HAULKS, QOTTLIEB CHRISTOPHER. 



HARLEY, ROBERT, KARL OF OXFORD. 



290 



in 15M. Harington was made a commander of horse under Lord 

 ton. in hu service. When Ewex .hortly after made hU 



rtturn to England, liuington waa one of the few officers 



i be chose to accompany him, n<i he came in for a abare of the 



queen* indignation. She was angry also, we are told, tbat Kuox 

 hod, in Ireland, oonferred on Harinjrton the honour of knighthood. 

 " I came to court," write! Horiugton to one of hi* friend*, " iu the 

 T*ryfc*at >nd height of all displeasures; after I had been there but 

 an hour, I was threatened with th Fleet; I anawered poetically that 

 coming ao late from the land-service, I hoped that I should not be 

 ill mill to serve in her majesty'* fleet in Fleet Street,' After three 

 day* every man wondered to ace me at liberty." But the quccu 

 shortly relented, and then, write* Sir John in the true style of a 

 courtier, " 1 teemed to myself, for the time, like St. Paul, rapt up in 

 the third beaten, where he heard word* not to be uttered by men." 

 On the accession of James I. in 1602, Harington continued in posses- 

 sion of royal favour. He now wrote for the private use of Prince 

 Henry hi* < Brief View of the State of the Church,' which is an 

 account of the bishop* who lived in the reign* of Elizabeth and 

 James L He died in 1612. 



Beaide* the translation of the 'Orlando Furioso' and the 'Brief 

 View of the State of the Church,' which hare been mentioned, Sir 

 John Harington wrote a satirical poem entitled the ' Metamorphoses 

 of A jut,' a volume of epigrams and aeveral occasional pieces in verse, 

 several of which remain unpublished. His epigrams and letters, many 

 of which are preserved in Hsrington'a ' Nugse Antiqute,' show him to 

 have been a man of wit and taste ; and the ' View of the State of the 

 Church ' is pleasantly written. 



HARLES, GOTTLIEB (or THEOPHILUS) CHRISTOPHER, a 

 learned and laborious German philologer, was born at Culmbach in 

 1738, died November 2, 1815. He held several academical offices in 

 the university of Erlangen, and published many editions of Greek 

 and Latin authors, which however are not highly esteemed. His 

 character is that of a laborious student rather than of a judicious and 

 able critic. His best works ate his ' Introductions to the History of the 

 Greek and of the Latin Language ; ' and bis ' Lives of the Most Eminent 

 Pbilologers of our age,' a very useful collection to those who are con- 

 cerned with literary biography, 1770, 3 vols. 12mo, Brenitc. The 

 most important of hi* publications is an edition of the ' Bibliotheca 

 Greet,' of Fabricius, Hamburg, 1790-1811, in 12 vols. 4to, which 

 contains great additions, and a new arrangement of the original 

 matter [FiBmcius, J. A.] 



HARLEY, ROBERT, EARL OF OXFORD, was born in London 

 in 1661, of a family long of distinguished note in the county of 

 Hereford. His grandfather, Sir Robert Harley, was master of the 

 mint in the reign of Charles I., and his father, Sir Edward, was 

 governor of Dunkerque after the Restoration. In the troubles of the 

 17th century the Harleys acted with the Presbyterian party, of which 

 the family was considered one of the heads, and although both Sir 

 Robert aud bis son Sir Edward took the field on the sid of the parlia- 

 ment in the early part of the civil war, they went into opposition 

 when the republicans obtained the ascendancy, and Sir Edward after- 

 wards took an active part in bringing about the Restoration. The 

 subject of the present article entered parliament after the Devolution 

 a* member for Tn-gony, and afterwards sat for Radnor, professing for 

 some time the whig principles uf his family. After a transition 

 period however, in which he followed a course that perplexed and 

 successively excited the expectation* of all parties, he went fairly 

 over to the Tories, and soon became one of their most active and 

 efficient combatants in tue House of Commons. In the House which 

 met under the tory administration of Rochester and Godolphin, in 

 February 1701, Harley was elected speaker by a great majority; and 

 even in the next parliament, which assembled in December of the 

 same year, although his friends now appeared in diminished numbers, 

 they were still itroug enough to place him again in the chair. He 

 was a third time chosen to the same office by Queen Anne's first par- 

 liament, in October 1702, and retained it till April 1704, when ha 

 was made secretary of state. He U believed to have been principally 

 indebted fur this promotion to the good office* of Miss Abigail Hill, 

 who had been introduced into tbe royal household by her cousin 

 Sarah, duchess of Marlborough, and who was by this time beginning 

 to supplant her patroness in the queen's favour. Miss Hill's father, it 

 itmin, a merchant iu the city, who had fallen into distressed circum- 

 stance*, waa as near a relation of Harley as her mother was of the 

 iluchess ; and this circumstance had probably something to do in 

 bringing him and the daughter together. According to the scandalous 

 chronicle of the Duchess of Marlborough, Miss Hill, having fixed her 

 affections on Mr. Maiham, the queen's page, applied to her cousin 

 Harley for his aid in forwarding her object : by Harley 's management 

 she became Mrs. Masbara ; and in return she exerted all her influence 

 to attach the weak mind of tbe queen to Harley and his friends. It 

 is certain that from this time she and Harley acted in confederacy 

 against the Marlborough interest In tbi* state of things the latter 

 party began to seek a new rapport by inclining toward* the Whigs; 

 and various circumstance* chanced for the moment to favour this 

 line of policy. In tbe parliament which met in October 1705, the 

 Whigs were stronger than they bad been since the beginning of the 

 reign ; this sufficed to introduce into the cabinet two distinguished 



members of that party, William Cowper, Esq. (afterwards Lord 

 ( 'owner), as lord chancellor, and Charles, earl of Sunderland, the son- 

 in-law of Marlborougb, as one of the *ocretaries of state. But the 

 struggle was finally decided against Harley by the public suspicion 

 and odium to which he became exposed in consequence of the con- 

 viction of one of his clerk* named Gregg, for carrying on a treasonable 

 correspondence with France. Uregg, who was executed for his crime, 

 left a paper with the sheriff, in which he entirely exculpated Harley : 

 even this however did not allay the outcry against the latter ; it was 

 said that he himself was the writer of the paper, which he had 

 induced Gregg to sign and to deliver by the promise of a reprieve. 

 On the other hand, Harley 's friends asserted that the strongest 

 endeavours wero made by the opposite party to suborn Gregg, and to 

 prevail upon him, by the promise of a pardon, to accuse Harley. In 

 the beginning of February 170S, after the conviction, but before tho 

 execution, of Gregg, the* Duke of Marlborough and Lord Uodolphiu 

 intimated to the queen that unless Harley were removed, they would 

 leave her service ; on this, although it U believed that tho queen was 

 herself willing to incur the threatened risk of continuing to support 

 him, the secretary resigned, along with his friend St. John (afterword* 

 Lord Bolingbroke). Harley remained out of power for about two 

 years and a half ; at the end of which time the Whig ministry was 

 partly undermined by his intrigues and those of Mrs. Masham, partly 

 destroyed by its own imprudence and over-confidence. In August 

 1710 Godolphin was dismissed, and Harley was appointed chancellor 

 of the Exchequer, all the other Whig members of the cabinet having 

 at the same time resigned or been turned out, and Tories put in their 

 places. A new parliament was toon after called, which completely 

 sanctioned this arrangement ; so inflamed was the temper of the 

 public mind against the late ministry, that only about a hundred o f 

 their friends were returned from all England. The Duke and Duchess' 

 of Marlborough, and all their connections, wero now completely dis- 

 carded both from office and from the queen's favour, which continued 

 to the end of her life to be wholly engrossed by Mrs. Ma>haru (whose 

 husband was soon after made a peer), and by those to whom she lent 

 her influence and protection. 



On the 8th of March 1711 an accident happened to Harley which in 

 the end proved very serviceable to his schemes of ambition : a French 

 emigrant, who called himself the Marquis de Guiscard (he was in fact 

 an abbe", and brother of the Count de Quit card), having been appre- 

 hended on a charge of high treason and brought for examination to 

 the cockpit, suddenly seized a penknife and struck at the minister. 

 Harley's wound was very slight, but he took care to remain as long as 

 possible in the surgeon's bauds. In May following he was appointed 

 lord high treasurer, being about the same time created Earl of Oxford 

 aud Earl Mortimer, and invested with the Order of the Garter. As 

 the victories of Marlborough constituted the glory of the Uodolphin 

 administration, the peace uf Utrecht, concluded May 5th 1713, is the 

 event for which that of Harley is chiefly memorable. It was after this 

 that the jealousy between the premier and lioling broke assumed the 

 character of an open rivalry, although it is believed to have been f. r- 

 menting in secret for years before. The ambitious and iutriguiug 

 dispositions of the men, both it is probable equally unprincipled, made 

 it impossible that they should long continue to act together after their 

 one common object, the achievement of peace with France, ceased to 

 unite their efforts. Bolingbroke had now the art to guiu tbe favourite, 

 Lady Masham, whose influence Harley, on the other hand, seems to 

 have erroneously calculated that he was by this time sufficiently 

 established to despise. It was soon proved that he was wrong : on 

 the 27th of July 1714 the lord treasurer received his dismissal. It U 

 said that a few days before he had excited tbe determined vengeance 

 of Lady Masham by demurring to a grant of an annuity of 16001. a 

 year which she had obtained from tho queen. The queen's death, 

 three days after, put on end for ever to the political existence of both 

 Oxford aud Bolingbroke. Iu August 1715 both were impeached by 

 the House of Commons. When .St. John made his escape to France, 

 Harley was committed to the Tower, aud there he lay for nearly two 

 years. At lost, in June 1717, he was on his own petition brought to 

 trial before the House of Lords; but the Commons not appearing to 

 prosecute their impeachment, the prisoner was ou the 1st uf July 

 acquitted and discharged. During his confinement the Karl of Oxford 

 wrote to James offering his services, and, after bis acquittal, we find 

 from the Stuart papers that he was consulted by James and by some 

 of the leading Jacobites ; and at one time James appears to have desired 

 that his affairs should be placed under the direction of a single head 

 instead of a council, and he expressed his with that Lord Oxford should 

 assume that office : but nothing further appears to have been dono in 

 tho matter. Henceforth the Earl of Oxford lived iu retirement till his 

 death, May 21st 1724. He was succeeded in his titles and estates by 

 Edward, his eldest son by his first marriage with Elizabeth, daughter 

 of Thomas Foley, Esq., whose brother was made Baron Foli-y in 1711, 

 bciii ,' one of the twelve peers then introduced in a body into the Houeo 

 of Lords. 



Lord Oxford showed his attachment to literature both by his patronage 

 of Swift, 1'upc, and others, and by the extensive and valuable library of 

 printed books and manuscripts which he spared no pains or expense 

 to collect ; the manuscript* were purchased by parliament (26th of 

 Geo. IV.) and now form tho well-known Harleian collection iu tho 



