He was born at Salisbury and educated at the grammar school in the Close at Salisbury, and at Wadham College, Oxford. The death of his father in 1733 placed him in possession of an independent fortune and of the house in Salisbury"s Cathedral Close. On his mother"s side, Harris was the nephew of the 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (1671–1713), the philosopher and famous author of Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times (1711).
On leaving the university he was entered at Lincoln"s Inn as a student of law, though not intended for the Barometer Many influences of the uncle are to be found in the philosophical works of the nephew. He held political office under George Grenville, retiring with him in 1765.
The decided bent of his mind had always been towards the Greek and Latin classics.
And to the study of these, especially of Aristotle, he applied himself with unremitting assiduity during a period of fourteen or fifteen years. He published in 1744 Three Treatises—on art
On music, painting and poetry. And on happiness. In 1751 appeared the work by which he became best known, Hermes, a philosophical inquiry concerning universal grammar.
He also published Philosophical Arrangements and Philological Inquiries.
He adapted the words for a selection from Italian and German composers (subsequently published by the cathedral organist, James Corfe) and wrote a number of Pastorals (pastiches of various - mostly Italian - works), one of which was produced by David Garrick at Drury Lane under the title The Spring. Harris was a correspondent of fellow classicist Lord Monboddo, who disclosed in a 1772 letter to Harris the possible first glimmerings of pre-evolutionary thought. Samuel Johnson found Harris uncongenial, saying he was "a sound, solid scholar," but "a prig" and "a coxcomb" who "did not understand his own system" (in Hermes).
Not so the music historian Charles Burney, who esteemed him highly as a writer on music
Harris married Elizabeth, daughter of John Clarke of Sandford, Somerset, in 1745. His papers are held by the Hampshire Record Office.
The informative and graphic letters from his mother over the 1763-1780 period have also survived. He was buried in the north aisle of Salisbury Cathedral, Wiltshire.
Royal Society; 12th Parliament of Great Britain. 13th Parliament of Great Britain. 14th Parliament of Great Britain.
15th Parliament of Great Britain]
He became a county magistrate, and was Member of Parliament for Christchurch from 1761 until his death, and was Comptroller to the Queen from 1774 to 1780.
