MEMOIRS

OF THE

LIFE AND CHARACTER OF THE AUTHOR.

A NEW edition of my father's Works having been for some time expected by the public, I have been induced to prefix to it the following short memoirs of his life and character.

There are few readers, I believe, who do not desire to know something more of an author than is commonly to be learned merely from his own writings. What he has been in private life, and in his domestic retirement; what appear to have been his habits of study, and of relaxation; how he has conducted himself as a member of society, so as to have deserved praise or blame: all these are natural topics of inquiry concerning every writer who has attained considerable literary eminence. To gratify a curiosity so reasonable, is one motive which has engaged me in the present undertaking; but, I will confess, it is not the only one.

The pride which I feel in being the son of such a father, and the gratitude and affection with which I must ever recollect him, have also powerfully induced me to pay this public tribute of respect to his memory. To his early care of my education, to his judicious introduction of me to respectable friends and patrons, to his constant good advice and excellent example, I am fond of attributing whatever credit I may have acquired in the various active employments that have fallen to my share. I reflect with the highest pleasure on his having seen me, during many years, engaged in the service of my country; and I can with truth say, that such advantages of rank or distinction as I have been fortunate enough to acquire, which he did not live to witness, have, from that very circumstance, lost much of their value in my estimation.

James Harris, esq., the writer of these volumes, was the eldest son of James Harris, esq., of the Close of Salisbury, by his

second wife, the lady Elizabeth Ashley, who was third daughter of Anthony earl of Shaftesbury, and sister to the celebrated author of the Characteristics, as well as to the Hon. Maurice Ashley Cooper, the elegant translator of Xenophon's Cyropædia. He was born upon the 20th of July, 1709. The early part of his education was received at Salisbury, under the Rev. Mr. Hele, master of the grammar school in the Close, who was long known and respected in the west of England as an instructor of youth. From Mr. Hele's school, at the age of sixteen, he was removed to Oxford, where he passed the usual number of years as a gentleman-commoner of Wadham college. His father, as soon as he had finished his academical studies, entered him at Lincoln's Inn, not intending him for the bar, but, as was then a common practice, meaning to make the study of the law a part of his education.

When he had attained his twenty-fourth year, his father died. This event, by rendering him independent in fortune, and freeing him from all control, enabled him to exchange the study of the law for other pursuits that accorded better with his inclination.

The strong and decided bent of his mind had always been towards the Greek and Latin classics. These he preferred to every other sort of reading; and to his favourite authors he now applied himself with avidity, retiring from London to the house in which his family had very long resided in the Close of Salisbury, for the sake of enjoying, without interruption, his own mode of living.

His application during fourteen or fifteen years to the best writers of antiquity, continued to be almost unremitting, and his industry was such as is not often exceeded. He rose always very early, frequently at four or five o'clock in the morning, especially during the winter, because he could then most ef fectually insure a command of time to himself. By these means he was enabled to mix occasionally in the society of Salisbury and its neighbourhood, without too great a sacrifice of his main object, the acquisition of ancient literature.

I have heard my father say, that it was not until many years after his retirement from London that he began to read Aristotle and his commentators, or to inquire, so deeply as he afterwards did, into the Greek philosophy. He had imbibed a

prejudice, very common at that time even among scholars, that Aristotle was an obscure and unprofitable author, whose philosophy had been deservedly superseded by that of Mr. Locke; a notion which my father's own writings have since contributed to correct, with no small evidence and authority.

In the midst, however, of his literary labours he was not inattentive to the public good, but acted regularly and assiduously as a magistrate for the county of Wilts; giving, in that capacity, occasional proofs of a manly spirit and firmness, without which the mere formal discharge of magisterial duty is often useless and inefficient.

The first fruit which appeared to the world of so many years spent in the pursuit of knowledge, and in habits of deep speculation, was a volume published in 1744, containing three treatises: the first concerning Art; the second concerning Music, Painting, and Poetry; the third concerning Happiness. These treatises, in addition to their merit as original compositions, are illustrated by a variety of learned notes and observations, elucidating many difficult passages of ancient writers, the study and examination of whom it was my father's earnest wish to promote and to facilitate. Lord Monboddo, speaking of the Dialogue upon Art, praises it, as containing "the best specimen of the dividing, or diæretic manner, as the ancients called it, that is to be found in any modern book with which he is acquainted."

In the month of July 1745, my father was married to miss Elizabeth Clarke, daughter and eventually heiress of John Clarke, esq., of Sandford, near Bridgewater, in the county of Somerset. Five children were the issue of this marriage; two of whom died young; myself and two daughters only have survived my father.

This change in his state of life by no means withdrew his attention from those studies in which he had been used to take so great delight, and which he had cultivated with such advantage and reputation; for in 1751 he published another work, called “Hermes, or a philosophical inquiry concerning universal grammar." An eulogium so honourable to this publication has been made on it by the learned Dr. Lowth, late bishop of London, that I cannot deny myself the pleasure of here inserting it, as of indisputable weight and authority. "Those,"

says the bishop, in the preface to his English Grammar, "who would enter deeply into the subject (of universal grammar), will find it fully and accurately handled, with the greatest acuteness of investigation, perspicuity of explication, and elegance of method, in a treatise entitled Hermes, by James Harris, esq.; the most beautiful example of analysis that has been exhibited since the days of Aristotle."

What first led my father to a deep and accurate consideration of the principles of universal grammar, was a book which he held in high estimation, and has frequently quoted in his Hermes, the Minerva of Sanctius. To that writer he confessed himself indebted for abundance of valuable information, of which it appears that he knew well how to profit, and to push his researches on the subject of grammar to a much greater length, by the help of his various and extensive erudition.

From the period of his marriage until the year 1761, my father continued to live entirely at Salisbury, except in the summer, when he sometimes retired to his house at Durnford, near that city. It was there that he found himself most free from the interruption of business and of company, and at leisure to compose the chief part of those works which were the result of his study at other seasons. His time was divided between the care of his family, in which he placed his chief happiness, his literary pursuits, and the society of his friends and neighbours, with whom he kept up a constant and cheerful intercourse. The superior taste and skill which he possessed in music, and his extreme fondness for hearing it, led him to attend to its cultivation in his native place with uncommon pains and success; insomuch that, under his auspices, not only the annual musical festival in Salisbury flourished beyond most institutions of the kind, but even the ordinary subscription-concerts were carried on by his assistance and direction, with a spirit and effect seldom equalled out of the metropolis. Many of the beautiful selections made from the best Italian and German composers for these festivals and concerts, and adapted by my father, sometimes to words selected from Scripture or from Milton's Paradise Lost, sometimes to compositions of his own, have survived the occasions on which they were first produced, and are still in great estimation. Two volumes of these selections have been lately published by Mr. Corfe, organist of Salisbury cathedral ;