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Locke was sent to Westminster School, and in 1651, was admitted a student of Christ Church, Oxford, where, in the earliest period of his residence, he was distinguished among his fellow-students for his talents and learning. From his own confession, however, it appears that he lost much time at the University. He was dissatisfied with the systems and methods of instruction which he found prevailing, and was often heard to express his regret that his father had ever sent him to Oxford. Such a mind as Locke's could find but little that was congenial in the philosophy of the schools. The obscurities, the subtilties, and the vain disputations which had become incorporated with the Aristotelian dogmas, could neither gratify nor excite the interest of an inquirer who was in search of truth, and who regarded as useless the acquirements which were not subsidiary to its attainment. It is, however, certain, that our aversion to systems generally, may induce us to overlook advantages which they are quite adequate to impart; and there are benefits to be derived from particular studies which would greatly contribute to the mental improvement of the scholar who has pronounced them useless. There can be no doubt, that great and solid acquisitions in science and learning, were made at Oxford by many of Locke's contemporaries. The regret which he is said to have expressed on account of his education at that University, is reported on the authority of some of his friends, particularly Le Clerc. But, probably, as Lord King remarks, too much stress has been laid upon some accidental expres'sions; or 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.' There can be no difficulty in concluding, with the noble Author, that' to Ox'ford, 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.'-p. 4.

Whether Locke had, at any time, serious thoughts of engag ing in any profession, is uncertain. His inclinations led him to the study of medicine, which he appears to have very ardently prosecuted. His diary contains frequent notices of curious cases;

his collection of medical books was considerable; he was, as appears from his correspondence, occasionally consulted by his friends; and the praise which Sydenham, the greatest authority of his time, bestows on the medical talents of Locke, is sufficient to prove, that his skill and accomplishments, as a student of the healing art, were of a high order. In the retirement of Oxford, he spent many years. In 1665, he engaged, for the first time, in the practical business of life; when he accompanied, as secretary, Sir Walter Vane, the King's envoy to the Elector of Brandenburg. From his correspondence during this first period of his foreign residence, we shall make some extracts, which will exhibit the personage hitherto known to most of our readers only in the character of a grave philosopher, as a lively and amusing writer. The following is part of a letter to Mr. John Strachy, Sutton Court, Bristol.

"DEAR SIR,

"Are you at leisure for half an hour's trouble? will you be content I should keep up the custom of writing long letters, with little in them? 'Tis a barren place, and the dull frozen part of the year, and therefore you must not expect great matters. "Tis enough, that at Christmas you have empty Christmas tales, fit for the chimney corner. To begin, therefore, December 15th, (here 25th,) Christmas-day, about one in the morning, I went a gossipping to our Lady; think me not profane, for the name is a great deal modester than the service I was at. I shall not describe all the particulars I observed in that church, being the principal of the Catholics in Cleves; but only those that were particular to the occasion. Near the high altar was a little altar for this day's solemnity; the scene was a stable, wherein was an ox, an ass, a cradle, the Virgin, the Babe, Joseph, shepherds, and angels, dramatis personæ : had they but given them motion, it had been a perfect puppet play, and might have deserved pence a-piece; for they were of the same size and make that our English puppets are; and I am confident, these shepherds and this Joseph are kin to that Judith and Holophernes which I have seen at Bartholomew fair. A little without the stable was a flock of sheep, cut out of cards; and these, as they then stood, without their shepherds, appeared to me the best emblem I had seen a long time, and methought represented these poor innocent people, who, whilst their shepherds pretend so much to follow Christ, and pay their devotion to him, are left unregarded in the barren wilderness. This was the show: the music to it was all vocal in the quire adjoining, but such as I never heard. They had strong voices, but so ill-tuned, so ill-managed, that it was their misfortune, as well as ours, that they could be heard. He that could not, though he had a cold, make better music with a chevy chace over a pot of smooth ale, deserved well to pay the reckoning, and go away athirst. However, I think they were the honestest singing men I have ever seen, for they endeavoured to deserve their money, and earned it certainly with pains enough; for what they wanted in skill, they made up in loudness and variety: every one had his own tune, and the result of all was like the noise of choos

ing parliament men, where every one endeavours to cry loudest. Besides the men, there were a company of little choristers. I thought, when I saw them at first, they had danced to the other's music, and that it had been your Gray's-Inn revels; for they were jumping up and down, about a good charcoal fire, that was in the middle of the quire (this, their devotion, and their singing, was enough, I think, to keep them warm, though it were a very cold night); but it was not dancing, but singing they served for: when it came to their turns, away they ran to their places, and there they made as good harmony as a concert of little pigs would, and they were much about as cleanly. Their part being done, out they sallied again to the fire, where they played till their cue called them, and then back to their places they huddled. So negligent and slight are they in their service, in a place where the nearness of adversaries might teach them to be more careful; but I suppose the natural tendency of these outside performances and these mummeries in religion, would bring it every where to this pass, did not fear and the severity of the magistrate preserve it; which being taken away here, they very easily suffer themselves to slobber over their ceremonies, which, in other places, are kept up with so much zeal and exactness; but methinks they are not to be blamed, since the one seems to me as much religion as the other."' pp. 13–15.

Locke returned to England in February 1665. An offer of going into Spain in the public employment, kept him for some time in suspense, but was, soon after his arrival at Oxford, declined by him; as was a similar proposal in the autumn of the same year. Preferment in the Church was offered him, through the medium of a friend, in 1666: his reply has been preserved, and is inserted at p. 27. Before this time, the Act of Uniformity had been passed, and that secession from the Church had been compelled by the terms of it, in respect to which, at a subsequent period, Locke remarked, that Bartholomew day was fatal to our Church and religion, in throwing out a very great number ' of worthy, learned, pious, and orthodox divines.' What were his impressions of this transaction at the time of its occurrence, we have no means of ascertaining. Among the reasons which he assigns to his friend as determining him against entering into the Church, we find no reference to the demands of the ecclesiastical laws which were established by that Act, and to which it is scarcely to be imagined that Locke could have, even then, been prepared to submit his understanding and his conscience. That he could have approved of the doctrine and discipline of the Church so entirely, as to give solemnly his unfeigned assent and consent to all and every thing contained in the Book of Common Prayer, is not to be believed; and the terms of the Oxford oath, to which a similar assent and declaration were required, that it is not lawful, upon any pretence whatsoever, to take arms against the king, or attempt any alteration in the ' government, were too abhorrent to the spirit which dictated

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and controlled his opinions, to receive his sanction. The seeds of those great principles which were afterwards so fully developed in his writings, had long been germinating, and were expanding and becoming strong in his mental conceptions and determinations; nor is there any room to suppose, that implicit submission to church authority and passive obedience to despotic rulers, were, as practical maxims, at any time consonant with his opinions. The applications, however, which were addressed to him, and the offers of church preferment which he received, were not to him the occasion of a fiery trial': his principles and his inclination were at peace with each other. I am sure', he says, I cannot content myself with being undermost, possibly the middlemost of my profession; and you will allow, on consideration, care is to be taken not to engage in a calling, wherein, if one chance to be a bungler, there is no retreat.' We subjoin Lord King's reflections on the correspondence.

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Had he accepted this offer of preferment; had he risen beyond the middlemost station in the Church, which his own modesty made him assign to himself, and to which his virtues must have condemned him ; had he even risen to the highest station in that profession, he might have acquired all the reputation which belongs to a divine of great talents and learning, or the still higher distinction of great moderation, candour, and Chistian charity, so rare in a high-churchman; but most certainly he would never have attained the name of a great philosopher who has extended the bounds of human knowledge.

There occurred, in the course of Locke's life, the choice of three distinct roads to fortune, and perhaps to celebrity, either of which was capable of influencing most powerfully, if not of totally changing his future destiny. The temptation of considerable preferment in the Church, already mentioned, the practice of physic as a profession, or the opportunity of engaging in diplomatic employments, from which last he seems, by his own account, to have had a narrow escape. It would have been unfortunate for his own renown, had he been swayed by the advantages which at different times were held out to him; it would also have been unfortunate for the progress of knowledge in the world, if he had placed himself under the influence of circumstances so capable of diverting the current of his thoughts, and changing his labours from their proper and most useful destination; namely, the lifting of the veil of error: because an age might have elapsed before the appearance of so bold a searcher after truth. pp. 28, 29.

Physical and chemical studies engaged much of Locke's attention at Oxford. In 1666, he began to keep a register of the state of the air; which he continued, with many interruptions, till his final departure from the University. He corresponded. with Boyle, who urged him to search into the nature of minerals,' and proposed to send him some sheets of articles of in

quiry into mines. But in this year an incident occurred, which was decisive in fixing the inclinations of Locke, and by which the course of his future life was very materially affected. This was his acquaintance with Lord Ashley, afterwards the celebrated Earl of Shaftesbury. The circumstances in which it originated, were of the most accidental and trivial kind; but to events which in themselves are too insignificant to be recorded, the most important consequences are frequently to be traced; and in the history of the great actors on the stage of human life, as well as in those of the most humble, little things are 'sometimes great.' Lord Ashley, we are informed, was suffering from an abscess in his breast, the consequence of a fall from his horse; and, intending to drink the water of Astrop, he had written to Dr. Thomas to procure him the necessary accommodations on his arrival at Oxford. This physician, being called away, desired Locke to execute the commission. On Lord Ashley's arrival, the waters, by some accident, were not ready, and Locke waited upon him to apologize for the disappointment. His apology was satisfactory, and his conversation so much interested the noble visiter, that he desired to improve the acquaintance thus commenced, and the parties were thenceforth most intimate friends. Lord King describes this attachment as alike honourable to both parties; and he has accompanied his account of the connection between them with some remarks in vindication of Locke, against the strictures of Mr. Fox on Shaftesbury's political dishonesty. His Lordship's remarks satisfactorily prove, that Locke was not implicated in the transactions which attach so much odium to the character of Shaftesbury; nor were they necessary indeed for this purpose, since Locke is not charged with the guilt of being his coadjutor in those proceedings; but they have not at all altered our feelings as to the questionable propriety of the connection thus formed with a man by no means the most distinguished for virtuous principle, and who had so very recently placed himself in a situation of mean and base degradation. Shaftesbury had taken up arms against Charles the First, was a republican, supported Cromwell, and then, after the Restoration, sat on the trial of the regicides, the very men whose measures he had himself promoted, and whose associate he had been. It is impossible for a candid and upright mind to avoid Mr. Fox's conclusion, that the splendid qualities of Shaftesbury imposed upon Locke, and prevented his political delinquencies from inducing in his new acquaintance, the hesitation and caution naturally to be expected in an ingenuous mind admitting another to its confidence.

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