 5th of this present. Methinks your Letter was like a piece of tissue richly embroidered with rare flowers up and down, with curious Representations and Landskips. Albeit I have as much stuff as you of this kind (I mean matter of Love), yet I want such a Loom to work it upon; I cannot draw it to such a curious Web ; therefore you must be content with homely Polldavie Ware from me, you must not expect from us County-folks such Urbanities and quaint Invention that you who are daily conversant with the Wits of the Court and of the Inns of Court abound withal."

To the same friend he says on another occasion :-

" As I know your exterior person by your lineaments, so I know you as well inwardly by your lines, and by those lively expressions you give of yourself ; insomuch that I believe if the interior man within you were as visible as the outward (as once Plato wished that Virtue might be seen with the corporeal eyes), you would draw all the world after you ; or if your well-born thoughts, and the words of your letters were echo'd in any place, where they might rebound and be made audible, they are composed of such sweet and charming strains of ingenuity and eloquence, that all the Nymphs of the Woods and the Valleys, the Dryades, yea, the Graces and Muses, would pitch their Pavilions there ; nay, Apollo himself would dwell longer in that place with Rays, and make them reverberate more strongly than either upon Pindus or Parnassus or Rhodes itself, whence he never removes his Eye as long as he is above this Hemisphere."

And this is how Howell addresses a cousin :-

" I received lately one of yours, which I cannot compare more properly than to a Posie of curious flowers, there was therein such variety of sweet strains and dainty expressions of Love ' • and though it bore an old date, for it was forty days before it came safe to hand, yet the flowers were still fresh and not a whit faded, but did cast as strong and fragrant a scent as when your hands bound them up first together, only there was one flower that did not savour so well, which was the undeserved character you please to give of my small abilities."

On ladies, he lavishes the same ridiculous conceits :—" I have discovered so much of divinity in you," he tells the " in- comparable " Lady Cary, " that he who would find your equal must keep one in the other world ; " and he informs the Mar- chioness of Winchester that "the handmaid of God Almighty was never so prodigal of her gifts to any, or laboured more to frame an exact model of female perfection ; " and " that the Graces wasted so mach of their treasure to enrich this one Piece, that it may be a good reason why so many lame and defective fragments of womankind are daily thrust into the world."

In our day, we find it difficult to understand how a sane man could pen these grotesque conceits, or how an intelligent man or woman could read such flattery without feeling a contempt

for the writer. Literary fashions change ; and it is probable that, in the age of Cowley and of Donne, such passages as we have quoted,—and they might easily be multiplied tenfold,—

were regarded as proofs of the author's subtlety and wit. We do not blame Howell for not rising, in this respect, above the level of his period ; but we must express our surprise and amusement at the editor's astounding assertion that, until the time of Lamb, Howell was "unsurpassed, in ease and bright- ness," as a letter-writer. Is Mr. Jacobs ignorant of Dorothy Osborne's love-letters, of the characteristic letters of Swift, of the delightful correspondence of Gray, of the " divine chit-chat" of Cowper ? No one, indeed, ever understood better the art of letter-writing than the Olney poet ; and for ease, for humour, for pathos, for charm of gossip, for happy turns of thought, and for a gentleness and sweetness of nature visible throughout, his letters are, we think, unrivalled.

While disputing Howell's claim to be placed in the front rank of English letter-writers, it must be readily admitted that his letters contain a great deal of attractive matter. He had travelled much, he was conversant with books and men, his acquisitions were considerable—he boasted that he could say his prayers in a different language every day of the week, and upon Sunday in seven—he had no reticence, he had the most com- placent sense of his own importance, and he took some part in public affairs at a highly interesting period. There is, therefore, much variety in his letters, many amusing, and some unrefined anecdotes, and several passages which may be of service to the historical student. "Familiar letters," he says, " are the keys of the mind ; they open all the boxes of the breast, all the cells of the brain, and truly set forth the inward man." What such letters ought to be Firm,•ll understood well, and, although he does not reach his ideal, his letters do, no doubt, exhibit a good deal of " the inward man." They must be generally regarded as literary compositions, and not in all cases as genuine productions, written to and received by the persons to whom they profess to be addressed. Many, there can be little doubt, were composed in the Fleet Prison; and several, it will be seen at a glance, are simply literary essays written in the epistolary form. To distinguish between the letters that are genuine and those that are fictitious is now im- possible, and perhaps it does not much signify. Mr. Jacobs, who discusses the question carefully, arrives at the conclusion that they are authentic in a measure, and he is probably right in his conclusion. On the whole, we think that a correct estimate of Howell is to be found somewhere between the affectionate admiration expressed for him by Thackeray, and the cold praise bestowed by Hallam. His letters are terribly burdened with conceits, but in many of them the matter is better than the form ; and when the writer describes what he has seen, or events which, like the murder of Buckingham, made a strong impression at the time, he does it in good English and without waste of words.