HARRINGTON, JAMES, the author of the Oceana, was sprung from an ancient family in Rutlandshire, and was born in 1611. In his eighteenth year he entered Trinity College, Oxford, as a gentleman commoner. His tutor was the famous Chillingworth. At the close of his university career (during which he lost his father) he set out to travel on the Continent. He visited France and Italy, but most of his time was spent at the Hague, where he enjoyed the friendship of the Prince of Orange, who, when Harrington returned to England, entrusted to him the care of his interests there. On reaching home Harrington retired into the seclusion of private life, chiefly for the purpose of working out his thoughts on the philosophy of politics; but in 1646 he was appointed groom of the bed-chamber to Charles I., then the prisoner of his own subjects. The king enjoyed greatly his society and conversation; but on his removal to the Isle of Wight was deprived of his pleasant companion, who was put into confinement for refusing to swear that he would not help the king to escape if he made the attempt. His devotion to his royal master was such, that on the day of his execution he went with him to the block. After Charles's death Harrington once more withdrew into private life, and devoted his time to his Oceana. He made no secret of the purport of this work, which was avowedly republican in its tendency; and the author soon became an object of marked suspicion both with the Royalists and the leading men of the Commonwealth. When the Oceana was passing through the press it was seized by order of Cromwell, but restored to its author at the instance of the Protector's favourite daughter Mrs Claypole, whose sympathies Harrington had enlisted by an ingenious ruse, of which a full account is given in his Life by Toland. The leading principles of the Oceana are, that the natural element of power in states is property, and that of all kinds of property that in land is the most important, as it possesses certain characteristics which distinguish it in its natural and political action from all other property. Carrying out this principle, he insists on what he calls an equal Agrarian law as the basis of his imaginary republic. Another feature of the Oceana not to be overlooked is the plan of the vote by ballot, which Harrington advocates with great power. Many answers to the Oceana soon appeared. The most memorable of these was Baxter's Holy Commonwealth, which, however, was publicly burned at Oxford in 1683, along with the political writings of Hobbes and Milton. Harrington defended himself against these attacks both by his pen and by propagating his doctrines through the medium of the "Rota," a club which he instituted, and where he nightly lectured and discoursed on the advantages of his republic. At the Restoration this club was dissolved, but its founder was seized and thrown into prison as a conspirator. He vehemently denied the truth of the charges brought against him, but it was in vain that he applied either for his freedom or a public trial. His mind at last gave way, and his liberty was then restored. By skilful treatment his health was re-established, but his faculties never recovered their tone. He now married, but survived his marriage for only a short time, dying September 11, 1677, at the age of sixty-six.