HARRINGTON, JAMES. - English political writer, b. at Upton in January 1611, d. at Westminster on 11 September 1677. He spent a long time in Holland and subsequently travelled for study in Denmark, Germany, Italy, and France.
Of republican principles, he nevertheless remained devoted to Carlo I, to the point of arousing the distrust of the parliamentarians. In Commonwealth of Oceana (1656) he presented his reflections on politics in utopian form. He regarded landed property as the foundation of state authority. Though theoretically favourable to democracy, he nevertheless advocated a mixed form of state, in which the limitation of private property and a regular rotation in magistracies guaranteed political equilibrium and the free development of the individual.