1800. 5. 'An Authentic Biographical Sketch of the Life, Education, and Personal Character of William Henry West Betty, the Celebrated Young Roscius,' London, 1802, 8vo. 6. 'The Fight off Trafalgar,' a descriptive poem, Sheffield and London, 4to, 1806. His poems have all the faults of the age ; the monody on Henderson imitates Gray's 'Elegy.' His sonnets are in fourteen lines, but have no other claim to the title. Among his poems the longest are 'To Night,' and 'A Legacy of Love,' to his son aged 4, whom he calls George the second, his predecessor being dead. With the exception of No. 3, 'Ballad Stories,' these works are in the British Museum. Portraits of Harley by De Wilde, as Caled in the 'Siege of Damascus' and as Lusignan in 'Zara,' are in the Mathews Collection at the Garrick Club.
[Genest's Account of the English Stage ; Thespian Diet. ; Grilliland's Dramatic Mirror ; Crosby's Pocket Companion to the Playhouse, 1796; Wewitzer's Dramatic Eeminiscences ; Dramatic Chronology.]
HARLEY, JOHN (d. 1558), bishop of Hereford, was probably born at Newport Pagnell, Buckinghamshire (Willis, Survey of Hereford Cathedral, p. 521). He was educated at Magdalen College, Oxford, of which he was probationer-fellow from 1537 to 1542. He graduated B.A. on 5 July 1536, and M. A. on 4 June 1540 (Oxf. Univ. Reg., Oxf. Hist. Soc., i. 186). He was master of Magdalen School from 1542 to August 1548, when he became chaplain to John Dudley, earl of Warwick, and tutor to his children. During Lent 1547 he preached at St. Peter's-in-the-East, Oxford, a very bold sermon against the pope, which, in the then unsettled state of religious affairs, alarmed the university authorities. Harley was hastily summoned to London to be examined on a charge of heresy, but when the king's views were ascertained he was speedily liberated (Bloxam, Reg. of Magd. Coll. Oxford, ii. xlii-xliii). He became rector of Upton-upon-Severn, Worcestershire, on 9 May 1550 (Nash, Worcestershire, ii. 448), being then B.D. and vicar of Kidderminster in the same county, and incumbent of Maiden Bradley, Wiltshire, on the following 30 Sept. (ib. ii. 56; Hoare, Wiltshire, Mere, p. 95). Edward VI made him his chaplain in 1551, and sent him, along with five other chaplains distinguished for their preaching, on an evangelising tour throughout England. On 9 March 1552 he received a prebend at Worcester (Le Neve, Fasti, ed. Hardy, iii. 87). During the same year he was considered likely to succeed Owen Oglethorpe as president of Magdalen College, but he lost the election through his reputed laziness and love of money. On 26 May 1553 he was consecrated bishop of Hereford (ib. i. 468), was deprived on 19 March 1554 for his protestantism (Rymer, Foedera, fol., xv. 370), and died in 1558. Leland (Encomia, p. 163) praises Harley for his virtues and learning.
[Wood's Athenae Oxon. (Bliss), ii. 768-71; Bloxam's Reg. of Magd. Coll. Oxford, iii. 97-106.]
HARLEY, JOHN PRITT (1786–1858), actor and singer, son of John Harley, draper and silk mercer, by Elizabeth his wife, was born in February 1786 and baptised in the parish church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, London, on 5 March. At the age of fifteen he was apprenticed to a linendraper in Ludgate Hill, and while there contracted an intimacy with William Oxberry, afterwards a well-known actor, and in conjunction with him appeared in 1802 in amateur theatricals at the Berwick Street private theatre. His next employment was as a clerk to Windus & Holloway, attorneys, Chancery Lane. In 1806 and following years he acted at Cranbrook, Southend, Canterbury, Brighton, and Rochester. At Southend, where he remained some time, he acquired a complete knowledge of his profession. His comic singing rendered him a favourite, and being extremely thin he was satirically known as ‘Fat Jack.’ From 1812 to 1814 he was in the north of England, but obtaining an engagement from Samuel John Arnold, he came to London and made his first public appearance in the metropolis on 15 July 1815 at the English Opera House as Marcelli in the ‘Devil's Bridge.’ His reception was favourable, and in Mingle, Leatherhead, Rattle, and Pedrillo he increased his reputation as an actor and singer. On 16 Sept. 1815 he was first seen in Drury Lane Theatre, and acted Lissardo in the ‘Wonder.’ As John Bannister had retired from the stage, Harley not only succeeded to his parts, but had also to take the characters which would have fallen to him in the new pieces; he consequently was continually before the public and played the comic heroes of all the operas. His voice was a counter-tenor, he had a considerable knowledge of music with a correct ear, and he executed cadenzas with grace and effect. Bannister, with whom he was on the most intimate terms, when dying in 1836 gave him his Garrick mourning ring and his Shakespearean jubilee medal. At Drury Lane, with occasional summer excursions to the provinces and engagements at the Lyceum, where he for some time was stage-manager, Harley remained until Braham opened the St. James's Theatre, 14 Dec. 1835, when he joined the
