Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 24.djvu/399

 His round, 'How great is the pleasure,' and duet, 'How sweet in the woodlands,' were once very popular. He was also author of: 1. 'Ode to Harmony.' 2. 'Ode to Discord.' 3. 'The Witch of Wokey.' 4. 'A Treatise on the Use and Abuse of Musick.' 5. 'The Geometrical Analogy of the Doctrine of the Trinity consonant to Human Reason,' 1806.

 HARINGTON, JOHN (1561–1612), miscellaneous writer, was descended from a good family, which traced its name to Haverington in Cumberland, and in the fifteenth century had lands at Exton. It suffered, however, in the Wars of the Roses, and in the reign of Henry VIII its representative, (fl. 1550), lived at Stepney, and filled the post of treasurer to the king's camps and buildings. While holding that office Harington employed John Bradford the martyr [q. v.] as his clerk, and it is said by Bradford's biographers that he compelled Harington about 1549 to make a restitution to the crown of a sum of money which Harington had misappropriated. Strype (Memorials, vol. iii. pt. i. p. 366), however, represents that Bradford was himself guilty of misappropriating public moneys, which Harington made good to shield his clerk from punishment (cf. Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. i. 125-6). Harington seems to have been a confidential servant of Henry VIII, and revived the fortunes of his house by marrying a natural daughter of the king, Etheldreda, daughter of Joanna Dyngley or Dobson, who was brought up by the king's tailor, John Malte, as a natural daughter of his own. Henry granted her the monastic forfeitures of Kelston, Batheaston, and Katharine in Somerset, and on his marriage in 1546 Harington settled at Kelston, near Bath, on his wife's estate (, History of Somersetshire, i. 128). Etheldreda soon died without issue, leaving her lands to her husband, who showed his gratitude to his benefactor by devoting himself to the service of the Princess Elizabeth. Harington was a cultivated man and a poet, who in his visits to Elizabeth at Hatfield turned his muse to the praises of her six gentlewomen, but soon singled out among them Isabella Markham, daughter of Sir John Markham of Gotham (Nugae Antiquae, ed. 1804, ii. 324-7, 390). He married her early in 1554, for in that year he and his wife were imprisoned in the Tower with the Princess Elizabeth. In 1561 their son John was born, and Elizabeth, who had now ascended the throne, repaid their loyalty by acting as his godmother. Harington was educated at Eton, and the queen showed her interest in her godson by sending him a copy of her speech to parliament in 1575, with a note bidding him to 'ponder these poor words in thy hours of leisure, and play with them till they enter thine understanding.' From Eton Harington went in 1578 to Christ's College, Cambridge, where he had for his tutor John Still, afterwards bishop of Bath and Wells, 'to whom,' he says, 'I never came but I grew more religious, from whom I never went but I parted better instructed.' He was already well known to Burghley, who wrote him a letter of good advice about his undergraduate career (ib. i. 131). In spite of these exhortations he ran into debt, and had to ask an old family friend to intercede for him with his father (Tanner MS. 169, f. 62). After leaving Cambridge Harington studied law at Lincoln's Inn, but not to much purpose, for his reputation as a wit and a man of the world was soon established, and he looked to court favour rather than the exercise of a profession. About 1584 he married Mary, daughter of Sir George Rogers of Cannington in Somerset, but marriage does not seem to have sobered his exuberant spirits. His epigrams began to pass current, and he enlivened the court by his sallies, which were not always adapted to a fastidious taste. Among other things, he translated for the amusement of the ladies of the court the story of Giocondo, from the twenty-eighth book of Ariosto's 'Orlando Furioso,' and his translation was handed about in manuscript till it fell into the hands of the queen. She reprimanded Harington for corrupting the morals of her ladies by translating the least seemly part of Ariosto's work, and ordered him as a punishment to leave the court for his country house till he had made a translation of the whole. To this we owe the translation of the 'Orlando Furioso' which was first published in folio in 1591, and reissued in 1607 and 1634. It is written in the same stanza as the original, and is easy and flowing, but without much distinction. It is rather a paraphrase than a translation, and bears signs of being hastily produced. As a preface to it Harington wrote 'An Apologie of Poetrie,' an essay in criticism which resembles Sir Philip Sidney's treatise of the same name. The most remarkable part of it is that concerned with his use of metre, especially his defence of two-syllabled and three-syllabled rhymes. In 1592 Elizabeth, on her visit to Bath, was the guest of Harington at Kelston, which