Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 25.djvu/54

 the sprig of an orange is his. The fine fellows are always inviting him to the tavern, and make him pay his club.’ Swift took to him, and was resolved to stir up people to do something for him; ‘he is a whig, and I will put him upon some of my cast whigs.’ When Steele discontinued the ‘Tatler,’ a continuation by Harrison suggested itself to St. John and Swift, though the latter doubted its success, as he did not approve of the editor's ‘manner.’ The first number came out 13 Jan. 1711, when the same critic wrote: ‘There is not much in it, but I hope it will mend. I am afraid the little toad has not the true vein for it.’ A day or two later Swift gave hints for another number of the new paper; in February Congreve, ‘blind as he is,’ ‘gave a paper he had written out for little Harrison;’ and in March Swift dictated a paper. It ran in all to fifty-two numbers, twice a week, between 13 Jan. and 19 May 1711. Between these dates Swift introduced Harrison in person to St. John, who obtained for him the post of secretary to Lord Raby, the ambassador extraordinary at the Hague to arrange the treaty with France. St. John gave him fifty guineas for the expenses of his journey, and on 20 April 1711 he set off for Holland. In time, but after some trouble with the previous holder of the office, he became queen's secretary to the embassy at Utrecht, and in January 1713 returned to England with the barrier treaty. ‘His pay,’ writes Swift, ‘is in all 1,000l. a year, and they have never paid him a groat. He must be 300l. or 400l. in debt at least.’ Next day it turned out that Harrison had not a farthing in his pocket. Soon he was attacked by fever and inflammation on his lungs; whereupon Swift got thirty guineas for him from Bolingbroke, with an order on the treasury for 100l., and removed him to Knightsbridge. On 14 Feb. 1713 Swift went to call on him, and, dreading the worst, was afraid to knock. Harrison had died an hour before. ‘No loss ever grieved Swift so much.’ When informed of Harrison's illness, Young, according to his own account, ‘night to day in painful journey join'd’ to find him speechless and at the point of death. Apparently Harrison died in Young's presence. Lady Strafford writes: ‘His brothere poets bury'd him, as Mr. Addison, Mr. Philips, and Dr. Swift.’

A copy of Harrison's chief poem is in the Bodleian Library in ‘Gough, Oxford 103.’ The title-page runs: ‘Woodstock Park, a poem, by William Harison [sic] of New College, Oxon., 1706.’ It is also printed in Dodsley's ‘Collection,’ v. 188–201. The third ode of Horace, imitated by him as ‘To the Yacht which carried the Duke of Marlborough to Holland, 1707,’ is included in Duncombe's ‘Horace,’ i. 16–18, and several of his poetical pieces are inserted in Steele's ‘Poetical Miscellanies,’ 1714, pp. 244–50. He was the author of the lines entitled ‘The Medicine, a Tale,’ printed in the second number of the original ‘Tatler,’ and reprinted, with most of his other poems excepting ‘Woodstock Park,’ in Nichols's ‘Collection,’ iv. 180–5, vii. 234–7. Harrison was a general favourite. Tickell, at the end of his poem on the prospects of peace (1713), designates him ‘That much lov'd youth;’ and Young, in the epistle to Lord Lansdowne, praises him as possessing ‘friends indeed, good nature in excess.’ The ‘Tatler’ which he edited in 1711 was reprinted in duodecimo in 1712 and subsequent years as Steele's ‘Tatler,’ vol. v. (, Steele, i. 295, 300–2, 418, ii. 404, 425). Some of the essays are reprinted in Nichols's well-known edition of the ‘Tatler,’ vol. vi. A very long letter written by Harrison from Utrecht to Swift on 16 Dec. 1712 is in the latter's works, 1883 ed., xvi. 14–18.

 HARRISON, WILLIAM (1812–1860), commander of the Great Eastern, son of a master in the merchant service, was born at Maryport, Cumberland, in October 1812. He was bound an apprentice to Mr. Porter, a shipowner of Liverpool, and went to sea in October 1825. On the expiration of his articles he obtained the command of a vessel, and served in the East and West Indies, and on the coast of South America. In the course of the numerous disagreements among the rival powers on the American coast, he was more than once in action, and acquitted himself with credit. In 1834 he transferred his services to Barton, Erlam, & Higgonson, and for them took charge of vessels on the Barbadoes line. From 1842 to 31 Dec. 1855 he was connected with the Cunard line of packets trading between Liverpool and America; during that period he crossed the Atlantic upwards of one hundred and eighty times, and was one of the most popular of the commanders on that route. In January 1856 he was selected by the directors of the Eastern Steam Navigation Company out of two hundred competitors to take the command of the Great Leviathan, then building at Millwall in the Thames. In the following years 