HARRIS, James (1709--1780)

Three treatises . The first concerning art. The second music, painting, and poetry. The third happiness

London: printed for H. Woodfall, jun. For J. Nourse; and P. Vaillant, 1744.
8vo: [pi]2 B-Z8 2A4(-2A4), 181 leaves, pp. [4] 357 [1]. Stubs between leaves G5 and 6, I7 and 8, Q6 and 7 and S6 and 7 but it is not clear which leaves are cancelled. Leaf size and condition: 201 x 120mm. Binding: Contemporary gilt ruled calf, red lettering piece, sprinkled edges. A little wear, joints cracked but sound. Provenance and annotation: Earls of Portsmouth with engraved bookplate of the second Earl (Franks F.30719). References: ESTC t70375; Alston III, 846.
First edition.
§ A good copy of the first book by 'Hermes Harris,' often so called for his important Hermes: or, a philosophical enquiry concerning language and universal grammar (1751) containing a theory of language strikingly similar to the those of Saussure and Chomsky. In his own time, Dr Johnson, after meeting Harris at the house of Sir Joshua Reynolds, famously called him 'a prig and a bad prig' but he respected his scholarship. The Three treatises were widely read. <<The first treatise, 'Concerning Art, A Dialogue,' avoids the commonplace mimetic theories and introduces into English critical discussion the important aesthetic distinction between energy (energeia) and work (kinesis) derived from Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics. 'A Discourse on Music, Painting, and Poetry' is notable for the supreme position allotted to poetry and for its praise of the musical-verbal symbiosis achieved in the Handelian oratorio. 'Concerning Happiness, A Dialogue' urges the primacy of imagination as a mode of intellection. >>Dictionary of eighteenth-century British philosophers.

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