a gentleman commoner. One of his tutors was the famous Chillingworth. After several years spent in travel, and as a soldier in the Dutch army, he returned to England and lived in retirement till 1646, when he was appointed to the suite of Charles I., at that time being conveyed from Newcastle as prisoner. Though republican in his ideas, Harrington won the king’s regard and esteem, and accompanied him to the Isle of Wight. He roused, however, the suspicion of the parliamentarians and was dismissed: it is said that he was for a short time put in confinement because he would not swear to refuse assistance to the king should he attempt to escape. After Charles’s death Harrington devoted his time to the composition of his Oceana, a work which pleased neither party. By order of Cromwell it was seized when passing through the press. Harrington, however managed to secure the favour of the Protector’s favourite daughter, Mrs Claypole; the work was restored to him, and appeared in 1656, dedicated to Cromwell. The views embodied in Oceana, particularly that bearing on vote by ballot and rotation of magistrates and legislators, Harrington and others (who in 1659 formed a club called the “Rota”) endeavoured to push practically, but with no success. In November 1661, by order of Charles II., Harrington was arrested, apparently without sufficient cause, on a charge of conspiracy, and was thrown into the Tower. Despite his repeated request no public trial could be obtained, and when at length his sisters obtained a writ of habeas corpus he was secretly removed to St Nicholas Island off Plymouth. There his health gave way owing to his drinking guaiacum on medical advice, and his mind appeared to be affected. Careful treatment restored him to bodily vigour, but his mind never wholly recovered. After his release he married,—at what date does not seem to be precisely known. He died on the 11th of September 1677, and was buried next to Sir Walter Raleigh in St Margaret’s, Westminster.
Harrington’s writings consist of the Oceana, and of papers, pamphlets, aphorisms, even treatises, in defence of the Oceana. The Oceana is a hard, prolix, and in many respects heavy exposition of an ideal constitution, “Oceana” being England, and the lawgiver Olphaus Megaletor, Oliver Cromwell. The details are elaborated with infinite care, even the salaries of officials being computed, but the main ideas are two in number, each with a practical corollary. The first is that the determining element of power in a state is property generally, property in land in particular; the second is that the executive power ought not to be vested for any considerable time in the same men or class of men. In accordance with the first of these, Harrington recommends an agrarian law, limiting the portion of land held to that yielding a revenue of £3000, and consequently insisting on particular modes of distributing landed property. As a practical issue of the second he lays down the rule of rotation by ballot. A third part of the executive or senate are voted out by ballot every year (not being capable of being elected again for three years). Harrington explains very carefully how the state and its governing parts are to be constituted by his scheme. Oceana contains many valuable ideas, but it is irretrievably dull.
His Works were edited with biography by John Toland in 1700; Toland’s edition, with additions by Birch, appeared in 1747, and again in 1771. Oceana was reprinted by Henry Morley in 1887. See Dwight in Political Science Quarterly (March, 1887). Harrington has often been confused with his cousin Sir James Harrington, a member of the commission which tried Charles I., and afterwards excluded from the acts of pardon.
HARRIOT, or Harriott, THOMAS (1560–1621), English mathematician and astronomer, was born at Oxford in 1560. After studying at St Mary Hall, Oxford, he became tutor to Sir Walter Raleigh, who appointed him in 1585 to the office of geographer to the second expedition to Virginia. Harriot published an account of this expedition in 1588, which was afterwards reprinted in Hakluyt’s Voyages. On his return to England, after an absence of two years, he resumed his mathematical studies, and having made the acquaintance of Henry Percy, earl of Northumberland, distinguished for his patronage of men of science, he received from him a yearly pension of £120. He died at London on the 2nd of July 1621. A manuscript of Harriot’s entitled Ephemeris chrysometria is preserved in Sion College; and his Artis analyticae praxis ad aequationes algebraicas resolvendas was published at London in 1631. His contributions to algebra are treated in the article Algebra; Wallis’s History of Algebra (1685) may also be consulted. From some papers of Harriot’s, discovered in 1784, it would appear that he had either procured a telescope from Holland, or divined the construction of that instrument, and that he coincided in point of time with Galileo in discovering the spots on the sun’s disk.
See Charles Hutton, Mathematical and Philosophical Dictionary (1815), and J. E. Montucla, Histoire des mathématiques (1758).
HARRIS, GEORGE, 1st Baron (1746–1829), British general,
was the son of the Rev George Harris, curate of Brasted, Kent,
and was born on the 18th of March 1746. Educated at Westminster
school and at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich,
he was commissioned to the Royal Artillery in 1760, transferring
to an ensigncy in the 5th foot (Northumberland Fusiliers) in
1762. Three years later he became lieutenant, and in 1771
captain. His first active service was in the American War of
Independence, in which he served at Lexington, Bunker Hill
(severely wounded) and in every engagement of Howe’s army
except one up to November 1778. By this time he had obtained
his majority, and his next service was under Major-General
Medows at Santa Lucia in 1778–1779, after which his regiment
served as marines in Rodney’s fleet. Later in 1779 he was for a
time a prisoner of war. Shortly before his promotion to lieutenant-colonel
in his regiment (1780) he married. After commanding
the 5th in Ireland for some years, he exchanged and
went with General Medows to Bombay, and served with that
officer in India until 1792, taking part in various battles and
engagements, notably Lord Cornwallis’s attack on Seringapatam.
In 1794, after a short period of home service, he was again in
India. In the same year he became major-general, and in 1796
local lieutenant-general in Madras. Up to 1800 he commanded
the troops in the presidency, and for a short time he exercised the
civil government as well. In December 1798 he was appointed
by Lord Wellesley, the governor-general, to command the field
army which was intended to attack Tipu Sahib, and in a few
months Harris reduced the Mysore country and stormed the
great stronghold of Seringapatam. His success established his
reputation as a capable and experienced commander, and its
political importance led to his being offered the reward (which
he declined) of an Irish peerage. He returned home in 1800,
became lieutenant-general in the army the following year, and
attained the rank of full general in 1812. In 1815 he was made a
peer of the United Kingdom under the title Baron Harris of
Seringapatam and Mysore, and of Belmont, Kent. In 1820 he
received the G.C.B., and in 1824 the governorship of Dumbarton
Castle. Lord Harris died at Belmont in May 1829. He had
been colonel of the 73rd Highlanders since 1800.
His descendant, the 4th Baron Harris (b. 1851), best known as a cricketer, was under-secretary for India (1885–1886), under-secretary for war (1886–1889) and governor of Bombay (1890–1895).
See Rt. Hon. S. Lushington, Life of Lord Harris (London, 1840), and the regimental histories of the 5th Northumberland Fusiliers and 73rd Highlanders.
HARRIS, JAMES (1709–1780), English grammarian, was born at Salisbury on the 20th of July 1709. He was educated at the grammar school in the Close at Salisbury, and at Wadham College, Oxford. On leaving the university he was entered at Lincoln’s Inn as a student of law, though not intended for the bar. The death of his father in 1733 placed him in possession of an independent fortune and of the house in Salisbury Close. He became a county magistrate, and represented Christchurch in parliament from 1761 till his death, and was comptroller to the queen from 1774 to 1780. He held office under Lord Grenville, retiring with him in 1765. The decided bent of his mind had always been towards the Greek and Latin classics; and to the study of these, especially of Aristotle, he applied himself with unremitting assiduity during a period of fourteen or fifteen
