HARRINGTON, a small sea-port of the county of Cumberland,in Allerdale ward, above Derwent, 311 miles from London, and three from Workington. It has a considerable trade in lime and coal with Ireland, and some ship-building and iron works. The population amounted in 1801 to 1357, in 1811 to 1621, in 1821 to 1845, and in 1831 to 1758.

Harrington, Sir John, an English poet, was born at Kelston, near Bath, in 1561, instructed in classical learning at Eton School, and thence removed to Cambridge, where he took his degree in arts. At the age of thirty, he published a translation of the Orlando Euriosο, which, though executed without spirit or even accuracy, enriched our poetry with new stores of imagery or romance. Harrington was knighted in the field by Essex, to the great displeasure of the queen, who wished all such honours to emanate from herself; and in the reign of King James he was created a knight of the bath. Being a courtier, he presented to Prince Henry a manuscript, directed chiefly against the married bishops. This production was intended for the private use of the prince; but being afterwards published, it raised a great clamour against the author, who had otherwise incurred suspicion, if not odium, by supporting Raleigh in his suit for the manor of Banwell, belonging to the bishopric of Bath and Wells, on the presumption that the right reverend incumbent had incurred a proemunire by marrying a second wife. Sir John died in 1612. His epigrams, which were the most popular of his works, though possessing little poetical merit, appeared first in 1618, and afterwards in 1625. The Nugae Antigua?, a miscellaneous collection of his works, was published in 1792, and again iň 1804, with illustrative notes, and a memoir of the author. (a.) Harrington, James, an eminent English writer, was born in January 1611, at Upton in Northamptonshire. After being educated at Oxford, he travelled into Holland, France, Denmark, and Germany, and learned the languages of these countries. Upon his return to England, he was admitted one of the privy chamber extraordinary to King Charles I. He served the king with great fidelity, and made use of his interest with his friends in parliament to procure matters to be accommodated with all parties. The king loved his company, except when the conversation happened to turn upon commonwealths. He found means to see the king at St James’s; and attended him on the scaffold, where, or a little before, he received a token of his majesty’s affection. After the death of King Charles, [7:11:154]he wrote his Oceana·, a kind of political romance, in imi∙ i tation of Plato’s Commonwealth, which h l e dedicated to Cromwell. It is said, that when the latter perused it he declared, that “the gentleman had wrote very well but must not think to cheat him out of his power ant 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 his writings to promote republican principles, he instituted a nightly meeting of several ingenious men in the New Palace-Yard, Westminster. This club was called the Pota, and continued till the secluded members of parliament were restored by General Monk. In 1661, he was committed to the Tower for treasonable designs and practices; and Chancellor Hyde, in a conference with the Lords and Commons, charged him with being concerned in a plot. But a committee of Lords and Commons could make nothing of the alleged plot. He was conveyed to St Nicholas’s Island, and thence to Plymouth, where his imagination became disordered. Having obtained his liberty through the Earl of Bath, he was carried to London, and died in 1677. Besides the above works, he published several others, which were first collected by Toland in 1700, one vol. folio; but a more complete edition was published in 1737, by the Reverend Dr Birch.