HARRIS, HOWELL, 1714-73; b. Wales: an open-air preacher and revivalist, the principal founder of Calvinistic Methodism in Wales. He was endowed with oratorical powers of, the highest order, and his energy and enthusiasm carried his audiences by storm. He founded no fewer than 300 societies, was a friend of Wesley and Whitefield. and, when the French invasion of England was anticipated, raised a regiment at his own expense, and accompanied it on its march, preaching and expounding the Scriptures at every halting place.
HARRIS„L‘mas, an English philologist and logician, the eldest son of James Harris, esq., of Close, Salisbury, was born July 20, 1709. His mother was the lady Elizabeth Ashley Cooper, sister of lord Shaftesbury, author of the Characteristics. He was edff rated at Salisbury, and Wadham college, Oxford, and entered upon the study of the law; but his father having died in 1734, leaving him a handsome fortune, he abandoned the pursuit of his profession, and gave his whole time, for a period of 14 years, to the study of his favorite Greek and Latin authors. In 1745 he married a daughter of John Clarke, esq., of Sandford, near Bridgewater, by whom he had five children, the eldest of whom, hiS only son, became the first earl of Malmesbury. In 1761 he was returned to parliament for Christchurch, which seat he retained until his death. In 1762 he was appointed a lord of the admiralty, and the next year, lord of the treasury, and in 1774, secretary and comptroller to the queen. He died in 1780. He is chiefly known as the author of Hermes, or a Philosophic al Inquiry concerning Language and Unirersal Grammar, a work of great erudition, published in 1751. " It is written," says Coleridge, " with
the precision of Aristotle and the elegance of Quintilian." He had previously published three treatises—On Art; On Music, Painting, and Poetry; and On Happiness. In 177'; appeared his essay Philosophical Arrangements, part of a large projected work on the Logical System of Aristotle. His last work, entitled Philological Inquiries (1780). con sists of a series of criticisms and comments on the principal ancient, mediaeval, and modern authors. His works, with life by his son, the earl of Malmesbury, were pub lished at London in 1801.
HARRIS„Totm, 1802-56; an English theologian who at the age of 15 began to preach as a member of the Bristol itinerant society. After studying at the Independent college at Hoxton, he was in 1827 ordained pastor of a small congregation at Epsom. There in 1836 he wrote his essay Mammon, or Coretovsness, the Sin of the Christian Church, which won a prize of 100 guineas offered by Dr. Conquest. and brought its author into notice, 30,000 copies sold within a few years. In 1838 lie received the degree of doctor of divinity from 'Brown university (It. I.), and was appointed president and professor of theology in Chestnut and in 1850, when the Independent colleges at Harris. 33-1, Harrison.
• Ilighbury, Homerton, and Coward (near London) were united, Dr. Harris was elected principal of the new college thus formed.