1719 an absolute pauper, at Norton Court, Kent, and was buried in Norton Church at the expense of John Godfrey, esq., who had long been his friend and benefactor.
His works are:
- ‘Remarks on some late Papers relating to the Universal Deluge, and to the Natural History of the Earth,’ London, 1697, 8vo; an able defence of the system of Dr. Woodward against the attacks of Dr. Martin Lister and others.
- ‘The Atheistical Objections against the Being of God, and his Attributes, fairly considered and fully refuted,’ being the Boyle lectures for 1698.
- ‘Short but yet plain Elements of Geometry and Plane Trigonometry,’ 1701, from the French of Ignace Gaston Pardies.
- ‘The description and uses of the Celestial and Terrestrial Globes, and of Collins's Pocket Quadrant,’ London, 1703, 8vo.
- ‘Lexicon Technicum; or an Universal English Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, explaining not only the terms of Art, but the Arts themselves,’ 1 vol. London, 1704; 2nd edit., 2 vols. 1708–10. The first volume was dedicated to Prince George of Denmark, and the second to Lord-chancellor Cowper. A supplement to the work ‘by a society of gentlemen’ appeared at London in 1744, fol.
- ‘Navigantium atque Itinerantium Bibliotheca: or a compleat Collection of Voyages and Travels, consisting of above four hundred of the most authentick writers,’ 2 vols., London, 1705, fol. Another edition, revised, with large additions, by Dr. John Campbell, 2 vols., 1744–8, fol., and again, 2 vols., 1764, fol.
- ‘The London Merchant's Mirror, or the Tradesman's Guide, being Tables for the ready casting up Bills of Exchange,’ London, 1705, a small sheet composed and engraved by Harris.
- ‘The British Hero; or a discourse shewing that it is the interest, as well as duty, of every Briton to avow his loyalty to King George on the present important crisis of affairs,’ a sermon, London, 1715, 8vo.
- ‘The Wickedness of the pretence of Treason and Rebellion for God's sake,’ a sermon, London, 1715, 8vo.
- ‘Astronomical Dialogues between a Gentleman and a Lady: wherein the Doctrine of the Sphere, uses of the Globes, and the Elements of Astronomy and Geography are explained. With a description of the Orrery,’ London, 1719, 8vo, 2nd and 3rd editions, corrected by J. Gordon, 1729 and 1766.
- ‘The History of Kent, in five parts,’ vol. i. (all published), London, 1719, fol. This work is extremely inaccurate. Thirty-six of the plates of the seats and towns were afterwards published separately. Some of the plates were engraved by Harris himself. Harris's manuscript collections passed, after the death of his friend John Godfrey, into the hands of Edward Goddard, esq., of Clyffe Pypard, Wiltshire, who possessed them in 1761, but Hasted, the historian of Kent, was not able to recover them (Nichols, Lit. Anecd. ii. 282).
His portrait, engraved by G. White, from a painting by B. White, is prefixed to the ‘Lexicon Technicum;’ another, engraved by Vertue, from a painting by A. Russel, appears in the ‘History of Kent’.
[Addit. MS. 5871, f. 43 b; Evans's Cat. of Engraved Portraits, No. 5012; Gent. Mag. 1814, pt. i. p. 19; Gough's British Topography, i. 445, 462, 483, 788; Hasted's Kent, i. pref. iv, 557, ii. 29 n.; Le Neve's Fasti; Lowndes's Bibl. Man. (Bohn), p. 1002; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. ix. 769; Memoirs of Whiston, p. 155.]
HARRIS, JOHN (fl. 1680–1740), engraver, was mainly employed on engraving for works on architecture or topography. The earliest engraving bearing his name is one of ‘The Encampment of the Royal Army on Hounslow Heath in 1686.’ In 1700 he engraved a map of the world after a drawing by Edmund Halley. He engraved some of the views of gentlemen's seats in ‘Britannia Illustrata’ (1709–31) and some of the elevations in the fourth volume of ‘Vitruvius Britannicus’ (1739). Among other engravings by him are a view of Cadiz, some views of St. Mary-le-Strand, some plates for T. Baston's ‘Ships of the Royal Navy,’ plates for the ‘Oxford Almanack,’ &c. His work was carefully executed. Vertue mentions another engraver living in London in 1713 ‘Harris, jun.: etcher,’ thus suggesting there were two of the name.
[Strutt's Dict. of Engravers; Dodd's manuscript Hist. of Engravers (Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 33401); Vertue's MSS. (Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 23070.)]
HARRIS, JOHN (d. 1834), water-colour painter, was one of the earliest artists who produced tinted drawings. He exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1802 to 1815, and made some designs for illustrations. He is probably identical with John Harris, a freemason, who executed some masonic plates in lithography in 1825, and in 1833 published a lithograph from a drawing taken on the spot, 7 July 1833, of the ‘Raising of the Block of Granite which forms the Pediment of the Porch for New Bridewell in Tothill Fields.’ Harris died in 1834.
[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Graves's Dict. of Artists, 1760–1880.]
