WILLIAM, a writer much esteemed and patronised by the literati of his time, was fellow of New-college, Oxford, and had no other income than £20 a-year as tutor to one of the duke of Queensberry's sons. In this employment he fortunately attracted the favour of Dr Swift, whose solicitations with Mr St John obtained for him the reputable employment of secretary to Lord Raby, ambassador at the Hague, and afterwards earl of Strafford. A letter of his whilst at Utrecht, dated Dec. 16. 1712, is printed in the Dean's works. Mr Harrison, who did not long enjoy his rising fortune, was dispatched to London with the Barrier treaty; and died Feb. 14. 1712-13. See the Journal to Stella, of that and the following day; where Dr Swift laments his loss with the most unaffected sincerity. Mr Tickell has mentioned him with respect in his Prospect of Peace; in English Poets, vol. xxvi. p. 113; and Dr Young in the beautiful close of an Epistle to Lord Lansdowne, vol. liii. p. 183, most pathetically bewails his loss. Dr Birch, who has given a curious note on Mr Harrison's Letter to Swift, has confounded him with Thomas Harrison, M.A. of Queen's-college. In Nichols's Select Collection are some pleasing specimens of his poetry; which, with Woodstock-Park in Dodsley's Collection, and an Ode to the duke of Marlborough, 1707, in Duncombe's Horace, are all the poetical writings that are known of this excellent young man; who figured both as an humorist and a politician in the fifth volume of the Tatler, of which (under the patronage of Bolingbroke, Henley, and Swift) he was professedly the editor. See the Supplement to Swift.—There was another William Harrison, author of The Pilgrim, or the happy Convert, a Pastoral Tragedy, 1709.

John, an ingenious mechanic, the celebrated inventor of the famous time-keeper for ascertaining the longitude at sea, and also of the compound, or, as it is commonly called, the gridiron-pendulum; was born at Foulby, in the parish of Wragby, near Pontefract in Yorkshire, in 1693. The vigour of his natural abilities, if not even strengthened by the want of education, which confined his attention to few objects, at least amply compensated the deficiencies of it; as fully appeared from the astonishing progress he made in that branch of mechanics to which he devoted himself. His father was a carpenter, in which profession the son assisted; occasionally also, according to the miscellaneous practice of country artists, surveying land, and repairing clocks and watches. He was, from his early childhood, attached to any machinery moving by wheels, as appeared while he lay sick of the small-pox about the sixth year of his age, when he had a watch placed upon his pillow to amuse himself by contemplating the movement. In 1700, he removed with his father to Barrow in Lincolnshire; where though his opportunities of acquiring knowledge were very few, he eagerly improved every incident from which he might collect information; frequently employing all or great part of his nights in writing or drawing; and he always acknowledged his obligations to a clergyman who came every Sunday to officiate in the neighbourhood, who lent him a MS. copy of Professor Saunderson's Lectures; which he carefully and neatly transcribed, with all the diagrams. His native genius exerted itself superior to these solitary disadvantages; for in the year 1726, he had constructed two clocks, mostly of wood, in which he applied the escapement and compound pendulum of his own invention; these surpassed everything then made, scarcely erring a second in a month. In 1728, he came up to London with the drawings of a machine for determining the longitude at sea, in expectation of being enabled to execute one by the board of longitude. Upon application to Dr Halley, he referred him to Mr George Graham; who, discovering he had uncommon merit, advised him to make his machine before he applied to the board of longitude. He returned home to perform this task; and in 1735 came to London again with his first machine; with which he was sent to Lisbon the next year for a trial of its properties. In this short voyage, he corrected the dead reckoning about a degree and a half; a success that proved the means of his receiving both public and private encouragement. About the year 1739, he completed his second machine, of a construction much more simple than the former, and which answered much better; this, though not sent to sea, recommended Mr Harrison yet stronger to the patronage of his private friends and of the public. His third machine, which he produced in 1749, was still less complicated than the second, and superior in accuracy, as erring only three or four seconds in a week. This he conceived to be the ne plus ultra of his attempts; but in an endeavour to improve pocket-watches, he found the principles he applied to surpass his expectations so much, as to encourage him to make his fourth time-keeper, which is in the form of a pocket watch, about six inches diameter. With this time-keeper his son made two voyages, the one to Jamaica, and the other to Barbadoes: in both which experiments it corrected the longitude within the nearest limits required by the act of the 12th of Queen Anne; and the inventor therefore, at different times, though not without infinite trouble, received