the borough of Old Sarum, by the favour of his intimate friend, Thomas Pitt (Lord Camelford). He was re-chosen in November 1787, in 1790, 1796, and 1801. Nichols says he was an eloquent and ingenious speaker. On 16 Dec. 1788 he supported Pitt's resolution declaring the right of the houses to appoint a regent. On 5 April 1792 he pleaded at Warwick as counsel for the hundred in mitigation of the damages claimed by Dr. Priestley. In August 1787 he had been appointed senior justice of the counties of Brecon, Glamorgan, and Radnor. He was a painstaking judge, and held the office till his death, which took place at Presteign from pleurisy, on 26 April 1816. Hardinge was an honourable and benevolent man, witty, and sprightly in manner. He is ‘the waggish Welsh judge, Jefferies Hardsman’ of Byron's ‘Don Juan’ (xiii. stanza 88), who consoles his prisoners with ‘his judge's joke.’ Hardinge's addresses to condemned prisoners (printed in Miscell. Works, vol. i.) are, however, sufficiently solemn and elaborate. It is stated that he collected more than 10,000l. for different charitable objects. He was vice-president and an early promoter of the Philanthropic Society. His worst crime was a frequent habit of borrowing books, which were hardly to be recovered from ‘the chaos of my library.’ In person Hardinge was a somewhat short but very handsome man, as is evident from the portrait of him by N. Dance engraved as the frontispiece to his ‘Miscellaneous Works,’ vol. i. (also in Nichols, Lit. Illustr. vol. iii.; an anonymous mezzotint of him is mentioned, Miscell. Works, i. xxxiv).
Hardinge made some interesting biographical contributions to Nichols's ‘Literary Anecdotes’ and ‘Literary Illustrations,’ including extensive memoirs of Daniel Wray, F.R.S. (Lit. Illustr. i. 5–168), and of Sneyd Davies (ib. pp. 48–709). He also edited some of his father's writings. In 1791 he published ‘A Series of Letters to the Rt. Hon. E. Burke [as to] the Constitutional Existence of an Impeachment against Mr. Hastings,’ London, 8vo; 3rd edit. same year. In 1800 he published two editions, ‘The Essence of Malone, or the Beauties of that fascinating Writer extracted from his immortal work in 539 pages and a quarter, just published, and with his accustomed felicity intituled “Some Account of the Life and Writings of John Dryden.”’ ‘Another Essence of Malone’ followed in 1801, 8vo. He was also the author of ‘Rowley and Chatterton in the Shades,’ 1782 (Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. xi. 30), and of other writings, many of which are printed in his ‘Miscellaneous Works,’ edited by his friend, J. Nichols, 3 vols., London, 1818, 8vo. Vol. i. contains his charges and speeches, and vol. iii. his miscellaneous prose works. Vol. ii. is devoted to his verse-writings, few of which were worth printing, though Nichols pronounces the lighter poems ‘facetious,’ and the serious poems ‘pleasingly impressive.’ Hardinge was a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries (elected November 1769) and of the Royal Society (elected April 1788). Among his correspondents were Jacob Bryant, Horace Walpole (see Lit. Illustr. iii. 148–223, and Hardinge, Miscell. Works, i. xxxvi–xxxvii), and Anna Seward. Miss Seward's letters to him are in her ‘Letters’ (1811), vols. i. and ii.
[Hardinge's Miscell. Works, with Memoir, ed. Nichols; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. and Lit. Illustr.; Gent. Mag. 1816, vol. lxxxvi. pt. i. pp. 469–70, 563; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
HARDINGE, GEORGE NICHOLAS (1781–1808), captain in the royal navy, born 11 April 1781, second son of Henry Hardinge, rector of Stanhope, Durham, and his wife Frances, daughter of James Best of Wrotham, Kent, was grandson of Nicholas Hardinge [q. v.] and elder brother of Henry Hardinge, first viscount Hardinge of Lahore [q. v.] He was early adopted by his uncle, George Hardinge [q. v.], attorney-general to the queen, and was sent to Eton, where he was in the lowest form (Eton School Lists, in which the name is spelt ‘Harding’). In 1793 he entered the navy; was midshipman of the Meleager, 32 guns, Captain Charles Tyler, at Toulon and the reduction of Corsica, and served under the same captain in the prize-frigate San Fiorenzo (late La Minerve), 40 guns. He was also present in the Diomede, 60 guns, in Hotham's action off Hyères and in various operations on the coast of Italy, and afterwards in the Aigle, 38 guns, in which he was wrecked on the Isle of Planes, near Tunis, 18 July 1798. He was in the Foudroyant, 80 guns, Captain Sir Edward Berry, at the capture of Le Guillaume Tell on 30 March 1800, and obtained his lieutenancy on board the Tiger, Commodore Sir Sidney Smith, off Alexandria, during the Egyptian campaign of 1801 (Turkish gold medal). In 1802 he became a master and commander, and in 1803 commanded the Terror bomb off Boulogne. Early in 1804 he was appointed to the Scorpion sloop, 18 guns, in which he highly distinguished himself by the cutting-out of the Dutch brig-corvette Atalante in Vlie Roads, Texel, 31 March 1804. For this gallant action, details of which will be found in James's ‘Naval History,’ iii. 264–6, Hardinge received post rank, and was presented by the committee of Lloyd's with a sword of three hundred guineas value. In August he
