287 



BARLOW, GEORGE HENRY. 



HAROLD II. 



British Museum. His own writings do not show much literary talent. 

 They are, a Letter to Swift on Correcting and Improving the English 

 Tongue ; an Essay on Public Credit ; an Essay on Loans ; and a Vin- 

 dication of the Rights of the Commons of England. He has given an 

 account of his own administration in a letter to the queen, written a 

 few days before his dismissal, which is printed in Tiudal's History and 

 elsewhere. On this subject also may be consulted the Duchess of 

 Marlborough's Account of her own Life, and the. anonymous reply to 

 that work by James Ralph, entitled ' The Other Side of the Question ' 

 (8vo, London, 1742), many of the materials of which had evidently 

 been supplied by the Oxford family. The proceedings on the trial of 

 Lord Oxford are in the ' State Trials." 



HARLOW, GEORGE HENRY, was born in London in 1787. He 

 was the only son of his parents ; his father, who was a merchant, died 

 while he was an infant, and he was brought up by his mother, who 

 watched with int-rest and anxiety the early development of her son's 

 talent for drawing. He waa educated for a few years at Westminster 

 School, but when about sixteen he was placed with a Flemish landscape- 

 painter of the name of De Cort, whom he left for Mr. Drummond, A.R. A., 

 the portrait-painter; and he was finally placed in the studio of Sir 

 Thomas (then Mr.) Lawrence, in Greek Street, with the privilege of 

 copying pictures there from nine until four o'clock, but with an especial 

 proviso that he should receive " no instruction of any kind ;" for this 

 privilege he paid one hundred guineas per annum. At the expiration 

 however of a year and a half the master and pupil quarrelled. Law- 

 rence used to employ Harlow to dead-colour, and Harlow had so far a 

 share in painting a much-admired dog in a portrait of Mrs. Angerstein 

 that, at the Angeratein'a, he had the imprudence to claim it as his own. 

 This came of course to the ears of Lawrence, who in consequence dis- 

 missed his pupil Harlow has the credit of having revenged Lawrence's 

 resentment by painting a caricature of his style upon a sign-board at 

 Epsom, in one corner of which he wrote, ' T. L., Greek Street, Soho.' 



Harlow however had perhaps no great need of such assistance or 

 instruction as he would be likely to obtain from Lawrence ; he pos- 

 sessed a fine feeling for colour, a tolerably correct eye for form, and 

 great facility of execution, especially in portraiture in small, whether 

 in pencil, crayons, or oil-colours. He never studied at the Royal 

 Academy : he professed to consider study in schools and academies as 

 so much time spent in the destruction of originality. His first picture 

 of note was ' Hubert and Prince Arthur,' but he painted few historical 

 pieces ; the most celebrated of them is the Trial of Queen Catherine,' 

 of which the principal characters were portraits of the Kmble family ; 

 Mra. Siddons as Queen Catherine. Harlow painted many portraits, of 

 which the best is certainly that of Fuseli, a work in every respect of 

 great merit, painted for Mr. Knowles, Fuseli's biographer. The 

 portraits of Northcote and Nollekens are also among his best works. 



Having already obtained a considerable reputation and some means, 

 Harlow set out in Juue 1818 upon a visit to Rome, where he attracted 

 great notice and excited some wonderment by completing an effective 

 copy of the ' Transfiguration, 1 by Kaffaelle, in eighteen days. Canova 

 wu much pleased with it, and told Harlow that it looked like the 

 work of eighteen weeks ; he exhibited one of Harlow's pictures at his 

 house, and it procured him his election as a member of the Academy 

 of St. Luke, where it waa also exhibited. Harlow before he left London 

 waa a candidate for the degree of associate in the Royal Academy, but 

 he had only one vote, that of Fuseli He died in London on the 4th 

 of February 1819 in the thirty-second year of his age, and shortly after 

 his return from Italy. He was elected a member of the Academy ol 

 Florence on his passage home through that city. His biographers 

 describe him as having been frivolous iu character and prodigal in his 

 habits : he was however little more than a youth when he died. 



HARM.ER, THOMAS, a protestant Dissenting minister, was born at 

 Norwich, in 1715, of pious parents. He received his education under 

 the care of Mr. Eames in London, and was ordained in his twentieth 

 year as the minister of the Independent church of WatesSeld in Suffolk. 

 In this place he continued till his death in 178S, " beloved by all and 

 useful to many." 



The work by which Hartner is principally known is his ' Observations 

 on various passages of Scripture, placing them in a new light ; compiled 

 from relations incidentally mentioned in Hooks of Voyages and Travels 

 into the East' By the interest of Dr. Lowth, bishop of London, who 

 warmly approved of the work, Harmer obtained the manuscript papers 

 of Cbardin, which furnished him with a variety of curious additions 

 to bis work. The last and best edition was published, with a memoir 

 prefixed, by Dr. Adam Clarke, in 1816, in 4 vols. 8vo. Harmer was 

 also the author of ' An Account of the Jewish Doctrine of the Resur 

 rection of the Dead,' and of ' Outlines of a New Commentary on the 

 Book of Solomon's Song,' Svo, 1763, 2nd edition, 1775. 

 JIAKMODIUS. [ARISTOOITOX] 

 HAROLD I., surnamed Harefoot, was the younger of the two sons 

 of Canute the Great, by his mistress, or, according to others, his first 

 wife Alfgiva. On the death of his father in 1035, Harold disputed the 

 possession of the English crown with his half brother Hardicanute 

 whom their father had designed for his successor, and succeeded in 

 acquiring the sovereignty of London and all the country to the nortt 

 of thu Thames. [HARDICANUTE.] In 1037 the Thaues and people ol 

 Wessex also submitted to him, on which he was crowned king of al 

 England, although it is stated that Egelnoth, the archbishop of Canter 



mry, at first refused either to perform the ceivmony himself or to 

 >ermit any of his brother bishops to officiate in his stead. No events 

 f the reign of Harold, after he became sole king, have been preserved, 

 except that of the murder by his suggestion or command of Alfred, 

 son of Ethelred, who had landed in England with a view to the pro- 

 secution of his claim to the English crown. Even the character of 

 iarold may be said to be unknown -some of the chroniclers repre- 

 senting him as a friend to the church, others as not even professing a 

 jelief in Christianity. He died iu 1040, and was succeeded by his 

 Brother Hardicanute. The common account of his surname of flare- 

 'oot is that it was given him for his swiftness in running ; it is said 

 ;hat, in his favourite amusement of the chase, he used often to pursue 

 ;he game on foot. According to Brompton, it refers merely to his 

 general preference of walking to riding a most unbecoming taste, says 

 ;hat annalist, for a king. Another explanation is that his foot was 

 hairy. 



HAROLD II. was the second of the sons of Godwin, earl of Kent. 

 This Godwin, or Gudiu, makes his first appearance in English history 

 in the reign of Canute, and appears to have been born a few years 

 before the close of the 10th century. He was undoubtedly of Saxon 

 descent. The English writers call him the son of VVulfiioth, a 'child' 

 (which may perhaps mean a peasant) of Sussex. One writer, Radul- 

 phus Niger (whose manuscript chronicle is in the British Museum), 

 Bays distinctly that he was the son of a cowherd (' lilius bubulci '). 

 These statements are consistent, so far as they go, with a curious 

 account which Mr. Turner has translated from the Knytlinga Saga, 

 and which represents Godwin to have been the son of a peasant 

 named Ulfnadr (evidently the same name with Wnlfnoth), and to 

 have owed his introduction at the court of Canute to a service which 

 he performed to Ulfr, one of the noble captains of that Danish con- 

 queror, who, having lost himself iu a wood after the battle of Skorstein, 

 or Sceorstan [EDMUND II.], accidentally met with Godwin driving his 

 father's cattle, and was by him conducted in safety first to the cottage 

 of Ulfnadr and then to the camp of Canute. This story however 

 makes Ulfnadr to have had an uncle Edric who had already raised 

 himself from the same humble station to be duke or chief governor 

 of Mercia. Godwin's talents and address, his handsome person and 

 fluent speech, speedily enabled him to make his way at court. In 

 course of time he married Gyda, or Githa, ths sister of Ulfr, who was 

 himself married to a sister of Canute; and on this Canute made him 

 a jarl, or carL Earl Godwin's first appearance in political history is 

 after the death of Canute, as a supporter, in concert with Queen 

 Emma, of the succession of Hardicanute. [HARDICANCTE.] On this 

 occasion, as in the general course of his after-life, he attacued himself 

 to the Saxon, in opposition to the Danish or other for ign interest. 

 It seems improbable therefore that he should soon after this have 

 been a party, as the historians after the Norman Conquest allege, to 

 the treacherous murder of Prince Alfred, the younger brother of 

 Edward the Confessor. [EDWARD THE CONFESSOK.] The common 

 story indeed affirms that Godwin in this instance acted again iu concert 

 with Queen Emma; but, besides the extreme unlikelihood that the 

 mother should thus plot the destruction of her own child, whose 

 death was, at the moment at least, to benefit nobody except Harold 

 Harefoot, the enemy of herself and of her families by both her 

 husbands, the actual immediate result of this murder was her own 

 exile as a fugitive, and the complete overthrow, for the time, of what- 

 ever power she or her son Hardicauute, for whom she was acting, 

 possessed iu England. Tbe contemporary author, it may be further 

 observed, of the ( Encomium Ktnmie,' addressed to her, and written 

 by her orders, never would have made the murder, as he does, one of 

 the subjects of his detail, if there had been the least suspicion of her 

 participation in it. If Emma was innocent, Godwin, who was and 

 had all along been her associate in governing Wessex for Hardicauute, 

 was in all probability equally so. It is true that a few years after, iu 

 the reign of Hardicanute, he was, iu a quarrel with Alfric, archbishop 

 of York, passionately accused by that prelate of having been the 

 instrument through whom the murder was effected ; but he imme- 

 diately met the charge by demanding to be put upon his trial, and 

 the result was his complete acquittal. Wheu Alfred aud his followers 

 were f.ilUn upon by the soldiers of Harold, they were uuder the pro- 

 tection of Godwin, who had met them on their landing, having, as he 

 asserted, been sent by Emm* to be their conductor ; this circumstance 

 seems to have formed the sole ground for an imputation which pursued 

 him to the grave, aud after his death was eagerly taken up by the 

 Norman historians, when everything that could blacken the characters 

 of Godwin and his family was grateful to the reigning dynasty. 

 After the accession of Hardicanute, Godwin was employed in conjunc- 

 tion with Archbishop Alfrio to disinter the body of Harold Harefoot, 

 and see the fragments thrown into the Thames. It was a disagree- 

 ment arising out of this barbarous commission that gave occasion 

 to the quarrel between the archbishop and the earl. The history 

 of Godwin and his family during the next reign has been sketched 

 in the notice of Edward the Confessor. The historians after the 

 Conquest assert that his death, which certainly happened iu conse- 

 quence of a sudden seizure of illness as he sat at the royal table 

 on Easter Monday, 1053, was occasioned by his being choked in 

 attempting to swallow a pieca of bread, which, in reply to an observa- 

 tion of the king obliquely hinting that he had been the murderer 



