A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature/Howie, John

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Howie, John (1735-1793).—Biographer, a Renfrewshire farmer, who claimed descent from an Albigensian refugee, wrote Lives of the martyrs of Scotland from Patrick Hamilton, the first, to James Renwick, the last, under the title of Scots Worthies. The work of an unlettered man, it has considerable merit as regards both matter and style, and was long a classic among the Scottish peasantry as well as higher orders of the people.