Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 12.djvu/331

Rh HOUWAERT, (-), Flemish poet, was the most prominent of the rhetoricians of his day. He held the title of &quot; Counsellor and Master in Ordinary of the Exchequer to the Dukedom of Brabant.&quot; As a patriot and a friend of the prince of Orange hs played a prominent part in the revolution of the Low Countriesagainst Spain, and when the prince entered Brussels victoriously, September 23,, Houwaert met him in pomp at the head of the two chambers of rhetoric, the &quot; Book &quot; and the &quot; Garland of Mary.&quot; He died at Brussels, March 11,.

1em  HOVEDON,, an old English chronicler, was in all probability born at H jwden, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, and was possibly a member of a family which hid taken its name from the place. The date neither of his birth n &amp;gt;r his death is known, and the first notice we hive of him is as being sent in by Henry II., on whom he was in attendance in France, to endeavour to induce tho lords of Galloway to withdraw from their allegiance to the king of Scotland. He appears to have been recom mended to the notice of Henry from his knowledge of law, and to have occupied a place in his household. It has baen conjectured, but without much evidence, that he was a student of Oxford; and the ascription to him of a volume of lectures is also without ground to support it. From the interest manifested in his history regarding the dispute between Archbishop Roger of York and Bishop Hugh of Durham, in regard to synodal fees, it has been supposed that he himself held for some time the living of Howden, but this is likewise wholly devoid of direct corroboration. In he was employed by Henry in the delicate mission of inducing the monastic houses to send deputations to Woodstock for tha purpose of choosing their rulers. In, the last of Henry’s reign, he was appointed a justice itinerant for the forests in Northumberland, Cum berland, and Yorkshire; and it is probable that after Henry’s death he retired to Howden, since from the number of his references to Yorkshire disputes it is evident that lie must have been living in that county during the time that he compiled the latter portion of his Chronicle. As the Chronicle closes abruptly in, it is probable that lie did not live long beyond that date.

1em 1em  HOWARD,. See.  HOWARD, (1726–1790), &quot;the philanthropist,&quot; was born in 1726, most probably on September 2, and at Enfield, where his father, a moderately wealthy retired London merchant, had a country house. His childhood was spent at Cardington near Woburn, Bedfordshire, where his father had a small estate; for seven he was under the tuition of the Rev. John Worsley of Hertford (author of a Latin grammar and of a new translation of the New Testament); and he was afterwards placed for a short time at a private academy in London under Mr John Eames, F.R.S. At the close of a very imperfect school education he was apprenticed by his father at a considerable premium to a firm of grocers in the city; but on the death of the elder Howard in September 1742, by which he inherited considerable property, he bought up his indenture and devoted more than a  to foreign travel, during which he acquired some knowledge of French. Never constitu tionally strong, he on his return to England settled in lodgings at Stoke Newington as a confirmed valetudinarian, his days being spent for the most part in hypochondriac idleness (for little importance can be attached to what have sometimes been called his studies in medicine and meteoro logy). Having been nursed through an acute illness by an attentive landlady, a widow of some fifty-three of age, he felt that he could offer no adequate return short of marriage for her motherly kindness, and they were united accordingly in 1752. Left a widower in less than three years, Howard broke up his establishment at Stoke New ington in 1755, and resolved to go abroad, the recent occurrence of the earthquake at Lisbon attracting him to Portugal. The ship, however, in which he sailed was so unfortunate as to be taken by a French privateer, by whom both crew and passengers were carried to Brest, where they were treated with great harshness and almost starved. At Morlaix and at Carhaix Howard had further opportunities of observing the treatment to which prisoners of war were usually at that time subjected; and when permitted on parole to return to England to negotiate an exchange for himself, he not only accomplished his personal object, but also successfully represented the case of those who had been his fellow-captives. Abandoning for the time his Lisbon scheme, he now retired to his property at Cardington, where he continued to interest himself in meteorological observa tion, for some slight notes on which he obtained publication in the Transactions of the Royal Society, of which he had been admitted a member in 1756. After his marriage (April 1758) to Henrietta, eldest daughter of Edward Leeds of Croxton, Cambridgeshire, he continued to live a secluded life, partly at Cardington and partly on another property which he had purchased at Watcombe, Hampshire. In both places he distinguished himself as a kind landlord, and at Cardington especially he displayed a highly enlight ened philanthropy in his efforts to raise the condition of the poor by the construction of model cottages and by the erection of schools. In March 1765 his home was again desolated by the sudden and unexpected death of his wife, a few days after she had given birth to a son, her first and only child; and soon Howard’s drooping health and spirits imperatively demanded a change of air and scene. After visiting Bath and London, he in the spring of 1768 crossed to Holland; and another brief stay at Cardington was followed by a prolonged tour in France, Switzerland, and Italy as far as to Naples, whence he returned in 1770 by Germany and the Rhine. Having resumed his former course of life at Cardington, he was in 1773 named high sheriff of Bedford, an office which, although as a noncon formist he was unable to take the usual tests, he resolved to accept. The characteristic work of his life may be said to have now begun. When the assizes were held he did 