England.

Our author enjoyed many beneficial employments, and at length, about
the beginning of the civil war, was made one of the clerks of the
council, but being extravagant in his temper, all the money he got was
not sufficient to preserve him from a Jail. When the King was forced
from the Parliament, and the Royal interest declined, Howel was
arrested; by order of a certain committee, who owed him no good-will,
and carried prisoner to the Fleet; and having now nothing to depend
upon but his wits, he was obliged to write and translate books for a
livelihood, which brought him in, says Wood, a comfortable
subsistance, during his stay there; he is the first person we have met
with, in the course of this work, who may be said to have made a trade
of authorship, having written no less than 49 books on different
subjects.

In the time of the rebellion, we find Howel tampering with the
prevailing power, and ready to have embraced their measures; for which
reason, at the reiteration, he was not contin[u]ed in his place of
clerk to the council, but was only made king's historiographer, being
the first in England, says Wood, who bore that title; and having no
very beneficial employment, he wrote books to the last.

He had a great knowledge in modern histories, especially in those of
the countries in which he had travelled, and he seems, by his letters,
to have been no contemptible politician: As to his poetry, it is
smoother, and more harmonious, than was very common with the bards of
his time.

As he introduced the trade of writing for bread, so he also is charged