HARRISON, FREDERIC, barrister, born in London, professor of Jurisprudence in the Inns of Court; author of articles contributed to Reviews and Essays, and of Lectures on a variety of current questions, historical, social, and religious, from the standpoint of the positivism of Auguste Comte, with his somewhat vague “Religion of Humanity” is the author of “Order and Progress,” the “Choice of Books,” &c.; b. 1831.

HARRISON, JOHN, a celebrated mechanician, born at Foulby, Yorkshire; was the first to invent a chronometer which, by its ingenious apparatus for compensating the disturbing effects caused by variations of climate, enabled mariners to determine longitude to within a distance of 18 m.; by this invention he won a prize of L20,000 offered by Government; amongst other things he invented the compensating gridiron pendulum, still in use (1693-1776).

HARRISON, WILLIAM, a noted historical writer, born in London; graduated at Cambridge, and after serving as chaplain to Lord Cobham, received the rectorship of Radwinter, in Essex; subsequently he became canon of Windsor; his fame rests on two celebrated historical works, “Description of England,” an invaluable picture of social life and institutions in Elizabethan times, and “Description of Britain,” written for Holinshed’s “Chronicle” (1534-1593).

HARROGATE or HARROWGATE (14), a popular watering-place, prettily situated amid forest and moorland, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, 20 m.  NW. of York; it enjoys a wide repute for its sulphurous, saline, and chalybeate springs.

HARROW (6), a town of Middlesex, built on an eminence 200 ft. high, 12 m. from St. Paul’s, London; its church, St. Mary’s, founded by Lanfranc, is a Gothic structure of great architectural interest.  Harrow School, a celebrated public school, was founded in 1571 for the free education of 30 poor boys of the parish, but subsequently opened its doors to “foreigners,” and now numbers upwards of 500 pupils.

HARRY, BLIND, a famous Scottish minstrel who flourished in the 15th century; the few particulars of his life which have come down to us represent him as a blind and vagrant poet, living by reciting poems “before princes and peers”; to him is attributed the celebrated poem, “The Life of that Noble Champion of Scotland, Sir William Wallace, Knight,” completed about 1488, a spirited, if partly apocryphal, account of Wallace, running to 11,861 lines in length.

HART, SOLOMON ALEXANDER, born at Plymouth; served as an engraver’s apprentice in London; studied at the Royal Academy, and excelled in miniature painting; he became celebrated as a painter of historical scenes and characters, and in 1854 was appointed professor of Painting in the Royal Academy, and subsequently librarian; his works include “Henry I. receiving intelligence of the Death of his Son,” “Milton visiting Galileo in Prison,” “Wolsey and Buckingham,” “Lady Jane Grey in the Tower,” &c. (1806-1881).