mented, probaoly with silver, as they have been the object of theft. This harp has twenty-eight keys, and as many string holes, consequently there were as many strings. The foot-piece or rest is broken off, and the parts round which it was joined are very rotten. The whole bears evidence of an expert artist.

HARP, THE WELSH, or the TRIPLE HARP, has ninety-seven strings or chords in three rows, extending from C in the tenor cliff to double G in alt, which make five octaves: the middle row is for the semitones, and the two outside rows are perfect unisons. On the bass side, which is played with the right hand, there are thirty-six strings; on the treble side, twenty-six; and in the middle row, thirty-five strings. There are two rows of pins or screws on the right side, serving to keep the strings tight in their holes, which are fastened at the other end to three rows of pins on the upper side. The harp, within the last sixty years, has been in some degree improved by the addition of eight strings to the unison, viz. from E to double F in alt. This instrument is struck with the finger and thumb of both hands. Its music is much like that of the spinet, all its strings going from semitone to semitone; whence some call it an inverted spinet. It is capable of a much greater degree of perfection than the lute.

HARPAGINES, Aprayeç, in antiquity, were hooks of iron, hanging on the top of a pole, which, being secured with chains to the masts of ships, and then let down with great velocity into the enemy's vessels, caught them up into the air. By way of defence against these machines, they covered their ships with hides, which broke and blunted the force of the iron. The harpagines were invented by Anacharsis the Scythian philosopher.

HARPAGIUS, the preserver of Cyrus, according to Herodotus, and afterwards one of his generals, who subdued Asia Minor. See PERSIA.

HARPALUS, a Greek astronomer, who flourished about A. A. C. 480, corrected the cycle of eight years invented by Cleostratus; and proposed a new one of nine years, in which he imagined the sun and moon returned to the same point. But Harpalus's cycle was afterwards altered by Meton, who added ten full years to it. See CHRONOLOGY.

HARPALYCE, in fabulous history, the daughter of Lycurgus king of Thrace, and queen of the Amazons, who by her valor set her father at liberty, after he had been taken prisoner by the Getes.

HARPASA, a town of Caria, on the Harpasus, famous for an immense rocking stone, which was moveable by the finger, but could not be displaced by any force.

HARPATH, a river of the United States, in Tennessee, which runs into the Cumberland, fourteen miles south-east of Clarksville.

HARPE (Jean François de la) was born at Paris on the 20th of November, 1739. He lost his father, who was captain of artillery, when he was very young, and was left in a state of extreme roverty. By some accident he was introduced to M. Asselin, principal of the college of Har

court, who, hearing him recite some French verses with an elegance and taste superior to his years, received him amongst his pupils, and shortly after obtained a pension for him. The patronage of his benevolent friend was happily bestowed, and no care was omitted in the completion of his studies. La Harpe commenced his public career in letters by poems called Heroides, which were then much in vogue. The Epistle of Barnevelt to Traman his friend, by Dorat; and that of a monk of La Trappe to the Abbé de Rance, by La Harpe, were very popular. These trifles were but the prelude to nobler success. To a young man who had destined himself to a literary life, two paths were open,-the honors of the academy and those of the theatre. A prize obtained at the French academy, or a successful drama, would remove the first difficulties, admit him into the higher circles, and procure him elevated protectors. La Harpe almost in the same moment attempted both, and his first efforts in each were successful. In the Eulogy on Fenelon the writer seems to be clothed with the mantle of that illustrious prelate, to speak worthily of his talents and virtues. To the intrinsic merit of this eulogy, one of the finest composed by La Harpe, was joined the extraneous and accidental interest of being proscribed by the minister, and the work was from that but the more eagerly sought for. The true chef d'œuvre of M. de la Harpe, however, in these compositions, is the Eulogy on Racine, a subject entirely his own choice. There is nothing to censure in it but an excess of severity in speaking of the great Corneille. The year 1775 was celebrated in our author's life, he having obtained in it both the prize of eloquence and that of poetry. The subject of the oration was an Eulogy on Catinat. It was difficult that an orator, absolutely a stranger to the military art, should succeed in depicting the exploits of one of the greatest generals. M. de la Harpe had also, as a competitor, a man of merit, protected at court, not unsuccessful in letters, and who had made tactics a particular study. The orator was not moved by any of these obstacles. The academy sometimes proposed particular questions, and in 1767 the prize for the following was gained by La Harpe Of the Miseries of War, and the Advantages of Peace.' This discourse was marked by the purity and elegance of its diction. So many triumphs opened at length the doors of the academy to our author, and he succeeded to Colardeau.

Not to interrupt the history of our author's academic success, we have forborne till now to speak of his tragedies. Long before he had obtained so many honors, he had made himself known by a tragedy entitled Warwick, which was represented before he was twenty-four years of age, and gave proofs of distinguished talents. His other pieces, though written with much art, and finely conceived, are far from having that original and bold color belonging to the former. Coriolanus is a character consonant to our author's feelings; and Philoctetes offered to him another of the same kind. The other tragedies of M. de la Harpe are inferior to those we have noticed; yet they are read with pleasure, being written in

extremely useful in calm weather, as the whale, though a timorous creature, will frequently allow a boat to approach it within twenty, fifteen, or even ten fathoms, all of which distances are within reach of the gun harpoon, though not within reach of that thrown by the hand. It is now however seldom used; the continual damp of the northern regions often preventing the powder from firing, and the Greenlanders hating all innovations on their ancient customs.

HARPY, n. s. Lat. harpyia. The harpies were a kind of birds which had the faces of women, and foul long claws; very filthy creatures : figuratively, a ravenous wretch; an extortioner.

When fell Oppression in his harpy fangs, From Want's weak grasp the last sad morsel bears, Can ye allay the heart-wrung parent's pangs, Whose famished child craves help with fruitless tears?

Beattie.

HARPYLE, the Harpies (APIYIAI), in mythology, were a rapacious impure sort of monsters, with wings and ears like bears, bodies like vultures, faces like women, and feet and hands hocked like the talons of birds of prey. The ancients believed the harpies to be genii or demons. Some make them the daughters of Oceanus and Terra; whence Servius says, that they inhabited an island, half on land, and half in water. Valerius Flaccus makes them the daughters of Typhon. There were three harpies, Aello, Ocypete, and Celano, which last Homer calls Podarge. Hesiod in his Theogony, ver. 267, only reckons two, Aëllo and Ocypete, and makes them the daughters of Thaumas and Electra, affirming that they had wings, and went with the rapidity of the wind. Pherecydes relates, that the Boreades expelled them from the Egean and Sicilian Seas, and pursued them as far as the islands which he calls Plotæ, and Homer Calynæ; since called Strophades. Vossius (De Idolo, lib. iii. cap. 99, p. 63), thinks that the ancients, by the harpies, could mean nothing else but the winds; and that it was on this account they were made daughters of Electra, the daughter of Oceanus. Such is the opinion of the scholiasts of Apollonius, Hesiod, and Eustathius. Mr. Bryant supposes that they were priests in Bithynia, who, on account of their repeated acts of violence and cruelty, were driven out of the country; their temple was called Arpi, and the environs Arpiai, and he observes that Harpya, Apπvia, was of old the name of a place.

HAR'QUEBUSS, n. s. Į Ital. archibuso. A HARQUEBUSSIER', n. s. hand-gun: one armed with a harquebuss.

Twenty thousand nimble harquebussiers were ranged in length, and but five in a rank. Knolles.

A HARQUEBUSS is of the length of a musket, usually cocked with a wheel. It carries a ball weighing 1 oz. There was also a larger sort, called the great harquebuss, used for the defence of strong places, which carried a ball of about 3 ozs. They are now little used except in some old castles and garrisons.

HARRADI. See HARADI.

HARRIDAN, n. s. Corrupted from haridelle, a worn-out worthless horse. A decayed strumpet.

She just endured the winter she began, And in four months a battered harridan.

Swift.

HARRINGTON (James), an eminent English writer in the seventeenth century. He was born at Upton and educated at Oxford; and, after travelling for some years on the continent, he was admitted one of the privy chamber extraordinary to Charles I. Though democratic in his principles, he served the king with great fidelity, and found means to attend him on the scaffold, when he received a token of his majes ty's affection. After the death of king Charles, he wrote his Oceana; a kind of political romance, in imitation of Plato's Commonwealth, which he dedicated to Oliver Cromwell. It is said, that when Oliver perused it, he declared that the gentleman had written very well, but must not think to cheat him out of his power and authority; for that what he had won by the sword, he would not suffer himself to be scribbled out of.' This work was attacked by several writers, against whom he defended it. Besides writing to promote republican principles, he instituted a nightly club in the New Palace-Yard, Westminster; which was called the Rota, and continued till the secluded members of parliament were restored by general Monk. In 1661 he was committed to the Tower for treasonable practices, but the charge was never verified. He was conveyed to St. Nicholas's Island, and thence to Plymouth, where he fell into frenzy, owing, it is said, to having drunk great quantities of guaiacum. Having obtained his liberty by means of the earl of Bath, he was carried to London and died in 1677. He published several other works, which were first collected by Toland, in 1 vol. folio, in 1700; but a more complete edition was published in 1737, by the Rev. Dr. Birch.

HARRINGTON (Sir John), an ingenious English poet, the son of John Harrington, esq., who was committed to the Tower by queen Mary, for holding a correspondence with her sister Elizabeth; who, when she came to the crown, stood sponsor to this son, and afterwards knighted him. Before he was thirty, he published a translation of Ariosto's Orlando Furioso. A collection of his works has been printed, entitled Nuge Antiquæ. He was created a knight of the Bath by James I., and in 1603 a baron, by the title of lord Harrington. He attended the princess Elizabeth, after her marriage with the elector palatine, to Heidelburg, in April, 1613, and died at Worms, August the 24th, 1613, aged fifty-one.

HARRIOT (Thomas), an eminent algebraist, born at Oxford in 1560, where he took the degree of B. A. in 1579. Being distinguished for his mathematical learning, he was recommended to Sir Walter Raleigh, who, in 1585, sent him with the colony, under Sir Richard Grenville, to Virginia. After having remained there about a year, he published a topographical description of it. About 1588 he was introduced by his patron, Sir Walter Raleigh, to Henry earl of Northumberland, who allowed him a pension of £120 per annum. He spent many years in Sion College; where he died in July 1691 of a can