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Of the parliament which met at Oxford on the 21st of March, 1680-81, Locke was a close, and must have been an anxious, observer. He himself occupied his rooms at Christ Church, and for Shaftesbury's use he obtained the house of the celebrated mathematician, Dr. Wallis. The fullest account we have of the earlier proceedings of this parliament are contained in a letter from Locke to Stringer, Shaftesbury's secretary. It was prematurely dissolved on the 28th of March, Charles having succeeded in obtaining supplies from the French king instead of from his own subjects, and no other parliament was summoned during the remainder of the reign.

So suspicious of treachery had the rival parties in the State now become, that most of the members of the Oxford parliament had been attended by armed servants, while the king was protected by a body of guards. The political tension was, of course, by no means relaxed, when it became plain that the king intended to govern without a parliament, and we can hardly feel surprised that ministers took the initiative in trying to silence their opponents. On the 2nd of July, 1681, Shaftesbury was arrested in his London house on a charge of high treason, and, after a brief examination before the Council, was committed to the tower. Notwithstanding many attempts, he failed to obtain a trial till Nov. 24, when he was indicted before a special commission at the Old Bailey. The grand jury, amidst the plaudits of the spectators, threw out the bill, and on the 1st of December following he was released on bail. Shaftesbury's acquittal was received in London, and throughout the country, with acclamations of joy, but his triumph was only a brief one. The rest of his story is soon told. In the summer of 1682, Shaftesbury, Monmouth, Russell, and a few others began to concert measures for a general rising against the king. The scheme was, of course, discovered, and Shaftesbury, knowing that, from the new composition of the juries, he would have no chance of escape if another indictment were preferred against him, took to flight, and concealed himself for some weeks in obscure houses in the city and in Wapping. Meanwhile he tried, from his hiding-places, to foment an insurrection, but, when he found that the day which had been fixed on for the general rising had been postponed, he determined to seek safety for himself by escaping to Holland. After some adventures on the way, he reached Amsterdam in the beginning of December. To preserve him from extradition, he was on his petition admitted a citizen of Amsterdam, and might thus, like Locke, have lived to see the Revolution, but on the 21st of January, 1682-83, he died, in excruciating agonies, of gout in the stomach.

There is no evidence to implicate Locke in Shaftesbury's design of setting the Duke of Monmouth on the throne, though it is difficult to suppose that he was not acquainted with it. Any way, in the spring of 1681-82, he seems to have been engaged in some mysterious political movements, the nature of which is unknown to us. Humphrey Prideaux, afterwards Dean of Norwich, in his gossiping letters to John Ellis, afterwards an Under-Secretary of State, frequently mentions Locke, who was at this time residing in Oxford. These notices were probably in answer to queries from Ellis, who was already in the employment of the government. From Prideaux's letters I extract a few passages, interesting not only as throwing light on Locke's mode of life at this period in Oxford, but also as showing the estimate of him formed by a political enemy who was a member of the same college:--

After Shaftesbury's flight, Locke must have found his position becoming more and more unpleasant. During the year 1682 he had resided pretty constantly in Oxford, but we can well understand that Oxford was not then a very eligible place of residence for a whig and a latitudinarian. He appears to have left it for good at the end of June or beginning of July, 1683, and to have retired for a while into Somersetshire. Shortly afterwards, however, he quitted England altogether, and when we next hear of him it is in Holland. That he was implicated in the Rye House plot is, on every ground, most improbable, notwithstanding the malicious insinuations of Prideaux to the contrary. Nor is there any evidence that he had any concern with the more respectable conspiracy of Monmouth, Russell, and Sidney. But in those times of plots and counter-plots, and arbitrary interference with the courts of justice, any man who was in opposition to the government might well be in fear for his life or liberty. Specially would this be the case with Locke, who was well known as a friend and adherent of Shaftesbury. Moreover, had he been thrown into prison, the state of his health was such that his life would probably have been endangered. His flight, therefore, affords no countenance whatsoever to the supposition that he had been engaged in treasonable designs against the government. It would, I conceive, be no stain on Locke's character, had he, in those days of misgovernment and oppression, conspired to effect by violent means a change in the succession, or even a transference of the crown. But the fact that there is no evidence of his having done so removes almost all excuse for the tyrannical act which I am presently about to describe. In connexion with Locke's flight to Holland, it may be mentioned that the idea of leaving England was by no means new to him. The proposal to emigrate together to Carolina or the ?le de Bourbon, possibly, however, thrown out half in jest, is a frequent topic in the correspondence with his French friend, Thoynard, during the two or three years succeeding his return from France. That he was becoming disgusted with the political game then being played in England, and despondent as to the future of his country, is evident from several letters written by him at this time.

About fourteen or fifteen months had elapsed since his disappearance from England, when, on the 6th of November, 1684, Lord Sunderland signified to Dr. Fell, Dean of Christ Church, who was also Bishop of Oxford, the pleasure of the king that Locke should be removed from his studentship, asking the Dean at the same time to specify "the method of doing it." "The method" adopted by the Dean was to attach a "moneo" to the screen in the college hall, summoning Locke to appear on the 1st of January following, to answer the charges against him. After admitting that Locke, as having a physician's place among the students, was not obliged to residence, and that he was abroad upon want of health, the Dean, in his reply to Sunderland, proceeds to show his readiness to accommodate himself to the requirements of the court: "Notwithstanding that, I have summoned him to return home, which is done with this prospect, that if he comes not back, he will be liable to expulsion for contumacy; if he does, he will be answerable to your lordship for what he shall be found to have done amiss." Ingenious, however, as the "method" was, it was not expeditious enough to satisfy the court. A second letter from Sunderland, enjoining Locke's immediate expulsion, was at once despatched. This curious document is still shown in the Christ Church library, and, as I have never seen an exact transcript of it, I here subjoin one:

"Right Reverend Father in God, and trusty and well-beloved, we greet you well. Whereas we have received information of the factious and disloyall behaviour of Lock, one of the students of that our Colledge; we have thought fit hereby to signify our will and pleasure to you, that you forthwith remove him from his said student's place, and deprive him of all the rights and advantages thereunto belonging. For which this shall be your warrant. And so we bid you heartily farewell.

"Given at our Court at Whitehall, 11th day of November, 1684, in the six and thirtieth year of our Reigne.

SUNDERLAND."

On the 16th of November the Dean signified that his Majesty's command was fully executed, whereupon Lord Sunderland acquainted him that his Majesty was well satisfied with the college's ready obedience.

After the Revolution, Locke petitioned William the Third for the restitution of his studentship, but "finding," according to Lady Masham, that "it would give great disturbance to the society, and dispossess the person that was in his place, he desisted from that pretension."

In Fell's first letter to Sunderland, he speaks of Locke's extreme reserve and taciturnity. As this seems to have been one of his distinguishing characteristics, and as the passage is otherwise remarkable, as showing the vigilance with which Locke was watched at Oxford, I give it at length:

"I have for divers years had an eye upon him; but so close has his guard been on himself that, after several strict inquiries, I may confidently affirm there is not any one in the College, however familiar with him, who has heard him speak a word either against or so much as concerning the Government; and although very frequently, both in public and in private, discourses have been purposely introduced to the disparagement of his master, the Earl of Shaftesbury, his party and designs, he could never be provoked to take any notice or discover in word or look the least concern; so that I believe there is not in the world such a master of taciturnity and passion."

RESIDENCE IN HOLLAND.--THE REVOLUTION.--RETURN TO ENGLAND.--PUBLICATION OF THE "ESSAY" AND OTHER WORKS.

Locke must have landed in Holland in one of the autumn months of 1683, being then about fifty-one years of age. We are not able, however, to trace any of his movements till the January of 1683-84, when he was present, by invitation of Peter Guenellon, the principal physician of Amsterdam, at the dissection of a lioness which had been killed by the intense cold of the winter.

Through Guenellon, whom he had met during his stay in Paris, he must have made the acquaintance of the principal literary and scientific men at that time residing in or near Amsterdam. Amongst these was Philip van Limborch, then professor of theology among the Arminians or Remonstrants. The Arminians were the latitudinarians of Holland, and, though they had been condemned by the Synod of Dort in 1619, and had been subjected to a bitter persecution by the Calvinist clergy for some years following, were now a fairly numerous body, possessing a theological seminary, and exercising a considerable influence, not only in their own country, but over the minds of the more liberal theologians throughout Europe. The undogmatic, tolerant, and, if I may use the expression, ethical character of the Remonstrant theology must have had great attractions for Locke, and he and Limborch, united by many common sentiments, subsequently became fast friends.

The name of Limborch, one of the friends whom Locke made in Holland, has already been mentioned. A long series of letters which passed between them, beginning with Locke's arrival at Cleve in September, 1685, and ending only a few weeks before his death, is still extant, though some are still unpublished. This correspondence is interesting, not only as throwing light on Locke's pursuits, but also as affording a free expression of his theological opinions. Thus, in a letter written to Limborch soon after his arrival at Cleve, with reference to a work recently published by Le Clerc, he acknowledges his perplexities respecting the plenary inspiration of the Bible. "If all things which are contained in the sacred books are equally to be regarded as inspired, without any distinctions, then we give philosophers a great handle for doubting of our faith and sincerity. If, on the contrary, some things are to be regarded as purely human, how shall we establish the divine authority of the Scriptures, without which the Christian religion will fall to the ground? What shall be our criterion? Where shall we draw the line?" He applies to Limborch for help. "For many things which occur in the canonical books, long before I read this treatise, have made me anxious and doubtful, and I shall be most grateful if you could remove my scruples." From the character of his theological writings, composed during the latter years of his life, it would appear that these scruples were afterwards either removed or set aside.

In September, 1686, Locke moved again to Utrecht, intending, apparently, to make a prolonged residence there; but in December, for some mysterious reason with which we are not acquainted, though connected in all probability with English politics, he was threatened with expulsion from the city, and was obliged to return to Amsterdam. It seems, from his correspondence with Limborch, that he did not wish this expulsion to be talked about. At the same time, he accepted stoically the inconveniences to which it put him. "These are the sports of fortune, or rather the ordinary chances of human life, which come as naturally as wind and rain to travellers." At Amsterdam he remained for two months as the guest of his old friend, Dr. Guenellon, and then removed to Rotterdam, where, with occasional breaks, he resided during the rest of his stay in Holland. This removal was undoubtedly connected with the turn which English politics were now taking at the Dutch Court. Monmouth being now out of the way, the only quarter to which those who were weary of the Stuart despotism could look for redress was the House of Orange. Secret negotiations were at this time going on with the Prince and Princess, and there can be no doubt that Locke was taking an active share in the schemes that were in preparation. Rotterdam was within a short distance of the Hague, and also a convenient place for carrying on a correspondence with England as well as for meeting the Englishmen who landed in Holland. As soon as Locke arrived at Rotterdam his hands seem to have been tolerably full of political business. Writing to Limborch in February, 1686-87, he says, "To politics I gave but little thought at Amsterdam; here I cannot pay much attention to literature." Mr. Fox Bourne conjectures that it was through Lord Mordaunt, afterwards Earl of Peterborough, who shortly before this time had taken up his residence in Holland, that Locke was brought into personal relations with the Prince and Princess. Any way, these relations gradually ripened into friendship, and a mutual feeling of respect and admiration seems soon to have grown up between him and the royal couple.

It was on the 1st of November, 1688, that William of Orange set out on his expedition to England. Locke still remained in Holland, and appears to have had frequent interviews with the Princess Mary, who was waiting till she could with safety join her husband. At last the word was given from England, and, after being detained for some time by unfavourable weather, the royal party, accompanied by Locke and Lady Mordaunt, left the Hague on the 11th of February, 1688-89. They arrived at Greenwich on the following day. It was with mixed feelings that Locke took leave of the country where he had been entertained so long, and where he had formed so many warm and congenial friendships. Writing to Limborch shortly before his departure, he says, "There are many considerations which urge me not to miss this opportunity of sailing: the expectation of my friends; my private affairs, which have now been long neglected; the number of pirates in the channel; and the charge of the noble lady with whom I am about to travel. But I trust that you will believe me when I say that I have found here another country, and I might almost say other relations; for all that is dearest in that expression--good-will, love, kindness--bonds that are stronger than blood--I have experienced amongst you. It is owing to this fellow-feeling, which has always been shown to me by your countrymen, that, though absent from my own people and exposed to every kind of trouble, I have never yet felt sick at heart." Still, it must have been with a thrill of delight that, after an absence of more than five years, he once more stepped on the shores of his native land, and felt that a new era of liberty and glory had dawned for her.

It should be mentioned, perhaps, that the correspondence between Locke and Limborch is in Latin.

About a week after his arrival in England, Locke was offered, through Lord Mordaunt, the post of ambassador to Frederick the First, Elector of Brandenburg. The letter to Lord Mordaunt, in which he declines the post, shows the feeble condition in which, notwithstanding all his precautions, his health still continued. "It is the most touching displeasure I have ever received from that weak and broken constitution of my health, which has so long threatened my life, that it now affords me not a body suitable to my mind in so desirable an occasion of serving his Majesty.... What shall a man do in the necessity of application and variety of attendance on business who sometimes, after a little motion, has not breath to speak, and cannot borrow an hour or two of watching from the night without repaying it with a great waste of time the next day?" But there was another reason, besides his health, why he could not accept a mission to the Court of Brandenburg. "If I have reason to apprehend the cold air of the country, there is yet another thing in it as inconsistent with my constitution, and that is their warm drinking." It was true that he might oppose obstinate refusal, but then that would be to take more care of his own health than of the king's business. "It is no small matter in such stations to be acceptable to the people one has to do with, in being able to accommodate one's self to their fashions; and I imagine, whatever I may do there myself, the knowing what others are doing is at least one half of my business, and I know no such rack in the world to draw out men's thoughts as a well-managed bottle. If, therefore, it were fit for me to advise in this case, I should think it more for the king's interest to send a man of equal parts that could drink his share than the soberest man in the kingdom." But, though Locke shrank from this post, the importance of which could hardly be exaggerated, for Frederick was the ally on whom William most confided in his opposition to Louis the Fourteenth, he was ready to place his services at the disposal of the Government for domestic work. "If there be anything wherein I may flatter myself I have attained any degree of capacity to serve his Majesty, it is in some little knowledge I perhaps may have in the constitutions of my country, the temper of my countrymen, and the divisions amongst them, whereby I persuade myself I may be more useful to him at home, though I cannot but see that such an employment would be of greater advantage to myself abroad, would but my health assent to it." The disinterested patriotism of this letter was only of a piece with the whole of Locke's political life. He was next offered the embassy to Vienna, and, in fact, invited to name any diplomatic appointment which he would be prepared to accept; but he regarded his health as an insuperable bar to work of this kind at so critical a time in the history of Europe. Having declined all foreign employment, he was now named a Commissioner of Appeals, an office with small emolument and not much work, which he appears to have retained during the remainder of his life. This office seems to have been given to him partly as a compensation for the arrears of salary due under the late Government; for, with an exhausted exchequer, it was impossible to satisfy such claims by immediate payment.

Locke's health suffered considerably by his return to London. Writing to Limborch shortly after his arrival, and complaining of the worry caused him by the pressure of private affairs and public business, the climax of all his grievances, we are hardly surprised to find, is the injury to his health "from the pestilent smoke of this city" . Amongst the public affairs which claimed his attention, the foremost, doubtless, was the attempt then being made to widen the basis of the National Church by a measure of comprehension, as well as to relieve of civil disabilities the more extreme or scrupulous of the sectaries by what was called a measure of indulgence or toleration. Locke, of course, with his friend Lord Mordaunt, took the most liberal side open to him as respects these measures; but he complains that the episcopal clergy were unfavourable to these as well as to other reforms, whether to their own advantage and that of the State it was for them to consider. Unfortunately both for the Church and nation, the issue of the religious struggles which were carried on at the beginning of William's reign was, on the whole, in favor of the less tolerant party. The Comprehension Bill, after being violently attacked and languidly defended, was dropped altogether. The Toleration Bill, though passed by pretty general consent, and affording a considerable measure of relief on the existing law, was entirely of the nature of a compromise, and what we should now note as most remarkable in it is the number of its provisos and exceptions. No relief was granted to the believer in transubstantiation or the disbeliever in the Trinity. No dissenting minister, moreover, was allowed to exercise his vocation unless he subscribed thirty-four out of the Thirty-nine Articles, together with the greater part of two others. The Quakers had to make a special declaration of belief in the Holy Trinity and in the Divine inspiration of the Scriptures. The measure of toleration which Locke would have been prepared to grant, it need hardly be said, far exceeded that which was accorded by the Act. Speaking of the law recently passed in a letter to Limborch on the 6th of June, he uses apologetic language. "Toleration has indeed been granted, but not with that latitude which you and men like you, true Christians without ambition or envy, would desire. But it is something to have got thus far. On these beginnings I hope are laid the foundations of liberty and peace on which the Church of Christ will hereafter be established." In a subsequent letter, speaking again of the same law, he says, "People will always differ from one another about religion, and carry on constant strife and war, until the right of every one to perfect liberty in these matters is conceded, and they can be united in one body by a bond of mutual charity." If there be any truth in the tradition to which Lord King alludes, that Locke himself negotiated the terms of the Toleration Act, he must have regarded it simply as an instalment of religious liberty, the utmost that could be procured under the circumstances, and an earnest of better things to come.

On William's accession to the throne, one only of the English Sees was vacant, the Bishopric of Salisbury. To this he nominated the famous Gilbert Burnet, who had been one of his advisers in Holland. Locke, in one of his letters to Limborch, tells a rather malicious story of the new prelate. When he paid his first visit to the king after his consecration, his Majesty observed that his hat was a good deal larger than usual, and asked him what was the object of so very much brim. The bishop replied that it was the shape suitable to his dignity. "I hope," answered the king, "that the hat won't turn your head."

The authorship of the Letters on Toleration, though it could hardly fail to be pretty generally known, was first distinctly acknowledged by Locke in the codicil to his will. Limborch, on being hard pressed, had divulged it, in the spring of 1690, to Guenellon and Veen, but they appear, contrary to what generally happens in such cases, to have kept the secret to themselves. Locke, however, was much irritated at the indiscretion of Limborch, and for once wrote him an angry letter. "If you had entrusted me with a secret of this kind, I would not have divulged it to relation, or friend, or any mortal being, under any circumstances whatsoever. You do not know the trouble into which you have brought me." It is not easy to see why Locke should have felt so disquieted at the prospect of his authorship being discovered, but it may be that he hoped to bring about some extension of the limits of the Toleration Act which had been passed in the preceding year, and that he feared that his hands might be tied by the discovery that he entertained what, at that time, would be regarded as such extreme views; or it may have been simply that he was afraid, if his authorship were once acknowledged, of being dragged into a long and irksome controversy with the bigots of the various ecclesiastical parties which were then endeavouring to maintain or recover their ascendancy.

LIFE AT OATES.--FRIENDSHIPS.--FURTHER PUBLICATIONS.

Locke was always an attached friend, and we have seen already how many warm friendships he had formed in youth and middle age. At the present time, besides Limborch, Le Clerc, Lord Monmouth, and the Mashams, we may mention among his more intimate friends Lord Pembroke, the young Lord Ashley, Somers, Boyle, and Newton. Lord Pembroke opened his town house for weekly meetings in which, instead of political and personal gossip, things of the mind were discussed. These conversations, "undisturbed by such as could not bear a part in the best entertainment of rational minds, free discourse concerning useful truths," were a source of great enjoyment to Locke during his London residence. It was through his introduction that Lord Pembroke, when sent on a special mission to the Hague, made the acquaintance, which afterwards ripened into friendship, of Limborch and Le Clerc.

Young Lord Ashley, it will be recollected, had, like his father, been under the charge of Locke when a child. After being at school for some years at Winchester, and spending some time in travelling on the Continent, he was now again in London, living in his father's house at Chelsea. It is plain that the young philosopher saw a good deal of his "foster-father," as he called him, and they must often have discussed together the questions which were so interesting to them both. Ashley, moreover, who was already beginning to solve the problems of philosophy in his own way, addressed a number of letters to Locke, freely, but courteously and good-humouredly, criticising his master's views.

Sir John Somers, now Solicitor-General, and successively Attorney-General, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, and Lord Chancellor, with the title of Lord Somers, had been known to Locke before his retirement to Holland. They were both of them attached to the Shaftesbury connexion, and hence, though Somers was nearly twenty years the junior, they had probably already seen a good deal of each other when William ascended the throne. On Locke's return to England, he found Somers a member of the Convention Parliament. The younger man, both when he was a rising barrister and a successful minister, seems frequently to have consulted the elder one, and Locke's principles of government, finance, and toleration must often have exerted a considerable influence both on his speeches and his measures. Nor had Locke any reason to be ashamed of his teaching. "Lord Somers," says Horace Walpole, "was one of those divine men who, like a chapel in a palace, remain unprofaned, while all the rest is tyranny, corruption, and folly." It was, perhaps, through Somers that Locke made the acquaintance of another great and wise statesman, Charles Montague, subsequently Lord Halifax, with whom, at least during the later years of his life, he had much political connexion, and by whom he was frequently called into counsel.

Edward Clarke, of Chipley, near Taunton, was another friend of old standing. He was elected member for Taunton in King William's second parliament, and from that time forward resided much in London. This circumstance probably deepened the intimacy between the two friends; at all events, during the remainder of Locke's life they are constantly associated. Locke advised Clarke as to the education of his children, one of whom, Betty, a little girl now about ten years old, seems to have been regarded by him with peculiar affection; in his letters he constantly speaks of her as "Mrs. Locke" and his "wife." The playful banter with which Locke treated his child friends affords unmistakable evidence of the kindness and simplicity of his heart.

Many of my readers will sympathize with Locke in his complaints of the waste of his time during this autumn. Writing to Limborch on Nov. 14, he says, "I know not how it is, but the pressure of other people's business has left me no time or leisure for my own affairs. Do not suppose that I mean public business. I have neither health, nor strength, nor knowledge enough to attend to that. And when I ask myself what has so hampered and occupied me during the last three months, it seems as if a sort of spell had been thrown on me, so that I have got entangled first in one business and then in another, without being able to avoid it, or, in fact, to foresee what was coming." Locke was pre-eminently a good-natured man, and, like many other men before and since, he had to pay the penalty of good-nature by doing a vast amount of other people's business, often probably with scant acknowledgment. One of the occupations in which he was engaged may have been doctoring the household at Oates and advising medically for his friends at a distance; but in business of this kind, though he may have grudged the time it consumed, he seems always to have taken special delight.

It is satisfactory to know that, amidst all these controversial worries, which must have been most distasteful to a man of his habits and temper, Locke enjoyed the solace of pleasant companionship and domestic serenity. He was thoroughly at home at Oates, and Lord Monmouth and his other friends in and near town seem always to have been ready to accord him a hearty welcome, whenever he cared to pay them a visit. His little "wife," Betty Clarke, and her brother used occasionally to come on visits to him at the Mashams, and he seems to have taken great delight in the society of Esther Masham, who was now rapidly growing up to womanhood. "In raillery," wrote this lady many years afterwards, "he used to call me his Laudabridis, and I called him my John." The winters of 1694-95 and 1695-96 were unusually long and severe, and in both of them Locke appears to have been under apprehensions that his chronic illness might terminate in death.

POLITICAL AFFAIRS.--PUBLIC OCCUPATIONS.--RELATIONS WITH THE KING.

"Your congratulation I take as you meant, kindly and seriously, and, it may be, it is what another would rejoice in; but 'tis a preferment I shall get nothing by, and I know not whether my country will, though that I shall aim at with all my endeavours. Riches may be instrumental to so many good purposes, that it is, I think, vanity rather than religion or philosophy to pretend to contemn them. But yet they may be purchased too dear. My age and health demand a retreat from bustle and business, and the pursuit of some inquiries I have in my thoughts makes it more desirable than any of those rewards which public employments tempt people with. I think the little I have enough, and do not desire to live higher or die richer than I am. And therefore you have reason rather to pity the folly, than congratulate the fortune, that engages me in the whirlpool."

The duties of the commission could hardly have been more widely defined than they were. It was to be at once a Board of Trade, a Poor-Law Board, and a Colonial Office. The commissioners were to inquire into the general condition of trade in the country, both internal and external, and "to consider by what means the several useful and profitable manufactures already settled in the kingdom may be further improved; and how, and in what manner, new and profitable manufactures may be introduced." They were also "to consider of some proper methods for setting on work and employing the poor of the kingdom, and making them useful to the public, and thereby easing our subjects of that burthen." Finally, they were to inform themselves of the present condition of the plantations, as the colonies were then called, not only in relation to commerce, but also to the administration of government and justice, as well as to suggest means of rendering them more useful to the mother country, especially in the supply of naval stores. Here, surely, was work enough for men far younger and more vigorous than Locke; but, having undertaken the duties of the office, he appears in no way to have spared himself. In the summer and autumn months he resided in London, and attended the meetings of the board personally, often day after day, and in the evening as well as the day-time. In the winter and spring his health compelled him to reside at Oates, but he was constantly sending up long minutes for the use of his colleagues. Mr. Fox Bourne, who has been carefully through the proceedings of the commission, informs us that Locke was altogether its presiding genius. He was a member of this board a little over four years, having been compelled by increasing ill-health, or, as the minutes of the council put it, "finding his health more and more impaired by the air of this city," to resign on the 28th of June, 1700. The king, we are told by Lady Masham, was most unwilling to receive his resignation, "telling him that, were his attendance ever so small, he was sensible his continuance in the commission would be useful to him, and that he did not desire he should be one day in town on that account to the prejudice of his health." Locke, however, was too conscientious to retain a place with large emoluments, of which he felt that he could no longer perform the duties to his own satisfaction. It is interesting to find that his successor was Matthew Prior, the poet.

When we have seen the wide powers of the commission, we hardly need feel surprise that its business was multifarious. It at once set to work to collect evidence of the state of trade in the colonies, of our commercial relations with foreign ports, of the condition of the linen and paper manufactures at home, of the number of paupers in the kingdom, and the mode of their relief, as well as to devise means for increasing the woollen trade and preventing the exportation of wool. Locke was specially commissioned "to draw up a scheme of some method of determining differences between merchants by referees that might be decisive without appeal." In the winter of 1696-97, finding that his work followed him to Oates, and being then apparently in a feebler state of health than usual, he made an ineffectual attempt to escape from his new employment, but Somers refused to hand in his resignation to the king. From a Letter to Molyneux we find that it was not simply his ill-health, but the "corruption of the age," which made him averse to continuing in office. And we can well understand how troublesome, and apparently hopeless, it must have been to deal with the various threatened interests of that time, when monopolies, patents, and pensions were regarded by the governing classes almost as a matter of course.

In the summer of 1697 the principal subject which engaged the attention of the commission was the best means of discouraging the Irish woollen manufacture, and of, at the same time, encouraging the Irish linen manufacture. Each commissioner was invited to bring up a separate report. Three did so. Locke's was the one selected, and, with slight alterations, was signed by the other commissioners on the 31st of August, and forwarded almost immediately afterwards to the Lords Justices. This interesting state-document proceeds entirely upon the notions of protection to native industries which were then almost universally current among statesmen and merchants. The problems were to secure to England the monopoly of what was then regarded as its peculiar and appropriate manufacture, the woollen trade, and to assign to Ireland, in return for the restrictions imposed upon her, some compensating branch of industry. According to the ideas then commonly prevalent, the scheme was perfectly equitable to both countries. But, naturally, the interests of England are put in the foreground. The interests of the Irish people, however, were not to be neglected, and what Locke doubtless conceived as full compensation was to be given them for the loss of their woollen trade. "And since it generally proves ineffectual, and we conceive it hard to endeavour to drive men from the trade they are employed in by bare prohibition, without offering them at the same time some other trade which, if they please, may turn to account, we humbly propose that the linen manufacture be set on foot, and so encouraged in Ireland as may make it the general trade of that country as effectually as the woollen manufacture is, and must be, of England." Linen cloth and all other manufactures made of flax or hemp, without any mixture of wool, were to be exported to all places duty free, as indeed had already been provided by Act of Parliament with regard to England. One method by which Locke proposed to encourage the linen manufacture in Ireland runs so counter to modern notions with regard both to the education of the poor and to freedom of employment, that it may be interesting to the reader to see the suggestion at length:

"And, because the poorest earning in the several parts of the linen manufacture is at present in the work of the spinners, who therefore need the greatest encouragement, and ought to be increased as much as possible, that therefore spinning schools be set up in such places and at such distances as the directors shall appoint, where whoever will come to learn to spin shall be taught gratis, and to which all persons that have not forty shillings a year estate shall be obliged to send all their children, both male and female, that they have at home with them, from six to fourteen years of age, and may have liberty to send those also between four and six if they please, to be employed there in spinning ten hours in the day when the days are so long, or as long as it is light when they are shorter: provided always that no child shall be obliged to go above two miles to any such school."

Then there follow many other minute and paternal regulations of the same kind, the object of which was to turn the whole Irish nation into spinners, and to supply with linen not only "the whole kingdom of England," but foreign markets as well. The Irish authorities, however, were meanwhile preparing a scheme of their own, and, after controversies between the English and Irish officials, extending over more than two years, Locke's plan was finally laid aside in favour of that of Louis Crommelin. Besides the attempt to monopolize the woollen trade for England and the linen trade for Ireland, much of the time of the Council was devoted to schemes for the protection of native industries, by forbidding or throwing obstacles in the way of importation and exportation. But Locke and his colleagues were here only following the track marked out for them by the ordinary opinion of the time.

The main subject which occupied the attention of the Council in the autumn of 1697 was the employment of the idle or necessitous poor. From the beginning of its sessions, it had been collecting evidence on this subject, and, in September of this year, it was decided that each commissioner should draw up a scheme of reform, to be submitted to the Council. As had been the case with his report on the Irish linen manufacture, Locke's was the one selected. From a variety of causes, however, his suggestions were never carried into effect, and the various efforts of William's Government to deal with the gigantic problem of pauperism proved abortive.

Locke's paper of suggestions assumes as a datum what was always regarded at this time as an axiom of poor-law legislation, namely, that it is the duty of each individual parish to maintain and employ its own poor, having, as a set-off, the right of coercing the able-bodied to work. Pernicious and partial as this principle was, we should have more occasion for surprise if we found Locke contravening it than conforming to it. The merit of his paper is that it offers excellent suggestions for minimizing the evils necessarily attaching to the system then in vogue. The recent growth of pauperism he refers to "relaxation of discipline and corruption of manners, virtue and industry being as constant companions on the one side as vice and idleness are on the other. The first step, therefore," he continues, "towards the setting of the poor on work ought to be a restraint of their debauchery by a strict execution of the laws provided against it, more particularly by the suppression of superfluous brandy-shops and unnecessary ale-houses, especially in country parishes not lying upon great roads." He then proposes a series of provisions, sufficiently stringent, for the purpose of compelling the idle and able-bodied poor to work, stating that, upon a very moderate computation, above one-half of those who receive relief from the parishes are able to earn their own livelihoods. In maritime counties, all those not physically or mentally incapacitated, who were found begging out of their own parish without a pass, were to be compelled to serve on board one of his Majesty's ships, under strict discipline, for three years. In the inland counties, all those so found begging were to be sent to the nearest house of correction for a like period. But, besides the able-bodied paupers, there were a great number not absolutely unable or unwilling to do something for their livelihood, and yet prevented by age or circumstances from wholly earning their own living. For these he proposes to find employment in the woollen or other manufactures, so as, at all events, to diminish the cost of their maintenance to the public, and at the same time increase the industrial resources of the country. One of the most distinctive features of Locke's scheme was the proposal to set up working-schools for spinning or knitting, or some other industrial occupation, in each parish, "to which the children of all such as demand relief of the parish, above three and under fourteen years of age, whilst they live at home with their parents, and are not otherwise employed for their livelihood by the allowance of the overseers of the poor, shall be obliged to come." The children were to be fed at school, and this mode of relief was to take the place of the existing allowance in money paid to a father who had a large number of children, which, we are not surprised to learn, was frequently spent in the alehouse, whilst those for whose benefit it was given were left to perish for want of necessaries. The food of the children of the poor at that time, we are told, was seldom more than bread and water, and often there was a very scanty supply of that. Another advantage which Locke proposed to effect by the institution of these schools was the moral and religious instruction of the children. They would be obliged to come constantly to church every Sunday, along with their schoolmasters or dames, "whereby they would be brought into some sense of religion, whereas ordinarily now, in their idle and loose way of bringing up, they are as utter strangers both to religion and morality as they are to industry." One further provision of this scheme may be noticed, as offering some mitigation of the parochial system of relief which then obtained, namely, "that in all cities and towns corporate the poor's tax be not levied by distinct parishes, but by one equal tax throughout the whole corporation."

With his resignation of the Commissionership of the Board of Trade, in the summer of 1700, Locke's public life comes to an end. His friend Somers had been sacrificed to the incessant and malignant attacks of the Tories, and dismissed from the Chancellorship, in the previous spring; and to those statesmen who were inspired by a sincere and simple desire for the well-being of their country the political outlook had become anything but cheerful. The condition of Locke's health was quite a sufficient reason for his desiring to be relieved of the anxieties of office; but we can hardly doubt that, on other grounds as well, he was glad to escape from so intricate a maze as the field of politics bade fair soon to become.

CONTROVERSY WITH STILLINGFLEET.--OTHER LITERARY OCCUPATIONS.--DOMESTIC LIFE.--PETER KING.--LATTER YEARS.--DEATH.

Here I thankfully take leave of the mass of controversial literature, in the writing of which so much of Locke's latter life was spent. The controversies were not of his 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 controversy was of the habit of the time, and no man who cared candidly and unreservedly to express his opinions on any important question could hope to escape from it.

King kept Locke well posted in all that went on in Parliament, and seems also to have been a constant visitor at Oates. Soon after his election, Sir Francis Masham had considerately 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 accompanied by young Lord Ashley, now become the third Earl of Shaftesbury. Locke had then surmounted his winter troubles, and his old pupil pronounces him as well as he had ever known him.

Amongst Locke's correspondents in these years was the celebrated physician, Dr. Sloane, now Secretary of the Royal Society, afterwards created Sir Hans Sloane. In writing to him at the end of the century, evidently in answer to a request, Locke proposes a scheme for rectifying the calendar. Notwithstanding the reformation which had already taken place in many foreign countries, it will be recollected that the English year then began on the 25th of March, instead of the 1st of January, and that, by reckoning the year at exactly 365 1/4 days, or at 11 m. 14 sec. longer than its actual length, our time lagged ten days behind that of most other European countries, as well as the real solar time. The inconvenience, especially in transactions 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, which, by lopping off ten or eleven days at once in any one year, might perhaps receive inconvenience, the only objection that ever I heard made against rectifying our account." He also suggested that the year should begin, as in most other European countries, on the 1st of January. No change, however, was made till, by an Act of Parliament passed in 1750-51, it was ordered that the year 1752 should begin on the 1st of January, and that the day succeeding the 2nd of September in that year should be reckoned as the 14th. Locke's other correspondence with Sloane shows the interest which he still took in medical matters, and how ready he always was to expend time and thought on attending to the ailments of his poor neighbours at Oates.

During the latter years of Locke's life his principal literary employment consisted in paraphrasing and writing commentaries on some of St. Paul's epistles. He thought that this portion of Scripture offered peculiar difficulties, and finding, as he says, that he did not understand it himself, he set to work, rather for his own sake, and perhaps also that of the 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 approaching the confines of that other world which had so long been familiar to his thoughts. Though he was induced to consent to the publication of these commentaries, and though he himself prepared an introduction to them, they did not appear till after his death. They were then issued by instalments, coming out at intervals between 1705 and 1707 inclusively.

As the war proceeded, Locke's old friend, the Earl of Monmouth, now become Earl of Peterborough, was entrusted with a naval expedition against the Spanish possessions in the West Indies. He had a great desire to see Locke before his departure, and, Locke being unable to come up to London, he and the Countess drove down to Oates about the middle of November, 1702. It is characteristic 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 prot?g? 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 promise which he gave, however, was soon blighted. This young play-fellow and foster-child, as he might almost have been called, of Locke, died only a few years after him, in 1711 or 1712. Before accompanying Lord Peterborough on his expedition, he had been living for some time, first at Oates, and afterwards in lodgings in the neighbourhood, for the purpose of learning English.

It is gratifying to find that, during the autumn of this year, Locke had received a visit from Newton. During the discussion of the re-coinage question, and the active operations which followed for the purpose of carrying out the decisions of Parliament, they must have been thrown a good deal together. Montague declared that, had it not been for the energetic measures taken by Newton, as Warden of the Mint, the re-coinage would never have been effected. When, however, Newton came down to visit Locke at Oates, in 1702, their conversation seems to have turned mainly on theological topics. Locke showed Newton his notes upon the Corinthians, and Newton requested the loan of them. But, like most borrowers, he neglected to return them, nor did he take any notice of a letter from Locke, who was naturally very anxious to recover his manuscript. 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 preserve me in his good opinion, but to increase me in it; and be sure to press him to nothing but what he is forward in himself to do." In this letter Locke, notwithstanding the caution with which he felt it necessary to approach one of so susceptible a temperament, says, "I have several reasons to think him truly my friend." And in this generous judgment there can be little doubt he was right. The friends probably never met again, but Newton is said to have paid a visit, on one of his journeys perhaps from London to Cambridge, to Locke's tomb at High Laver. Peter King succeeded in recovering the manuscript, and at the same time or soon afterwards there came a letter, criticising one of Locke's interpretations, but expressing a general opinion that the "paraphrase and commentary on these two epistles is done with very great care and judgment."

The letter to Collins, from which I have just quoted, was written on Oct. 29, 1703. Within a year of that date the end came. The wonder, indeed, is that, with his persistent malady, aggravated apparently in these latter years with other disorders, Locke's life had continued so long. The reasons are probably to be sought in his unfailing cheerfulness, in the variety of interests which diverted his mind from the thought of his own ailments, and in the judicious manner in which he regulated his exercise and diet. Of these personal traits something may conveniently here be said. The remarkable cheerfulness of his disposition, his lively sense of humour, and his power of extracting amusement from all that was going on around him, have frequently come before us in the course of this biography. His temper was not moody, like that of so many men of letters, but pre-eminently sociable. When not actually engaged in his studies, he always liked to be in company, and enjoyed especially the society of young people and children. He had a happy knack of talking to his companions for the time being on the subjects which 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 rare among men of that age. His ordinary drink was water, and to this habit he attributed not only his length of years, but also the extraordinary excellence of his eyesight. Till recently, a curious relic of Locke's water-drinking habits was preserved in the shape of a large mortar of spongy stone, which acted as a natural filter, and which he used to call his brew-house. He was assiduous in taking exercise, and was specially fond of walking and gardening. In the latter years of his life he used to ride out slowly every day after dinner. When advising his friend Clarke about his health, he says, "I know nothing so likely to produce quiet sleep as riding about gently in the air for many hours every day," and then, like a truly wise doctor, he adds, "If your mind can be brought to contribute a little its part to the laying aside troublesome ideas, I could hope this may do much." At last, when he was no longer able to sit on horseback, he commissioned Collins to have an open carriage specially made for him, the principle on which it was to be constructed being that "convenient carries it before ornamental."

The approach of summer had not its usual restorative effect upon him. On the other hand, all the bad symptoms of his disease increased. To use his own expression, "the dissolution of the cottage was not far off." In a letter, written on the 1st of June, he earnestly pressed King to come to him, that he might pass some of the last hours of his life "in the conversation of one who is not only the nearest but the dearest to me of any man in the world." Both King and Collins seem to have visited him frequently during the last months of his life; and their society being cheerful, and the topics of their conversation interesting, he appears to have taken great pleasure in their company. He did not, however, find equal enjoyment in the visit of Dr. Edward Fowler, Bishop of Gloucester, who, like himself, was in a bad state of health. "I find two groaning people make but an uncomfortable concert." The moral he draws is, that men should 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 towards the end of the month, and well can we picture to ourselves the pride and pleasure with which the genial old man entertained the wife of his cousin and adopted son--the adopted son whom he had rescued from the grocer's shop at Exeter, and whose future eminence he must now have pretty clearly foreseen. A few days after King left Oates, he solemnly committed to him by letter the care of Frank Masham. "It is my earnest request to you to take care of the youngest son of Sir Francis and Lady Masham in all his concerns, as if he were your brother. Take care to make him a good, an honest, and an upright man. I have left my directions with him to follow your advice, and I know he will do it; for he never refused to do what I told him was fit." Then, turning to King himself, he says, "I wish you all manner of prosperity in this world, and the everlasting happiness of the world to come. That I loved you, I think you are convinced."

Peter King certainly executed the dying request of his cousin, so far as Frank Masham's material interests were concerned. Soon after he became Lord Chancellor, Frank Masham was appointed to the newly constituted office of Accountant-General in the Court of Chancery, a lucrative post, conferring the same status as a Mastership.

Locke retained his faculties and his cheerfulness to the last; but he grew gradually weaker day by day. "Few people," says Lady Masham, "do so sensibly see death approach them as he did." A few days before his death he received the sacrament from the parish minister, professing his perfect charity with all men, and his "sincere communion with the whole Church of Christ, by whatever name Christ's followers call 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. The Latin epitaph on the wall above the tomb was written by himself. It tells us that he had lived content with his own insignificance: that, brought up among letters, he had advanced just so far as to make an acceptable offering to truth alone: if the traveller wanted an example of good life, he would find one in the Gospel; if of vice, would that he could find one nowhere; if of mortality, there and everywhere.

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