232 H A R 
tinat, and Charles V. He had for a long time the charge 
.of the literary part of the Mercure. Having (hewn him- 
felf a good poet and a good orator, he appeared with 
great eclat as a critic • he difplayed a profound acquaint¬ 
ance with criticifm, and a correct tafte ; of which his 
Tedtiires at . tire LyceunT, of Ccurs complet de Litterature, 
furnifti ilhiftrious proofs. On this laborious work, his 
. fame is principally founded. ’ Authors, it is true, are 
there fometimes treated with too much feverity, but it 
.every where difclofes tiiews favourable to the advance¬ 
ment of letters. Ordinarily in his literary judgments 
we meet with that purity of ftyle to which he had 
reached, found principles of tafte, and a-remarkable ta¬ 
lent for difcuffion, as well as clofe and forcible reafon- 
ing.j could he have commanded his pafiions when treat¬ 
ing of his cotemporaries, and had he adopted a flyle lefs 
imperious and decifive, he might have filled with dig¬ 
nity the chair of’QuinCtilian. His powers were confide- 
. rable, but it was his misfortune greatly'to over-rate 
them. When the revolution broke out, he cheriflted no¬ 
tions of reform, without carrying them into extremes : 
but, when the reign of terror taught him that all was 
.capable of being abufed'; when he faw the ideas of li¬ 
berty, equality, and juftice, become rallying points for 
the’fadtibus,; and when he had been confined in one of 
the prifons of the capital as a fufpeiSled perfon.; he 
came out of it filled with indignation againft tyranny, 
and infpired with zeal for that holy religion which it 
was attempted to overturn, by ridiculing its wor/hip 
and profcribing its minifters. He had been the difciple 
and great admirer of Voltaire, who had rewarded with 
eulogiums his attachment to the party of the modern 
philofophers ; he now declared himfelf their enemy, and 
attacked their, principles in all his writings, from this 
period 'to his death. On the iS.th Frudlidpr (4U1 Sep¬ 
tember) he was condemned to deportation : but he had 
the good fortune to conceal himfelf in a fecure afylum, 
and to efcape the profcription. He died in the winter 
of 1803, at the age of fixty-four. M. de Fontanes, in a 
fhort and brilliant eulogium on him, fays, “Letters and 
France have loft in La Harpe a poet, an orator, and an 
illuftrious critic.” He expired at an age when his 
thoughts had loll nothing of their vigour, and when his 
talents had been ftrengthened and increafed by the ex¬ 
traordinary events of the laft twelve years. It is known 
that he had become a profelyte to thofe ufeful and con¬ 
dolatory opinions on which the focial fyttem repofes;. 
thefe not only enriched his ideas and his ftyle with new 
beauties, but they mitigated the fufterings of his latter 
days. The works of La Harpe have been collected in 
6 vols. 8vo. but. this edition is very incomplete, and 
renders it defirable that another fliould be given to the 
public. 
HARPEGGIA'TO, or Harfeg'gio, f. In mufic, 
the method of ftriking the feveral founds of a concord 
fo as to be'heard dittindlly one after another. 
HAR'PFiR,/ A player on the harp : 
Never will I truft to' fpeeches penn’d, 
Nor to the motion of a fchoolboy’s tongue ; 
Nor woo in rhime, like a blind harper's fong. Shahefpeare. 
HAR'PERSFIELD, a townfiiip of the' American 
States,, in Otfego county, New York, bounded fouth- 
weft by Unadilla townfiiip, and thirty-two miles foutli- 
eaft of Cooperftown ; 155 of its inhabitants are electors. 
Through this town runs the great poft-road from Hud- 
fon to Williamlburgh, fixty-two miles weft of Hudfon 
city. 
HAR'PHIUS (Henry), a celebrated myftical writer, 
born at Herph, a village in Brabant, whence he derived 
his furname. He embraced the monaftic life, and died 
at Mechlin in 1478. He is clafled among the writers of 
eminence in myftical divinity, and his works have been 
much admired and read in catholic countries. The prin¬ 
cipal of them are entitled, Epithalamium, or the Bridal 
H A K 
Song; The Golden Directory for the Contemplative; and 
Eden, or the Terreftrial Paradife of the Contemplative. 
He alfo publifhed fome othef treatifes of a fimilar kind ; 
and fome fermons, which were printed after his death, 
in 1309. 
HAR'PIESj yi [ag/rvic/A, Gr. harpyice, Lat.) In fabu¬ 
lous hiftory, rapacious monfters, reprefented with wings 
like bats, ears like bears, bodies like vultures, faces 
like women, and feet and hands hooked like the talons 
of the condor. Some make them the daughters of Tellus 
and Oceamis, the earth and ocean ; whence, fays Ser- 
vius, it is, that they inhabit an ifiand, half on land and 
half in water. Valerius Flaocus makes them the daugh¬ 
ters of Typhon. There were faid to be three har.pies, 
Aello, Ocypete, and Celceno, which laft Homer calls 
Podarge. Hefiod, in his Theogony, ver. 267, only reckons 
two, Aello and Ocypete, and makes them the daughters 
of Thaumas and Eleclra affirming that they had wings, 
and went with the rapidity of the wind. Zephyrus begat 
: of them Balius and Xanthus, Achilles’s horfes. Phere- 
cydes relates, that the Boreades expelled them from 
the ASgean and-Sicilian feas, and purfued them as far.^s 
the ifiands which he calls Plota, and Homer Calyrue ; and 
which have fince been called the Strophades. 
Voffius, Deldolol. lib. iii. p. 63, thinks, that what 
the ancients have related of the harpies, corrbfponds to 
the great terna.te bats found in the territories of Darien 
in South America. Thefe animals kill not only birds, 
but dogs and cats, and prove very .troublefome to men. 
But the ancients knew nothing,of thefe bats. By the 
harpies, therefore, he thinks, they could mean nothing 
elfe but the winds; and that it was'on'this account they 
were made 'daughters of Eledtra, the daughter of Ocea- 
nus. Such is the opinion of the fcholiafts of Apollo¬ 
nius, Hefiod, and Euftathius. Their names, Aellq, 
Ocypete, Celceno, are fuppofed to fuggeft a farther proof 
of this fadt. 
Mr. Bryant fuppofes that the ftory of the harpies re¬ 
lates to the priefts of the Sun. They were, he fays, de¬ 
nominated from their feat of refidence, which was an 
oracular temple called Harpi, and Hirpi, analogous to 
Orp/ti, and Urphi, in other places. The ancient name of 
a prieft was Cahen, rendered miftakenly Kt-», and Cams. 
Hence the harpies, who were priefts of Ur, are ftiled by 
Apollonius the Dogs of Jove : 
Ov Se/mj, a vim; Bogsov %i(pn<ro-iv eXacrirea 
A^wvta?, jwiyaAoio Aioj KYNAZ. 
This term, in the common acceptation, is certainly not 
applicable to the harpies, either as birds or as winged 
animals. But this reprefentation was only the fancy of 
the people. The harpies were certainly a college of 
priefts in Bithynia'; and on that account called Cahen. 
They feem to have been a fet of rapacious perfons, who, 
for their repeated acts of violence and cruelty, were 
driven,out of the country; and hence the degrading 
epithet of harpy. 
HARP'ING, f. The adl of playing on the harp ; the 
found of harpers.. 
HAR'PING-IRON,/! [from harpago, Lat.] A beard¬ 
ed dart with a line fattened to, the handle, with which 
whales are ftruck and caught; a harpoon : 
The boat which on the firft aftault did go 
Struck with a karping-iron the younger foe ; 
Who, when he felt his fide fo rudely goar’d. 
Loud as the fea that nourifli’d hint he roar’d. Waller. 
HAR'PINGS,y. A fea term ; the breadth' of a fiiip 
at the bow ; the ends of the bend which are fattened, into 
the ftern. 
HAR'PLE, a townftiip of the American States, in 
Delaware county, Pennfylvania. 
HARPOC'RATES, in mythology, the fon of Ifis and 
Ofiris. This is an Egyptian deity, reprefented witji his 
finger applied to his mouth, denoting 1 l>jm [o,be the god 
