your bodies, and that yours, as well as hers, is not of the ordinary alloy. I account it none of the least favours she has done me, that she has promised me your friendship; and you must not think it strange, if I presume upon her word, and trouble you with some inquiries concerning the country you are in, since she encourages me in it, and assures me I shall not fail of an answer. "Some of those who have travelled, and writ of those parts, give us strange stories of the tricks done by some of their jugglers there, which must needs be beyond legerdemain, and seems not within the power of art or nature. I would very gladly know whether they are really done as strange as they are reported; and whether those that practise them are any of them Mahometans, or all (which I rather suppose) heathens, and how they are looked on by the Bramins, and the other people of the country; whether they have any apparitions amongst them, and what thoughts of spirits; and as much of the opinions, religion, and ceremonies of the Hindoos and other heathens of those countries, as comes in your way to learn and inquire. It would be too great kindness, if you could learn any news of any copies of the Old or New Testament, or any parts of them, which they had amongst them, in any language, in those Eastern countries, before the Europeans traded thither by the Cape of Good Hope. I should trouble you also with inquiries concerning their languages, learning, government, manners, and particularly Aureng Zebe, the Emperor of Hindoostan, since I could promise myself a more exact account from you than what we have in printed travels; but I fear I have been more troublesome than what you will imagine will become a man that does but now begin to beg your acquaintance. If I have trespassed herein, you must excuse it to the little distinction I make between you and your sister; you must conclude I forgot myself, and thought I was talking to, and (as I used to do) learning something of her; and 'tis to the same account I must beg you to place the obligation you will lay on me, by procuring and sending hither an answer to the enclosed letter, directed to Mrs Richards. Her husband died going to the East Indies, in a ship that set out hence about Christmas was twelvemonths, where he was to have been factor, somewhere in the Bay of Bengal, for the Company. His wife and two daughters, who were with him, went on their voyage; where she settled herself, and remains now, you will easily know. I beg the favour of you to get the enclosed conveyed to her, and an answer from her, which be pleased to direct to be left for me either with Mr P. Percevall, at the Black Boy, in Lombard-street, or Mr S. Cox, at the Iron Key, in Thames-street, London. "And now, having been thus free with you, 'tis in vain to make apologies for it; if you allow your sister to dispose of your friendship, you will not take it amiss that I have looked upon myself as in possession of what she has bestowed on me; or that I begin my conversation with you with a freedom and familiarity suitable to an established amity and acquaintance; besides, if, at this distance, we should set out according to the forms of ceremony, our correspondence would proceed with a more grave and solemn pace than the treaties of princes, and we must spend some years in the very preliminaries. He that, in his first address, should only put off his hat and make a leg, and say, your servant, to a man at the other end of the world, may (if the winds set right), and the ships come home safe, and bring back the return of his compliment, may, I say, in two or three years, perhaps, attain to something that looks like the beginning of an acquaintance, and by the next Jubilee there may be hopes of some conversation between them. Sir, you see what a blunt fellow your sister has recommended to you; as far removed from the ceremonies of the Eastern people you are amongst, as from their country; but one that, with great truth and sincerity, says to you, I am, &c., J. L. "One thing, which I had forgot, give me leave to add, which is a great desire to know how the several people of the East keep their account of time, as months and years; and whether they generally agree in using periods answering to our weeks; and whether their arithmetic turns at ten as ours doth." The following letters are selected from a very great number written by Locke to his relation Mr King, afterwards Lord Chancellor, and found amongst his papers. TO P. KING, ESQ., M. P., MIDDLE TEMPLE, LONDON. "DEAR COUSIN, "Oates, July 3rd, 98. "I am glad that you are so well entered at the bar ; it is my advice to you to go on so gently by degrees, and to speak only in things that you are perfectly master of, till you have got a confidence and habit of talking at the bar. I have many reasons for it, which I shall discover to you when I see you. This warm day (which has been the third that I have been able this year yet to pass without a fire) gives me hopes that the comfortable weather which I have long wished for is setting in, that I may venture to town in a few days, for I would not take a journey thither to be driven out again presently, as I am sure our late cold weather would have done, for my lungs are yet very weak. "I have writ to my Lord Pembroke, because you desire it, and because I understand by you that Mr Edwards desires it; you will see what I have writ, but it is by no means fit that Mr Edwards should see my letter, for I have in it kept to the measures I always observe in such cases, and which have gained some credit to my recommendation, though it does not always content candidates, if one says no more than what one knows. If you deliver it, pray let it be with my most humble service; if you do not deliver it, pray burn it. 'My lady, &c., give you their service. I am, dear cousin, your most affectionate "DEAR COUSIN, J. LOCKE." "Oates, March 1st, 1701. The "In compliance with yours of yesterday, I write this evening with intention to send my letter to Harlow to-morrow morning, that Mr Harrison may, if possible, find some way of conveyance of it to you before to-morrow night. family and other circumstances have no exception, and the person I have heard commended, but yet the objection made is considerable. I think the young gentleman concerned ought to manage it so as to be well satisfied whether that be what he can well bear, and will consist with the comfort : and satisfaction he proposes to himself in that state before he seems to hearken to any such proposal, so that he may avoid what he cannot consent to, without any appearance of a refusal. For to make a visit upon such proposal, though it be designed without any consequence, and offered to be contrived as of chance, is yet a sort of address; and then going no further, whatever is said will be ill taken of her friends, and consequently the whole family be disobliged, which will have ill consequences, and therefore should be avoided for whatever reason a man may have to refuse a woman that is offered him, it must never be known that it was anything in her person; such a discovery makes a mortal quarrel. If he that proposed it be the confidant of the young gentleman, and can be relied on by him, and has said nothing of it to her friends, he possibly may contrive an unsuspected interview, and is the fittest person to do it; if not, the young man must find some other way to satisfy himself that may not be discovered. A friend of mine in Jermyn-street, who missed you narrowly when you came last from Exeter, knows her well; but an inquiry there must be managed with great dexterity to avoid suspicion of the matter, and consequently talking of it. You shall be sure to hear from me in the matter before you go out of town, if you persist in the mind of going. I am your most affectionate cousin, JOHN LOCKE.' "Jan. 27, 700/01 "DEAR COUSIN, "I am as positive as I can be in anything that you should not think of going the next circuit. I do not in the mean time forget your calling; but what this one omission may be of loss to you, may be made up otherwise. I am sure there never was 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. I therefore expect in your next a positive promise to stay in town. I tell you, you will not, you shall not repent it. I cannot answer the other parts of your letter, lest I say nothing to you at all this post, and I must not omit by it to put an end to the remain der of your wavering about your going the circuit. I shall enlarge in my next, And am, yours, J. L." 66 Oates, Jan. 31, 1700. "DEAR COUSIN, 66 Having no time but for a few words the last post, it is fit I now answer the other particulars of your letter, which I then was forced to omit. Your staying in town the next vacation I look upon as resolved, and the reasons I find for it in your own letters, now that I have time to read them a little more deliberately, I think sufficient to determine you should, though I say nothing at all. Every time I think of it I am more and more confirmed in the opinion that it is absolutely necessary in all respects, whether I consider the public or your own private concerns, neither of which are indifferent to me. It is my private thought that the Parliament will scarce sit even so much as to choose a Speaker before the end of the term; but whenever he is chosen, it is of no small consequence which side carries it, if there be two nominated, or at least in view, as it is ten to one there will be, especially in a Parliament chosen with so much struggle. "Having given all the help possibly you can in this, which is usually a leading point, showing the strength of the parties, my next advice to you is not to speak at all in the House for some time, whatever fair opportunity you may seem to have: but though you keep your mouth shut, I doubt not but you will have your eyes open to see the temper and observe the motions of the House, and diligently to remark the skill of management, and carefully watch the first and secret beginnings of things, and their tendencies, and endeavour, if there be danger in them, to crush them in the egg. You will say, what can you do who are not to speak? It is true I would not have you speak to the House, but you may communicate your light or apprehensions to some honest speaker who may make use of it; for there have always been very able members who never speak, who yet by their penetration and foresight have this way done as much service as any within those walls. And hereby you will more recommend yourself when people shall observe so much modesty |