Locke

oken of no less than three literary controversies in which he found himself engaged, one on financial, and two on religious questions. Of

victim, as if he loved him, but, none the less, never fails to despatch him with a mortal stab. Stillingfleet, indeed, was no metaphysician, and not very much of a logician. He did not see at all clearly where the orthodox doctrines were affected, and where they remained unaffected, by Locke's philosophy, and he no doubt considerably exaggerated the bearing of Locke's direct statements upon them. At the same time, it is impossible to deny that his instincts were perfectly sound in apprehending grave dangers to the current theological opinions, and still more, perhaps, to the established mode of expressing them, from the "new way of ideas." Religious, and even devout, as are those portions of the Essay in which Locke has occasion expressly to mention the leading principles of the Christian faith, yet his handling of many of the metaphysical terms and notions which modern divines, whether Catholic or Protestant, had taken on trust from their predecessors, the fathers and schoolmen, was well calculated to alarm those who had the interest of theological orthodoxy at heart. The playful freedom with which he discusses the idea of substance seemed, not unreasonably, to strike at the terminology of the Athanasian Creed, while, most unreasonably, his resolution of personal identity into present and recollected states of consciousness appeared inconsistent with the doctrine of the Resurrection of the Dead. A far more powerful solvent, however, of the unreflecting and complacent orthodoxy, into which established churches, and, in fact, all prospe

is own seeking, and, from all that we know of his temper and character, must have been as distasteful to him as they are wearisome to us. But prolonged and reiterated

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o employing himself on writing the admirable little tract on the Conduct of the Understanding, the contents of which I shall notice in a subsequent chapter. This treatise, which was not published till after his death, was originally intended as an additional chapter to the Essay. Speaking of it in one of his letters to Molyneux, he says:-"I have written several pages on this subject; but the matter, the farther I go, opens the more upon me, and I cannot yet get sight of any end of it

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ng people who live much together, even when, at bottom, they entertain a deep love and admiration for each other. On the side of the Mashams we know that the tide of affection ran equally smooth. Lady Masham and Esther acted as his nurses, and with one or other of them he seems to have shared all his pursuits. The intimacy and sweetness of these relations surely imply as rare an amount of amiability of temper and power of winning regard on the one side, as of patience and devotion on the other. But then Locke possessed the inestimable gift of cheerfulness, which renders even the invalid's chamber a joy to those who enter it. All the glimpses we obtain of the life, at Oates represent it as a gay and pleasant one, none the less gay and pleasant because its enjoyments were modest and rational. After compl

nishment on the offender; but the king, possibly through Locke's intervention, had wisely taken no notice of the petition. Any way, after the prorogation, Molyneux seems to have felt sufficiently secure to venture on a journey across the Channel. He and Locke were together for some time both in London and at Oates. The friends, though they had been in such constant and intimate correspondence for six years, had never met before. We may easily imagine how warm was their greeting, how much they had to talk about, and how loath they were to separate. "I will venture to assert to you," wrote Molyneux on his return to Dublin, "that I cannot recollect, through the whole course of my life, such signal instances of real friendship as when I had the happiness of your company for five weeks together in London. That part thereof especially which I passed at Oates has made such an agreeable impression on my mind that nothing can be more pleasing." Short

ce in London as a law student, he must have been frequently at Oates, and Locke must have frequently visited him in his chambers in the Temple. The first extant letter from Locke to King, dated June 27, 1698, at any rate, assumes intimacy and frequency of intercourse. "Your company here had been ten times welcomer than any the best excuse you could send; but you may now pretend to be a man of business, and there can be nothing said to you." Very sound was the advice with which the elder relative concluded his letter to the young barrister: "When you first open your mouth at the bar, it should be in some easy plain matter that you are perfectly master of." King's success in his profession was very rapid, and he soon became one of the most popular counsel on the Western Circuit. In the general election of 1700 he attained one of the first objects of ambition at which a rising young barrister generally aims-a seat in the House of Commons. Owing, probably, to his cousin's influence with the Whig leaders, he was returned for the small borough of Beer Alston, in Devonshire, which he continued to represent in several successive Parliaments. Locke, writing to him shortly before the meeting of Parliament, entreats him not to go circuit, as he had intended to do, but to devote himself at once to his Parliamentary duties. "I am sure there was never so critical a time, when every honest member of Parliament ought to watch his trust, and that you will see before the end of the next vacation." The loss to his pocket, his good relative intimates, delicately enough, shall be amply made up to him. King took his cousin's advice on this point, but, fortunately and wisely, did not take it on another. "My advice t

proposed to Locke that his cousin should "steal down sometimes with him on Saturday, and return on Monday." On one of these occasions, in the Easter holidays of 1701, King was accomp

ons with foreign merchants, had become very great. The advent of the new century, inasmuch as the centenary year would be counted as a leap-year in England, but not in other countries where the new style or Gregorian calendar prevailed, would add an eleventh day to the amount of discrepancy, and hence the subject was now attracting more than ordinary attention. Locke's remedy was to omit the intercalar day in the year 1700, according to the rule of the Gregorian calendar, as also for the ten next leap-years following, "by which easy way," he says, "we should in forty-four years insensibly return to the new style." "This," he adds, "I call an easy way, because it would be without prejudice or disturbance to any one's civil rights,

he household at Oates, than with any view of publication, to attempt to clear up its obscurities. The labour was a work of love; and to a man of Locke's devout disposition, with almost a child-like confidence in the guidance of Scripture, the occupation must have afforded a peculiar solace in the intervals of his disease, and as he felt that he was rapidly ap

father of his people, he exhorted them to cast out the spirit of party and division, so that there might no longer be any distinction but between those who were friends to the Protestant religion and the present establishment, and those who wished for a popish prince and a French government. The speech was printed in English, Dutch, and French, framed, and hung up, as an article of furniture, in the houses of good Protestants, both at home and abroad. Locke, writing to Peter King four days after the meeting of Parliament, asks him to send a copy of the king's speech, "printed by itself, and without paring off the edges." He suggests that, in addition to what the two Houses had done, the city of London and counties of England should, "with joined hearts and hands return his Majesty addresses of thanks for his taking such care of them." "Think of this with yourself," he says, "and think of it with others who can and ought to think how to save us out of the hands of France, into which we must fall, unless the whole nation exert its utmost vigour, and that speedily."

aracteristic of the times that Locke was "much in pain" about their getting back safely to town, the days being then so short. His young friend, Arent Furly, who was also a protégé and frequent correspondent of Lord Shaftesbury, went out as Lord Peterborough's secretary, and seems to have acquitted himself in the position with marked diligence and success. The early promi

Peter King was asked to try to manage the matter. He was to call at Newton's residence in Jermyn Street, to deliver a second note, and to find out, if he could, the reasons of Newton's silence, and of his having kept the papers so long. But he was to do this "with all the tenderness in the world," for "he is a nice man to deal with, and a little too apt to raise in himself suspicions where there is no ground." The emissary was also, if he could do it with sufficient adroitness, to discover Newton's opinion of the Commentary. But he was by no means to give the slightest cause of offence. "Mr. Newton is really a very valuable man, not only for his wonderful skill in mathematics, but in divinity too, and his great knowledge in the Scriptures, wherein I know few his equals. And therefore pray manage the whole matter so as not only to preserv

in 1699. "To be learned in the lump by other men's thoughts, and to be in the right by saying after others, is the much easier and quieter way; but how a rational man, that should inquire and know for himself, can content himself with a faith or a religion taken upon trust, or with such a servile submission of his understanding as to admit all and nothing else but what fashion makes passable among men, is to me astonishing. I do not wonder you should have, in many points, different apprehensions from what you meet with in authors. With a free mind, which unbiassedly pursues truth, it cannot be otherwise." After expanding these thoughts, and a

much his junior in age, and who must have become known to him only so recently. "Why do you make yourself so necessary to me? I thought myself pretty loose from the world; but I feel you begin to fasten me to it again. For you make my life, since I have had your friendship, much more valuable to me than it was before." "If I were now setting out in the world, I should think it my great happiness to have such a companion as you, who had a relish for truth, would in earnest seek it with me, from whom I might receive it undisguised, and to whom I might communicate freely what I thought true. Believe it, my good friend, to love truth for truth's sake is the principal part of human perfection in this world and the seed-plot of all other virtues, and, if I mistake not, you have as much of it as I ever met with in anybody." Then he adds pathetically, but with a tone of hopefulness in the labours of others which is not commonly found amongst old men, "When I consider how much of my life has been trifled away in beaten tracks, where I vamped on with others only to follow those that went before us, I cannot but think I have just as much reason to be proud as if I had travelled all England, and, if you will, F

interested them most, and in this way he gained a very extensive knowledge of the various kinds of business, and of a variety of arts and crafts. To working people he was often able to give very useful hints as to their own employments. This union of conversational qualities, grave and gay, invariably made him a welcome addition to any company, young or old, gentle or simple. An even temper, and a combination of happy gifts of this kind, will carry a man through much suffering, bodily and mental. From any mental troubles, on his own account, Locke seems, during these latter years of his life, to have been remarkably free. From bodily suffering he was rarely exempt, but he always endured it with resignation, and endeavoured to obviate its causes by every precaution, which his prudence or medical skill suggested. Thus, we have seen that, whenever it was possible, he preferred the quiet life and pure air of the country to the many attractions which the capital must have offered to a man with his wide acquaintance, and with so many political and literary interests. In diet he practised an abstemiousness very

ersity-resolved to discourage the reading of Locke's Essay. The attempt was futile, as they relied, not on coercion, but on the influence of their authority, which appears to have been held very cheap. Locke was now far too eminent a man to be t

the charge in a pamphlet published in 1704; and Locke, unfortunately, thought it incumbent on him to reply, though he had long ceased to

d dependents he left some remembrance; but the bulk of his personal property be left to Frank Masham and Peter King, the latter of whom was sole executor and residuary legatee. All his manuscripts were left to King. Many of these were published for the first time by the seventh Lord King, in his

hould enjoy their health and youth while they have it, "to all the advantages and improvements of an innocent and pleasant life," remembering that merciless old age is in pursuit of them. The lamp of life was now dimly flickering, but once more it burnt up in the socket before going out forever. Peter King had been married on the 10th of September, and he and his bride must be received with all due honours at Oates. King was asked to cater for his own wedding feast, and goodly and dainty is the list of delicacies which he was to buy. But something, perhaps, might be omitted in which Mrs. King took special delight. "If there be anything that you can find your wife loves, be sure that provision be made of that, and plentifully, whether I have mentioned it or no." The feast was to be cooked by "John Gray, who was bred up in my Lord Shaftesbury's kitchen, and was my Lady Dowager's cook." The wedded pair arrived at Oates towar

re concerned. Soon after he became Lord Chancellor, Frank Masham was appointed to the newly constituted offic

themselves." In the last hours he talked much with the Mashams about their eternal concerns. As for himself he had lived long enough, and enjoyed a happy life; but he looked forward to a better. At length, on the afternoon of the 28th of October, the spirit left him, and the earthly tabernacle was dissolved. His body is buried in the churchyard of High Laver, in a pleasant spot on the south side of the church.

tural, easy, and unaffected; nor can time, I think, ever produce a more