HAROLD III. 473 HARPER'S FERRY HAROLD III., surnamed Haardraabe, or Hardrada (stern in council), a king of Norway. He was one of the most famous of the old Viking chiefs, and a descendant of Harold I. While still a boy he was present at the battle of Stikklestad (1030), in which his brother, St. Olaf, King of Norway, was slain. Harold himself sought an asylum at the court of his relative, Yaroslaff, Prince of Novgorod. Thence, going on to Constan- tinople, he became captain of the Varan- gians or Scandinavian bodyguard of the Greek emperors, and in command of them defeated the Saracens in several battles in Sicily and Italy. On his re- turn to Constantinople he drew upon himself the vengeance of the Empress Zoe, whose proffered love he rejected, and with difficulty made good his escape to Russia, where he married the daugh- ter of Duke Yaroslaff. But he did not remain in Russia. He returned about 1045 to Norway, where his nephew, Magnus (the son of St. Olaf), agreed to divide the supreme power with him, in exchange for a share of his treasures. The death of Magnus in 1047 left Har- old sole king of Norway, and Svend King of Denmark; but with Svend Har- old waged unrelenting war till 1064. This king changed the capital of Nor- way from Throndhjem to Opslo, now a suburb of Christiania. Two years later he landed in England, to aid Tostig against his brother Harold, King of Eng- land, but was slain in battle at Stamford Bridge, where also the flower of his war- riors fell. HAROUN (har-6n') surnamed Al-Ras- CHID (more properly Harun er Rashid the orthodox), the most renowned of the Abbaside caliphs; born in 763. He suc- ceeded his elder brother. El Hadi, in the caliphate, in the year 786. He owed his peaceful accession to the sagacity of the Barmecide Yahya, whom he at once made his grand vizier. To him and his four sons he left the entire administration of his extensive kingdom, and the prosper- ity of the country proved that his confi- dence was not misplaced. Meantime Ha- roun gave himself up to the pleasures of life, and made his court at Bagdad a brilliant center of all the wit, learning and art of the Moslem world. Toward the end of his reign a strange and deeply rooted hatred toward the Barmecides filled his mind, and in 803 he caused the vizier, his four sons, and all their de- scendants, save one, to be executed, not even excepting his favorite Jaafer (Gia- far), who had been his constant compan- ion in his famous but apocryphal noc- turnal rambles through the streets of Bagdad. But the retribution of heaven quickly followed; his affairs fell into ir- retrievable confusion; treason and rebel- lion showed themselves in every corner of the empire; and, when it was too late, Haroun repented bitterly his ferocious cruelty. To quell a formidable rising in Khorassan, in the N. E. of the em- pire, Haroun marched in person against the rebels, but an attack of apoplexy obliged him to remain behind, in Tus, where he soon afterward died, in the month of March, 809. Haroun the Mag- nificent is the hero of many of the stories in the "Arabian Nights." HARPER, GEORGE McLEAN, an American educator, born at Shippens- burg, Pa., in 1863. He graduated from Princeton in 1884. After several years of newspaper work he became instructor of romance languages at Princeton Uni- versity, in 1889. He was assistant pro- fessor in 1891, and professor in 1894. He was appointed professor of English literature in 1900. He was the author of "The Legend of the Holy Grail" (1896) ; "Masters of French Literature" (1901) ; "William Wordsworth, His Life, Works and Influences" (1915). He also edited and translated works of foreign authors. In 1918 he edited the addresses of President Wilson. He was a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters, and was the delegate of the American Commission for Relief in Bel- gium, in 1919. HARPER, WILLIAM RAINEY, an American educator; born in New Con- cord, 0., July 26, 1858; was graduated at Muskingum College in 1870; Profes- sor of Hebrew at the Baptist Union Theological Seminary, Chicago, in 1879- 1886; of Semitic Languages at Yale Col- lege in 1886-1891 ; was then chosen presi- dent of the University of Chicago. He is the author of "Elements of Hebrew"; "Elements of Hebrew Syntax"; "Hebrew Vocabularies" and "An Introductory New Testament, Greek Method" (with Revere F. Weidner) ; "The Prospects of the Small College"; "Elements of Latin" etc. He died Jan. 10, 1906. HARPERS FERRY, a town in Jeffer- son CO., W. Va.; at the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers, and on the Baltimore and Ohio railroads; 81 miles W. of Baltimore, Md. The place has considerable historical interest. It was the site of a United States govern- ment foundry, arsenal and armory, and the scene of John Brown's raid in Vir- ginia in 1859. The government build- ings were burned in 1861, to prevent their falling into the hands of the Con- federates. In 1862 a Union army under Gen. D. H. Miles surrendered to Stone-
