HARRINGTON, JAMES. - English political writer, b. at Upton in January 1611, d. at Westminster on 11 Sept. 1677. He spent a long time in Holland and then travelled for study in Denmark, Germany, Italy and France.
A republican in principle, he nevertheless remained devoted to Charles I to the extent of arousing the suspicion of parliamentarians. In *The Commonwealth of Oceana* (1656) he presented his political reflections in utopian form. He regarded landed property as the foundation of state authority. He favoured theories of democracy, yet advocated a mixed form of government in which the limitation of private property and a regular rotation in magistracies would guarantee political equilibrium and the free development of the individual.
BIBL.: For *The Commonwealth of Oceana* v.: ed. H. Morley, London 1887; H. F. Russel Smith, H. and his Oceana, ibid. 1914. Cf. also R. Koebner, Oceana, in *Englische Studien*, 68 (1934), and the preface by R. De Mattei to the II. trans. of *Oceana*, Rome 1947. Sergio Cotta