would generally do better, as their sons grow up, to take them into a nearer familiarity, and live with them with as much freedom and friendship as their age and temper will allow." The following letter from Locke to his father, which is without a date, but must have been written before 1660, shows the feeling of tenderness and affection which subsisted between them. It was probably found by Locke amongst his father's papers, and thus came again into his possession.

"MOST DEAR AND EVER-LOVING FATHER,

Dec. 20.

"I did not doubt but that the noise of a very dangerous sickness here would reach you, but I am alarmed with a more dangerous disease from Pensford, and were I as secure of your health as (I thank God) I am of my own, I should not think myself in danger; but I cannot be safe so long as I hear of your weakness, and that increase of your malady upon you, which I beg that you would, by the timely application of remedies, endeavour to remove. Dr Meary has more than once put a stop to its encroachment; the same skill, the same means, the same God to bless you, is left still. Do not, I beseech you, by that care you ought to have of yourself, by that tenderness I am sure you have of us, neglect your own and our safety too; do not, by a too pressing care for your children, endanger the only comfort they have left. I cannot distrust that Providence which hath conducted us thus far, and if either your disappointments or necessities shall reduce us to narrower conditions than you could wish, content shall enlarge it; therefore, let not these thoughts distress you. There is nothing that I have which can be so well employed as to his use, from whom I first received it; and if your convenience can leave me nothing else, I shall have a head, and hands, and industry still left me, which alone have been able to raise sufficient fortunes. Pray, Sir, therefore, make your life as comfortable and lasting as you can; let not any consideration of us cast you into the least despondency. If I have any reflections on, or desires of, free and competent subsistence, it is more in reference to another (whom you may guess) to whom I am very much obliged, than for myself: but no thoughts, how important soever, shall make me forget my duty; and a father is more than

all other relations; and the greatest satisfaction I can propose to myself in the world, is my hopes that you may yet live to receive the return of some comfort, for all that care and indulgence you have placed in,

"Sir, your most obedient son,

J. L."

It would have been more in the order of time, to have stated that Locke was sent to Westminster School, and from thence to Christ Church, Oxford, in 1651. His friend, Mr Tyrrell, the grandson of the celebrated Usher, Archbishop of Armagh, relates that Locke, in the earliest period of his residence at Oxford, was distinguished for his talents and learning, amongst his fellow-students. That he lost much time at Oxford is, however, certain, from his own confession: and if he derived little advantage from the place of his education, it cannot be ascribed to the inaptitude of his mind to make useful acquirements; the fault is to be found in his instructors, and in their system. It appears that he would have thought the method of Des Cartes preferable (though no admirer of his philosophy) to that of the established practice, either because the study of that writer gave him the first taste for philosophy, or because he admired the distinctness of his method; or, perhaps, he might consider any alteration to be an improvement, and any change a change for the better.

Although he acquired this early reputation at the University, yet he was often heard to express his regret that his father had ever sent him to Oxford: aware, from his own experience, that the method of instruction then pursued was ill calculated to open the understanding, or prepare the way for any useful knowledge,

What, indeed, could the false philosophy of the schools, and their vain disputation, profit the man who was afterwards to be distinguished above all other men, for his devoted love of truth, of unshackled inquiry, and of philosophy.

In the different systems of education, there may be that which is pernicious, that which is only useless, and that which is really useful. Perhaps the ancient method may, without injustice, be classed under the first description; and the modern method, as a state of transition between the useless

and the useful, far superior to what it once was, but still capable of great improvement.

That Locke regretted his education at Oxford, is stated upon the authority of his friend Le Clerc. Perhaps too much stress has been laid upon some accidental expressions, or rather, that the regrets expressed by Locke ought to have been understood by Le Clerc to apply to the plan of education then generally pursued at English universities; for to Oxford, even as Oxford was in the days of Locke, he must have been considerably indebted. The course of study and the philosophy, bad as it was, fortunately did not attract much of his attention, and his mind escaped the trammels of the schools, and their endless perplexities and sophistry. If the system of education did not offer assistance, or afford those directions so useful to the young student, the residence at Oxford did, no doubt, confer ease, and leisure, and the opportunity of other studies; it afforded also the means of intercourse with persons from whose society and conversation, we know, that the idea of his great work first arose.

It may be said, without offence to that ancient University, that Locke, though educated within her walls, was much more indebted to himself than to his instructors, and that he was in himself an instance of that self-teaching, always the most efficient and valuable, which he afterwards so strongly recommends. In answer to a letter from the Earl of Peterborough, who had applied to him to recommend a tutor for his son, he says, I must beg leave to own that I differ a little from your Lordship in what you propose; your Lordship would have a thorough scholar, and I think it not much matter whether he be any great scholar or no; if he but understand Latin well, and have a general scheme of the sciences, I think that enough: but I would have him wellbred, well-tempered; a man that, having been conversant with the world and amongst men, would have great application in observing the humour and genius of Lord your son; and omit nothing that might help to form his mind, and dispose him to virtue, knowledge, and industry. This I look upon as the great business of a tutor; this is putting life into his pupil, which when he has got, masters of all kinds are easily to be had; for when a young gentleman has got a relish of knowledge, the love and credit of doing well spurs

my

him on; he will, with or without teachers, make great advances in whatever he has a mind to. Mr Newton learned his mathematics only of himself; and another friend of mine, Greek (wherein he is very well skilled) without a master; though both these studies seem more to require the help of a tutor than almost any other." In a letter to the same person on the same subject, 1697, he says: "When a man has got an entrance into any of the sciences, it will be time then to depend on himself, and rely upon his own understanding, and exercise his own faculties, which is the only way to improvement and mastery."

After recommending the study of history, he further says: "The great end of such histories as Livy, is to give an account of the actions of man as embodied in society, and so of the true foundation of politics; but the flourishings and decays of commonwealths depending not barely on the present time for what is done within themselves, but most commonly on remote and precedent constitution and events, and a train of concurrent actions amongst their neighbours as well as themselves; the order of time is absolutely necessary to a due knowledge and improvement of history, as the order of sentences in an author is necessary to be kept, to make any sense of what he says. With the reading of history, I think the study of morality should be joined, I mean not the ethics of the schools fitted to dispute, but such as Tully in his Offices, Puffendorf de Officio Hominis et Civis, de Jure Naturali et Gentium, and above all, what the New Testament teaches, wherein a man may learn to live, which is the business of ethics, and not how to define and dispute about names of virtues and vices. True politics I look on as a part of moral philosophy, which is nothing but the art of conducting men right in society, and supporting a community amongst its neighbours.'

To return to Locke's habits and life at Oxford. Le Clerc mentions, that his very early friends and companions were selected from amongst the lively and agreeable, rather than the learned of his time; and that the correspondence with which he frequently amused himself with them had a resemblance in style and expression to the French of Voiture, although perhaps not so finished and refined as that of the French author. His letters on Toleration, and his replies

to the Bishop of Worcester, show his force of argument, and his powers of wit and irony, confined always within the bounds of the most perfect civility and decorum.

The earliest of Locke's printed works is the Essay on Human Understanding: the original copy, in his own handwriting, dated 1671, is still preserved, and I find the first sketch of that work in his Common-place Book, beginning thus:

"Sic cogitavit de intellectu humano Johannes Locke an. 171.

"Intellectus humanus cum cognitionis certitudine et assensus firmitate.

“First, I imagine that all knowledge is founded on, and ultimately derives itself from, sense, or something analogous to it, and may be called sensation, which is done by our senses conversant about particular objects, which gives us the simple ideas or images of things, and thus we come to have ideas of heat and light, hard and soft, which are nothing but the reviving again in our minds these imaginations, which those objects, when they affected our senses, caused in us— whether by motion or otherwise, it matters not here to consider, and thus we do, when we conceive heat or light, yellow or blue, sweet or bitter, and therefore I think that those things which we call sensible qualities are the simplest ideas we have, and the first object of our understanding."

The essay must therefore have remained in the author's possession above eighteen years before he gave it to the world, and in that space of time considerable corrections and alterations had been made. His earliest work, however, was of a political nature, and of a date much anterior, and although evidently intended for publication, was never printed. It was written towards the end of 1660: the preface to the reader is curious, as the earliest specimen of his style and opinions, and strongly shows the desire of reasonable men of all parties to remove the difficulties which stood in the way of a final and peaceable settlement of affairs in State and Church. One of the first and most necessary measures after the Restoration, and one of the most difficult, was the settlement of the Church. The King, by his Declaration,