audience had from your friend Sir Simon Harcourt. He spoke with such exactness, such force, such decency, such dexterity, so neat a way of commending and reflecting as he had occasion, such strength of argument, such a winning persuasion, such an insinuation into the passions of his auditors as I never heard. . . . His speech was universally applauded by enemies as well as friends, and his reputation for a speaker is fixed for ever' (Nichols, Illustrations of the Lit. Hist. of the Eighteenth Century, 1818, iii. 280-1); while Speaker Onslow declared that Harcourt 'had the greatest skill and power of speech of any man I ever knew in a public assembly' (Burnet, Hist. of his own Time, v. 441 n.) Harcourt's name appears but rarely among the counsel given in Lord Raymond's 'Reports' or in the t State Trials,' his principal practice being probably in the equity courts. His judgments will be found in the first volume of Peere Williams's 'Reports' (1826), and in the second volume of Vernon (1828). Swift's pamphlet, 'Some advice humbly offered to the members of the October Club in a letter from a Person of Honour,' was erroneously ascribed by his contemporaries to Harcourt, who, however, left nothing behind him in print except the meagre reports of his judgments before referred to, and two short speeches. 'Sir Simon Harcourt's Commonplace Book for a Justice of the Peace' is preserved among the Harleian MSS. in the British Museum. It is bound up with the notes of his charges to the Buckinghamshire grand jury from July 1704 to Michaelmas 1705, and has the signature 'Sim. Harcourt, 13 Aug. 1724,' pasted on the front page (Harleian MS. 5137). Harcourt was a member of the Saturday Club, which used to meet at Harley's every week during his administration, and numbered among its members Swift, St. John, Lord Peterborough, and others. He erected the monument in Westminster Abbey to his friend John Phillips, the author of the 'Splendid Shilling,' bearing the extravagant inscription 'Uni Miltono secundus, primoque paene par.' Some twelve letters written by Pope to Harcourt will be found in the 'Harcourt Papers' (ii. 86-103). There are two portraits of Harcourt, by Kneller, in the possession of Colonel Edward William Harcourt at Nuneham Park, the one painted in 1702 when solicitor-general, and the other when lord chancellor. A portrait of Harcourt hangs in the hall of the Inner Temple, and in the benchers' reading-room is a mezzotint engraving by Simon after Kneller.
Harcourt married three times. When under age he clandestinely married Rebecca, daughter of the Rev. Thomas Clark, his father's chaplain, by whom he had three sons, viz. Philip and Walter, both of whom died in infancy, and Simon, and two daughters, viz. Anne, who married John Barlow of Slebeck, Pembrokeshire, and Arabella, who married Herbert Aubrey of Clehonger, Herefordshire. His first wife was buried on 16 May 1687 at Chipping Norton, where they took up their residence after leaving Stanton Harcourt upon the discovery of the marriage. His second wife was Elizabeth, daughter of Richard Spencer of Derbyshire, and widow of Richard Anderson. She died on 16 June 1724, in the sixty-seventh year of her age, and was buried at Stanton Harcourt. Harcourt married thirdly, on 30 Sept. 1724, Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Thomas Vernon of Twickenham Park, Middlesex, kt., and widow of Sir John Walter of Sarsden, Oxfordshire, bart.,who survived him, and, dying in July 1748, was buried at Sarsden. Harcourt had no issue by his second or third wife, and was succeeded on his death by his grandson, Simon, afterwards first earl Harcourt [q. v.]
Harcourt's second son, Simon Harcourt (1684-1720), baptised at Chipping Norton on 9 Oct. 1684, was educated at Christ Church, Oxford, where he was created M. A. on 13 Dec. 1712. He represented the borough of Wallingford in the parliament elected in 1710, and the borough of Abingdon in the following parliament. He married Elizabeth, sister of Sir John Evelyn, bart., of Wotton, Surrey, by whom he had one son, Simon, afterwards first earl Harcourt [q. v.], and four daughters : Elizabeth, who died unmarried on 28 Sept. 1765 ; Anne, who died young ; Martha, who married, as his third wife, George Venables Vernon of Sudbury, Derbyshire, afterwards created Baron Vernon, by whom she had two sons, Henry, third lord Vernon, and Edward, archbishop of York [see Harcourt, Edward], and two daughters ; and Mary, who died in infancy. Harcourt died at Paris in June 1720, aged 35, and was buried at Stanton Harcourt, where a monument was erected to his memory, on which an epitaph written by Pope was engraved. Harcourt was a young man of considerable promise, and acted as secretary to the famous society of 'Brothers.' Gay, in his 'Epistle to Pope on his having finished his translation of Homer's Iliad' (Chalmers, 1810, x. 473), refers to the striking resemblance which existed between the father and son :
Harcourt, I see, for eloquence renown'd,
The mouth of justice, oracle of law!
Another Simon is beside him found,
Another Simon, like as straw to straw.
