tion of this cottage is not far off. Refuse not, therefore, to help me to pass some of the last hours of my life as easily as may be in the conversation of one who is not only the nearest, but the dearest to me, of any man in the world. I have a great many things to talk to you, which I can talk to nobody else about. I therefore desire you again, deny not this to my affection. I know nothing at such a time so desirable, and so useful, as the conversation of a friend one loves and relies on. It is a week free from business, or, if it were not, perhaps you would have no reason to repent the bestowing a day or two upon me. Make haste, therefore, on Saturday, and be here early: I long till I see you. I writ to you in my last, to bring some cherries with you, but fear they will be troublesome to you; and these things that entertain the senses, have lost with me a great part of their relish; therefore, give not yourself any trouble about them; such desires are usually but the fancy seeking pleasure in one thing, when it has missed it in another, and seeks in vain for the delight which the indisposition of the body has put an end to. When I have your company, I shall forget these kind of things. I am, dear cousin, your most affectionate, J. LOCKE.'

The close of his life is thus simply, but strikingly, described by Lord King:

In October, 1704, his disorder greatly increased: on the 27th of that month Lady Masham, not finding him in his study as usual, went to his bedside, when he told her that the fatigue of getting up the day before had been too much for his strength, and that he never expected to rise again from his bed. He said that he had now finished his career in this world, and that in all probability he should not outlive the night, certainly not to be able to survive beyond the next day or two. After taking some refreshment, he said to those present that he wished them all happiness after he was gone. To Lady Masham, who remained with him, he said that he thanked God he had passed a happy life, but that now he found that all was vanity, and exhorted her to consider this world only as a preparation for a better state hereafter. He would not suffer her to sit up with him, saying, that perhaps he might be able to sleep, but if any change should happen, he would send for her. Having no sleep in the night, he was taken out of bed and carried into his study, where he slept for some time in his chair: after waking, he desired to be dressed, and then heard Lady Masham read the Psalms, apparently with great attention, until perceiving his end to draw near, he stopped her, and expired a very few minutes afterwards, about three o'clock in the evening of the 28th October, in his 73d year.”—P. 263.

It is hard to say, whether mankind are more indebted to this illustrious person as a philosopher, or as a politician. The publication of his great work undoubtedly fixed an era in the history of science: But his writings, and his personal exertions in favour of liberty, and more especially of religious Toleration, may be truly said to have had a greater effect than can be ascribed to the efforts of any other individual who bore a part in the transactions of that important period. The true doctrines of

Toleration were first promulgated by him, and in their fullest extent; for he maintained the whole stretch of the principle, that opinion is not a matter cognizable by the civil magistrate, and that belief, being the result of reason, is wholly independent of the will, and neither the subject of praise nor of blame, far less the object of punishment or of reward. That intolerance had ceased at the Reformation-that the Protestant Church had put an end to persecution-is an error only of the most ignorant and superficial. The influence of the Reformation had, no doubt, been salutary in this as in other respects; but persecution had been mitigated by very slow degrees; and in its early stages, the reformed church was to the full as intolerant, and nearly as persecuting, as the hierarchy which it had supplanted. Witness the numerous executions of Catholics, and even of Protestant Dissenters, in the reign of Elizabeth, accompanied not unfrequently by the most cruel tortures.* At a late period, the Episcopalian church in Scotland even surpassed the cruelties of the older times; and the intolerance of the Presbyterians during the whole of the seventeenth century, is too well known to require any particular reference. It is from the era of the Revolution that we must date the establishment of that Toleration which the Reformation had in no respect secured; and of which the Independents themselves had only made a beginning, great as were their services to the cause of liberty. It has been reserved for our own times to carry the principles of Locke to their full extent, and to supply those deficiencies in the plan of religious freedom which he and his worthy coadjutors were unfortunately obliged to leave in their grand work.

This volume contains a number of interesting pieces not hitherto published, in which Locke's sentiments on Ecclesiastical matters are clearly and forcibly expounded. The great confidence which was reposed in his judgment by the leaders at the Revolution, and by none more than King William, is well known. We recommend, then, the following passages, taken with little or no selection from these valuable fragments, to the

* It conveys a striking idea of the persecuting spirit of that age, to find Fox (the Martyrologist) addressing to Elizabeth an earnest entreaty, that she would be pleased only to put a stop to the burning of the Anabaptists in Smithfield; he seems to think it a great deal too much to seek that no punishments, even no capital punishments, should be inflicted for the heresy of dissent; he only begs that such horrors' as burning should be disallowed. There are chains,' he says, there is exile, there are branding 'and stripes, and even the gibbet; this alone (burning) I earnestly de' prece.'

attention of those who are in the habit of dwelling upon the glories and the memory of our Deliverer.'

- The particular churches in different cities, directed by the prudence, and enlarged by the preaching, of these presbyters, under whose care they were left, spread themselves so, that, in succession of time, in some places, they made great numbers of converts in the neighbourhood and villages round about, all which so converted made an accession to, and became members of, the church of the neighbouring city, which became an episcopacy, and the agonia, from which our own name parish comes the diocese, which was the name that remained in use for a bishop's diocese a good while in the Church; how far the agonia, in the first times of Christianity, reached, the signification of the word itself, which denotes neighbourhood, will easily tell us, and could certainly extend no farther than might permit the Christians that lived in it to frequent the Christian assemblies in the city, and enjoy the advantage of Church communion. Though the number of believers were, in some of these cities, more than could meet in one assembly for the hearing of the word, and performing public acts of worship, and so, consequently, had divers basilicas, or churches, as well as several presbyters to officiate in them, yet they continued one church and one congregation, because they continued under the government of the same presbyters, and the presbyters officia ted promiscuously in all their meeting-places, and performed all the offices of pastors and teachers indifferently to all the members, as they, on their side, had the liberty to go to which assembly they pleased; a plain instance whereof we have in several Protestant Churches beyond sea, at Nisnes, at St Gall.

This, probably, seems to be the constitution and bounds of particular churches in the most primitive times of Christianity, different from our present parochial congregations and episcopal dioceses; from the first, because they were independent Churches, each of them governed within themselves by their own presbytery; from the latter they differ in this, that every great town, wherein there were Christians, was a distinct church, which took no great extent round about for its parochia, that what would allow the converts round about to have the convenience of communion and church fellowship, in common with the assemblies of Christians in that town; but afterwards, when these Churches were formed into episcopacies, under the government of single men, and so became subjects of power and matter of ambition, these parochias were extended beyond the convenience of church communion; and human frailty, when it is got into power, naturally endeavouring to extend the bounds of its jurisdiction, episcopal parochias were enlarged, and that name being too narrow, was laid by, and the name of diocese, which signifies large tracts of ground, was taken to signify a bishoprick: which way of uniting several remote assemblies of Christians and Churches under one governor, upon pretence of preventing schism and heresy, and preserving the peace and unity of the Church, gave rise to metropolitans and archbishops, and never stopped (nor, indeed, upon that foundation well could) till it at last ended in supremacy.'-Pp. 353, 354.

But the clergy (as they call themselves, of the Christian religion, in imitation of the Jewish priesthood) having, almost ever since the first ages of the Church, laid claim to this power, separate from civil government, as received from God himself, have, wherever the civil magistrate hath been Christian, and of their opinion, and superior in power to the clergy, and they not able to cope with him, pretended this power only to be spiritual, and to extend no farther; but yet still pressed, as a duty on the magistrate, to punish and persecute those whom they disliked and declared against. And so, when they excommunicated, their under officer, the magistrate, was to execute; and to reward princes for their doing their drudgery, they have (whenever princes have been serviceable to their ends) been careful to preach up monarchy jure divino; for commonwealths have hitherto been less favourable to their power. But notwithstanding the jus divinum of monarchy, when any prince had dared to dissent from their doctrines or forms, or been less apt to execute the decrees of the hierarchy, they have been the first and forwardest in giving check to his authority, and disturbance to his government. And princes, on the other side, being apt to hearken to such as seem to advance their authority, and bring in religion to the assistance of their absolute power, have been generally very ready to worry those sheep who have ever so little straggled out of those shepherds' folds, where they were kept in order to be shorn by them both. Whilst the magistrate, being persuaded it is his duty to punish those the clergy please to call heretics, schismatics, or fanatics, or else taught to apprehend danger from dissension in religion, thinks it his interest to suppress them-persecutes all who observe not the same forms in the religious worship which is set up in his country. The people, on the other side, finding the mischiefs that fall on them for worshipping God according to their own persuasions, enter into confederacies and combinations to secure themselves as well as they can; so that oppression and vexation on one side, self-defence and desire of religious liberty on the other, create dislikes, jealousies, apprehensions, and factions, which seldom fail to break out into downright persecution, or open war. 'But notwithstanding the liberality of the clergy to princes, when they have not strength enough to deal with them, be very large, yet when they are once in a condition to strive with them for the mastery, then is it seen how far their spiritual power extends, and how, in ordine ad spiritualia, absolute temporal power comes in. So that ordination, that begins in priesthood, if it be let alone, will certainly grow up to absolute empire; and though Christ declares himself to have no kingdom of this world, his successors have (whenever they can but grasp the power) a large commission to execute; and that a rigorously civil dominion. The Popedom hath been a large and lasting instance of this. And what Presbytery could do, even in its infancy, when it had a little humbled the magistrates, let Scotland show.'-Pp. 289-291.

ART. II.-1. Records of Woman: with other Poems. By FELICIA HEMANS. 2d Edition. 12mo. Pp. 323. Edinburgh, 1828. 2. The Forest Sanctuary: with other Poems. By FELICIA HEMANS. 2d Edition, with Additions. 12mo. Pp. 325. Edinburgh, 1829.

́OMEN, we fear, cannot do every thing; nor even every thing WOM they attempt. But what they can do, they do, for the most part, excellently-and much more frequently with an absolute and perfect success, than the aspirants of our rougher and more ambitious sex. They cannot, we think, represent naturally the fierce and sullen passions of men-nor their coarser vices-nor even scenes of actual business or contention—and the mixed motives, and strong and faulty characters, by which affairs of moment are usually conducted on the great theatre of the world. For much of this they are disqualified by the delicacy of their training and habits, and the still more disabling delicacy which pervades their conceptions and feelings; and from much they are excluded by their actual inexperience of the realities they might wish to describe-by their substantial and incurable ignorance of business-of the way in which serious affairs are actually managed—and the true nature of the agents and impulses that give movement and direction to the stronger currents of ordinary life. Perhaps they are also incapable of long moral or political investigations, where many complex and indeterminate elements are to be taken into account, and a variety of opposite probabilities to be weighed before coming to a conclusion. They are generally too impatient to get at the ultimate results, to go well through with such discussions; and either stop short at some imperfect view of the truth, or turn aside to repose in the shadow of some plausible error. This, however, we are persuaded, arises entirely from their being seldom set on such tedious tasks. Their proper and natural business is the practical regulation of private life, in all its bearings, affections, and concerns; and the questions with which they have to deal in that most important department, though often of the utmost difficulty and nicety, involve, for the most part, but few elements; and may generally be better described as delicate than intricate ;-requiring for their solution rather a quick tact and fine perception than a patient or laborious examination. For the same reason, they rarely succeed in long works, even on subjects the best suited to their genius; their natural training rendering them equally averse to long doubt and long labour.

For all other intellectual efforts, however, either of the un