254 
H A R 
panying the parliamentary commiffioners to the king at 
Newcaftle, he was placed by them about his perfon, as 
one whom they could tru'd,' yet who had not rendered 
himfelf particularly obnoxious to him. On their recom¬ 
mendation, the king nominated him one of the grooms 
of his bed-chamber in 1647, upon the difmiflion of fome 
of his old fervants.- The learning and ingenuity which 
he difcovered in Harrington, induced his majedy to con- 
verfe with him in preference to his other attendants ; 
but, though he heard him with pleafure upon many to¬ 
pics, Harrington’s republican notions of government, 
which he maintained without difguife, excited in him 
manifed fi.gns of difapprobation. The royal condefcen- 
fion and familiarity, however,'gained fo much upon Har¬ 
rington’s mind, that he was heartily defirous of accom¬ 
modating the differences between the king and parlia¬ 
ment ; and his folicitations to this effeCt were probably 
the caufe that, when the treaty of the Hie of Wight was 
broken off, he was removed from his office. The king 
was much concerned at being deprived of his attendance; 
and is fajd to have given him a token of affeCtion before 
his execution. That event gave a great ffiock to Har¬ 
rington’s feelings, and he never forbore to fpeak of it 
with extreme regret, and with commifefation of tlie un¬ 
fortunate prince. Yet in his capacity of a writer he has 
drawn a very unfavourable portrait of Charles I. and 
imputed his fate to the divine judgment. 
During the interregnum he parted his time in retire¬ 
ment, chiefly occupied in compofing his famous work, 
The Oceana. The jealoufy of Cromwell’s government 
caufed this performance to be feized at the prefs; but 
by the means of the author’s application to Mrs. Clay- 
pole, Oliver’s daughter, it was reflored, and was pub- 
lifhed in 1646. If foon became a fubjeCt of controverfy, 
and the author made replies to various attacks upon it; 
in fome of which he excited fufpicion fo far, that in 
December, 1661, by order from Charles II. he was ap¬ 
prehended and committed to the Tower. It was a con¬ 
solation that the charge again!! him was not founded 
upon his writings, but upon a fuppofed plot againft the 
government, of which he knew himfelf innocent. He 
was, however, treated with great feverity, and it was a 
long time before he recovered his liberty. He died of 
a paralytic flroke, in 1677, and was buried in St. Mar¬ 
garet’s church, Wedminder. The writings of Harring¬ 
ton were publilhed collectively by Toland, in one vol. 
folio, 1700; and again more completely by Dr. Birch, 
in 1737. Befides his political works, he publilhed a 
poetical verfion of part of Virgil, which feems to have 
been little effeemed. 
H AR'RINGTON, a townfhip of the American States, 
in Bergen county,. New Jerfey. 
HAR'RTNGTON, a thriving town of the American 
States, in Lincoln county, didriCt of Maine, at the head 
®f the tide-waters on the Kennebeck river, three miles 
north of Hallowell, of which, till its incorporation in 
1797, it was a part, and known by the name of Fort 
Wfjlern. Vertels of one hundred tons afcend the river to 
this town. The judicial courts for the county are held 
alternately here and at Pownalborough. Here is a court- 
houfe and gaol. A bridge is ereCted on the Kennebeck, 
op port te old F.ort Weftern. Several merchants are fettled 
here, and carry on a brifk commerce with the back coun¬ 
try. The townfhip contains 36,000 acres of land, and 
about one thoufand inhabitants. 
HARRIOPOUR', a town of Hindooflan, in the coun¬ 
try of Oriffa : ninety-one miles north-north-ead of Cat- 
tack, and 105 we'd-fouth-weft of Calcutta. 
HAR'RIOT (Thomas), an eminent Engliffi mathe¬ 
matician, born at Oxford, in 1560; in which univerfity 
he received his education, and was entered at St. Mary’s- 
hail, where he took the degree of bachelor of arts in 
1579. He early acquired fo high a reputation for his 
/kill in mathematical learning, that he was.recommend¬ 
ed to lir Waiter Raleigh as a preceptor to him in that 
H A R 
fcie’nce. And he grew into fuch efleem and confidence 
with fir Walter, that when that adventurous knight, in 
purfuance of the patent granted to him, had, in 1584, 
made a fufficient difcovery o£ Virginia, he fent his pre¬ 
ceptor with the colony under fir Richard Grenville in 
the following year, as a perfon well qualified to affifl in 
the fettlement of it. Mr. Harriot remained in that coun¬ 
try about a year, diligently employed in furveying it, 
and in obferving the nature of its productions, as well 
as the cudoms and manners of its inhabitants. On his 
returato England, he publiffied A brief Report of the 
Land of Virginia, of the Commodities there,found, &c„ 
1588, 4to. which was reprinted in the third volume of 
Hakluyt’s Voyages, and alfo tranflated into Latin, and 
publifhed at Frankfort in 1590.. Soon after this work- 
had made its appearance, fir Walter introduced Mr. Har¬ 
riot to the acquaintance of Hugh Percy, earl of North- - 
umberland, who granted him a yearly penfion ; Wood 
fays of 120I, but from fome receipts which Dr. Zach 
found among his papers, it appears that he had 300I. 
which at that time was a confiderable income. And 
when, in 1606, that .nobleman was committed to the 
Tower for life, a tablewas maintained for Mr. Harriot,, 
and fome others of his mathematical friends, with whom 
the earl parted his hours of confinement in literary and 
fcientific fpeculations. Sir Walter Raleigh, being alfo 
in the Tower at the fame time, frequently joined their 
fociety, and foftened the rigours of His diameful impri- 
fonment, by entering into literary and philofophical'dif- 
cuffions with his former preceptor. Mr. Harriot, after 
the termination of this engagement, refided many years 
at Sion-college, where he died of a cancer in his lip, in 
1621, in the fixty-fird year of his age. Anthony Wood 
fays that he was in religion a deift, and that eminent di¬ 
vines of thofe times confidered the manner of his death 
to be a judgment upon him for undervaluing and reject¬ 
ing the authority of the Scriptures. But this affertion 
is not fupported by any concurrent teftimony, and is ir¬ 
reconcilable with the author’s language in his writings, 
and the praife beftowed upon him by orthodox and dif- 
tiriguiflied characters. He was doubtlefs one of the fir-ft 
mathematicians of the age in which he lived, and will 
always be remembered as the inventor of the prefent 
improved method of algebraic calculation. This was 
publilhed in 1631, in folio, by Mr. Warner, under the 
title of Artis Analyticx Praxis ad JFquationes Algebraicas nova 
expedita, & generali Methodo re/olvendas, &c. The improve¬ 
ments in this work were adopted by Des Cartes,“and for 
a confide'rable time impofed upon the French nation as 
his own invention; but’ the theft was detected and ex- 
pofed by Dr. Wallis, in his Hiflory of Algebra, where 
the reader will find our' author’s invention accurately 
fpecified. The plagiarifm has fince been more com¬ 
pletely proved by Dr. Zach,.adronomer to the duke of 
Saxe-Gotha r in the Adronomical Ephemeris of the Aca¬ 
demy of Sciences of Berlin for the year 1788, from fome 
valuable and curious manufcripts of Harriot’s, which- 
were difcovered in 1784, at Petworth in Suflex, the feat 
of the earl of Egremont, a defcendant from the generous 
earl of Northumberland who was Harriot’s patron. But 
thefe manufcripts not only prove mod fatisfaClorily that 
Harriot is entitled to the praife of invention as an analy ft, 
but fliow that he was not lefs eminent as an aftronomer 
and geometrician. Of thefe the mod remarkable are 
199 obfervations of the fun’s fpots, with their drawings,, 
calculations, and determinations of the fun’s rotation 
- about his axis. Hence there is the greated probability 
that Harriot was the fird difcoverer of thefe fpots, even 
• before either Galileo or Scheiner ; at lead there are no 
earlier obfervations of the folar fpots extant than his; as 
they run from December 8; 16x0, till January. 18, 161.3. 
Had Harriot had any notion about Galileo’s difeoveries, 
- he certainly would have alfo known fomething about the 
phafes of Venus and. Mercury, and efpecially about the 
lingular fliape of Saturn, firlt difcovered by Galileo.; but 
j therg 
