house of M. de Harley, was called by his companions Harlequin, little Harley.

Harley, Robert, Earl of Oxford, was born in 1661. His father, Sir Edward Harley, was the head of a great Puritan family in Herefordshire, who had distinguished himself in the long parliament, and commanded a regiment under Essex, but who, when Cromwell and his party had crushed every thing that stood in their way, had gone into opposition, and when at length the Restoration was mooted, did his best to promote it. For his services he was made governor of Dunkerque. His son, Robert, entering parliament at the Revolution as member for Tregony in Cornwall, and afterwards for Radnor, distinguished himself at first as an intolerant and vindictive Whig. It was soon noticed, however, that his favourite companions were men whose political creed was exactly the opposite of his own. He called himself a Whig of the old stamp, and professed to hold kings generally in abhorrence. The cavaliers hated the reigning king, whom they called a usurper; and thus it was that Harley combined with them in thwarting William whenever occasion offered. He was thus cautiously paving the way for a change which he had long meditated. After the general election of 1690, he began gradually, though almost imperceptibly, to identify himself with the Tory party, with whom he now voted almost regularly. Though a man of mean capacity, and a poor speaker, he yet possessed many qualities which made him a valuable partisan,—indefatigable industry, a large extent of reading, especially of the antiquarian kind—and as, unlike most of the political celebrities of that day, he had no very scandalous vices, his moral weight was a great deal higher than it deserved to be. As was natural he soon rose; he was made speaker under the Tory administration of Godolphin in 1701; in the next parliament he was re-appointed, and held the office till he was made Secretary of State in April 1704. His elevation he is known to have owed in good part to the intrigues of Mrs Masham, whose marriage Harley had brought about, and who requisitioned the favour by exerting on his behalf her interest with the Queen. That influence was now daily on the ascendant; and the once colossal power of the Marlboroughs was waning fast. An accident, however, once more changed the aspect of affairs. A clerk of Harley's was detected in a treacherous correspondence with the French Court, and was condemned to death. The popular outcry was strong against Harley, who may perhaps at this time have been innocent; and Marlborough and Godolphin, taking advantage of it, compelled the Queen to dismiss her favourite. His disgrace, however, was of short continuance, for, aided again by the favour of Mrs Masham, Harley was in 1710 made Chancellor of the Exchequer, in room of Godolphin, who resigned in that year with all his followers, and left the field open to an administration completely Tory. The influence of Mrs Masham was now supreme with Anne, and the whole Marlborough clique was discarded from court, as well as from office. Very opportunely for Harley's interests, an unsuccessful attempt made upon his life by a French agent, calling himself the Marquis de Guiscard, quieted the doubts of the Tories, who had again begun to doubt his loyalty. Two months after the outrage on his person, Harley was made Lord High Treasurer, and was rewarded with the cardinal of Oxford and Mortimer, and invested with the Garter. But by far the most memorable act of his administration was the peace of Utrecht, concluded May 5, 1713. This had hardly been effected when Harley and Bolingbroke, who had hitherto acted in concert, and to whom the credit of the peace, such as it was, was chiefly due, turned into open rivalry the secret jealousy which had been fermenting between them for some time before, and began to plot each other's ruin. Harley, thinking himself independent of Mrs Masham, ceased to pay court to her as before. His rival took advantage of the mistake, and procured his dismissal July 27, 1714; but did not long enjoy his triumph, for the Queen's death a few days after terminated the public career of both. It was not known then, though the researches of Sir James Mackintosh have now put it beyond a doubt, that both Harley and Bolingbroke had been latterly in treasonable correspondence with the court of Versailles. It is not unlikely that that charge might have been made good had the trial been proceeded with when both were impeached in the August of 1715. But Bolingbroke escaped to France; and Harley, after pining for about two years in the Tower, was acquitted and set at liberty. After this he retired into private life to enjoy the society of his literary friends, and his books and MSS., to which he was deeply attached. He died May 21, 1724. The brilliant analysis of Harley's character given by Macaulay (Hist. Eng., vol. iv., pp. 463-45), does not seem to account sufficiently for the power which Harley attained, and the influence he exercised among the men who surrounded him, who were nearly all alike unprincipled.

Harley, as has been already said, loved books and the society of men of genius and learning. He even aspired himself to shine as a wit and poet; but his works, both in prose and verse, have small chance of immortality. He was the author of a letter to Swift On Correcting and Improving the English Tongue; an Essay on Public Credit, which he seems to have little understood in practice—for he organized government lotteries, granted monopolies, &c.—and a Vindication of the Rights of the Commons of England. For an account of his splendid collection of books and MSS. see Musaeum British.