James Harris (2) (1709–1780)

I have been much in my dissipated way, since you went away. I have only finished Hume, & read Harris on Happiness, which is very sensible and accurate. But I cannot help thinking that he had better have given us it in the form of an Essay, as he has treated of Poetry Painting and Music. The Dialogue which he has chosen in is my Opinion a disadvantage.
--Boswell, letter to William Johnson Temple, 14 July 1763.

JOHNSON: ‘ Harris is a sound sullen scholar ; he does not like interlopers. Harris, however, is a prig, and a bad prig'. I looked into his book [Hermes], and thought he did not understand his own system.' BOSWELL: 'He says plain things in a formal and abstract way, to be sure : but his method is good : for to have clear notions upon any subject, we must have recourse to analytick arrangement.' JOHNSON: 'Sir, it is what every body does, whether they will or no. But sometimes things may be show more made darker by definition. I see a cow, I define her, Animal quadrupes fuminans cornutum. But a goat ruminates, and a cow may have no horns. Cow is plainer.' -- Boswell, Life of Johnson.

At Lord Monboddo’s, after the conversation upon the decrease of learning in England, his Lordship mentioned Hermes by Mr Harris of Salisbury, as the work of a living authour, for whom he had a great respect. Dr Johnson said nothing at the time; but when we were in our post-chaise, told me, he thought Harris ‘a coxcomb’. This he said of him, not as a man, but as an authour; and I give his opinions of men and books, faithfully, whether they agree with my own, or not. --Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides show less