_Harold_ (_Childe_), a man of good birth, lofty bearing, and peerless intellect, who has exhausted by dissipation the pleasures of youth, and travels. Sir Walter Scott calls him “Lord Byron in a fancy dress.” In canto i. the childe visits Portugal and Spain (1809); in canto ii., Turkey in Europe (1810); in canto iii., Belgium and Switzerland (1816); in canto iv., Venice, Rome, and Florence (1817). ⁂ Lord Byron was only 21 when he began _Childe Harold_, and 28 when he finished it. =Haroun-al-Raschid=, caliph, of the Abbasside race, contemporary with Charlemagne, and, like him, a patron of literature and the arts. The court of this caliph was most splendid, and under him the caliphate attained its greatest degree of prosperity (765-809). ⁂ Many of the tales in the _Arabian Nights_ are placed in the caliphate of Haroun-al-Raschid, as the histories of “Am´inê,” “Sindbad the Sailor,” “Aboul-hasson and Shemselnihar,” “Noureddin,” “Codadad and his Brothers,” “Sleeper Awakened,” and “Cogia Hassan.” In the the third of these the caliph is a principal actor. =Har´pagon=, the miser, father of Cléante (_2 syl._) and Elise (_2 syl._). Both Harpagon and his son desire to marry Mariane (_3 syl._); but the father, having lost a casket of money, is asked which he prefers—his casket or Mariane, and as the miser prefers the money, Cléante marries the lady. Harpagon imagines that every one is going to rob him, and when he loses his casket, seizes his own arm in the frenzy of passion. He proposes to give his daughter in marriage to an old man named Anselme, because no “dot” will be required; and when Valère (who is Elise’s lover) urges reason after reason against the unnatural alliance, the miser makes but one reply, “sans dot.” “Ah,” says Valère, “il est vrai cela ferme la bouche à tout, _sans dot_.” Harpagon, at another time, solicits Jacques (_1 syl._) to tell him what folks say of him: and when Jacques replies he cannot do so, as it would make him angry, the miser answers, “Point de tout, au contraire, c’est me faire plaisir.” But when told that he is called a miser and a skinflint, he towers with rage, and beats Jacques in his uncontrolled passion. “Le seigneur Harpagon est de tous les humains l’humain le moins humain, le mortel de tous les mortels le plus dur et le plus serré” (ii. 5). Jacques says to him, “Jamais on ne parle de vous que sous les noms d’avare, de ladre, de vilain, et de fesse-Matthiæ” (iii. 5).—Molière, _L’Avare_ (1667). =Harpax=, centurion of the “Immortal Guard.”—Sir W. Scott, _Count Robert of Paris_ (time, Rufus). =Harpê= (_2 syl._), the cutlass with which Mercury killed Argus, and with which Perseus (_2 syl._) subsequently cut off the head of Medusa. =Harper=, a familiar spirit of mediæval demonology. Harper cries, “’Tis time, ’tis time!” Shakespeare, _Macbeth_, act iv. sc. 1 (1606).