James Harrington, (1611–77), born at Upton, Northants, the son of Sir S. Harrington of Exton, Ruthlandshire, studied at Trinity, Oxford. He travelled to Rome, and though a republican, became in 1646 a personal attendant of Charles I., and attended him to the scaffold. His semi-romance “Oceana” (1656), setting forth the best form of commonwealth, maintains that the real basis of power is property, especially landed property, from which no one person should derive more than £3000 a-year; and that the rulers should be changed every three years, their successors being elected by ballot. In 1661 he was arrested for attempting to change the constitution, and in prison went temporarily insane.

  Harrington published also several other political treatises, an essay on Virgil, and a metrical translation of four books of the Æneid.

Personal

  Anno Domini 1660, he was committed prisoner to the Tower, where he was kept…; then to Portsey castle. His durance in these prisons (he being a gentleman of a high spirit and hot head) was the procatractique cause of his deliration or madnesse; which was not outragious, for he would discourse rationally enough and be very facetious company, but he grew to have a phancy that his perspiration turned to flies, and sometimes to bees—ad ætera sobvius…. ’Twas the strangest sort of madnes that ever I found in any one talke of any thing els, his discourse would be very ingeniose and pleasant…. He was of a middling statue, well-trussed man, strong and thick, well-sett, sanguine, quick-hott-fiery hazell eie, thick moyst curled haire, as you may see by his picture. In his conversation very friendly, and facetious, and hospitable.

Oceana, 1656

  He made severall essayes in Poetry, viz. love-verses, &c., and translated … booke of Virgill’s Æn.; but his muse was rough, and Mr. Henry Nevill, an ingeniose and well-bred gentleman, a member of the House of Commons, and an excellent (but concealed) poet, was his great familiar and confident friend, and disswaded him from tampering in poetrie which he did invitâ Minervâ, and to improve his proper talent, viz. Politicall Reflections. Whereupon has writ his “Oceana,” printed London (1656). Mr. T. Hobbes was wont to say that Henry Nevill had a finger in that pye; and ’tis like enough. That ingeniose tractat, together with his and H. Nevill’s smart discourses and inculcations, dayly at coffee-houses, made many proselytes.

  It is strange that Harrington (so short a time ago) should be the first man to find out so evident and demonstrable a truth, as that of property being the true basis and measure of power. His “Oceana,” allowing for the different situation of things (as the less number of lords then, those lords having no share in the parliament and the like), is certainly one of the best founded political pieces that ever was writ.

  The style of this author wants ease and fluency; but the good matter which his work contains makes compensation.

  The author, who was a great visionary, was sanguine enough to expect to see it put in execution. Baxter’s “Holy Commonwealth” was avowedly levelled at this political romance. But Harrington, who expressed a great contempt for that performance, did not vouchsafe to write a serious answer to it; but affected to treat the author in a very cavalier manner, in a half sheet full of cant and ridicule.

  Harrington, whose “Oceana” is justly regarded as one of the boasts of English literature.

  In general, it may be said of Harrington, that he is prolix, dull, pedantic, and seldom profound; but sometimes redeems himself by just observations. Like most theoretical politicians of that age, he had an excessive admiration for the republic of Venice. His other political writings are in the same spirit as the “Oceana,” but still less interesting.

  As an early supporter of political liberty in England, the name of Harrington will always be entitled to the respect of posterity, whatever may be thought of the practicability of some of his speculations.

  If he has not the merit of absolute originality in his main propositions, they had at least never been so clearly expounded and demonstrated by any preceding writer.

  The political influence of the Italian republics upon English public opinion was very powerful in the seventeenth century, when the habit of travelling became general among the upper class of Englishmen, and when a large proportion of the highest intellects acquired in Italy a knowledge of the Italian writers on government, and an admiration for the Italian constitutions, and especially for that of Venice. The highest representative of this action of the Italian upon the English intellect was Harrington. His “Oceana,” though published under the Commonwealth and dedicated to Cromwell, was altogether uninfluenced by the inspiration of Puritanism; and it was only by the intercession of Cromwell’s favourite daughter, Lady Claypole, that its publication was permitted. (Toland, “Life of Harrington.”) It is remarkable that while Harrington’s writings were avowedly based in a very great degree upon those of Italians, they also represent more faithfully than any others of the seventeenth century what are regarded as the distinctive merits of English liberty. That a good government is an organism, not a mechanism—in other words, that it must grow naturally out of the condition of society, and cannot be imposed by theorists—that representative assemblies with full powers are the sole efficient guardians of liberty—that liberty of conscience must be allied with political liberty—that a certain balance should be preserved between the different powers of the State, and that property produces empire, are among the main propositions on which Harrington insists; and most of them are even now the main points of difference between English liberty and that which emanates from a French source. Harrington was also a warm advocate of the ballot.

  Harrington is full of ability, he has studied theoretical politics with immense care, he has observed certain sides of actual politics not without acuteness: he has just censures of “Leviathan” to which his own work is in a manner a counterblast: he is extraordinarily ingenious in the arrangement of the Tribes and the Troops, of the ballot machinery and the “Provincial Orb.” But in all this and in the relish with which he draws up accounts for the ballot boxes and the balls of metal and the pavilions, devises elaborate and rather poetical titles for his tribes and their officers, intersperses comic speeches by the “Lord Epimonus” (a genial fanatic of reaction), and adjusts rejoinders to them by Lord Archon (Cromwell), which are in some respects almost startlingly like Cromwell’s own speeches: in all this I say it is almost impossible not to detect what is familiarly called the bee in the bonnet.

  The style of the treatise has little to commend it, but some of the views propounded are ingenious and suggestive.