HARRIS, JOHN (c. 1666-1719), English writer. He is best known as the editor of the Lexicon technicum, or Dictionary of the Arts and Sciences (1704), which ranks as the earliest of the long line of English encyclopaedias, and as the compiler of the Collection of Voyages and Travels which passes under his name. He was born about 1666, probably in Shropshire, and was a scholar of Trinity college, Oxford, from 1684 to 1688. He held the vicarage of Icklesham in Sussex, and subsequently the rectory of St. Thomas, Winchelsea. In 1698 he delivered the seventh series of the Boyle lectures—Atheistical Objections against the Being of God and His Attributes fairly considered and fully refuted. Be tween 1702 and 1704 he gave at the Marine coffee house, Birchin lane, London, the mathematical lectures founded by Sir Charles Cox, The friendship of Sir William Cowper, afterwards lord chancellor, secured for him a series of church preferments. He showed himself an ardent supporter of the Government, and engaged in a bitter quarrel with the Rev. Charles Humphreys, afterwards chaplain to Dr. Sacheverel who held him up to ridicule in The Picture of a High-flying Clergyman (1716) . Harris was one of the early members of the Royal Society, and for a time acted as vice-president. He died on Sept. 7, 1719.