ledge 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.'

In 1660, when the Restoration had given rise to great controversies respecting the settlement of the church establishments, Locke appears to have written a tract on this subject, with the intention of printing it; but this be abandoned. It is, however, preserved, and is the earliest of his works that are extant. Lord King has given a few extracts from it, which are extremely interesting; for they show how great a leaning he then had towards the side of authority, and how much he was desirous of favouring concessions, upon matters not absolutely essential, for the sake of avoiding civil anarchy and religious discord. The excesses of those who had been the real friends of liberty, but who represented themselves as its only friends, seem to have alarmed him into somewhat too favourable an opinion of their antagonists. 'Since,' says he, 'I find that a general free'dom is but a general bondage; that the popular assertors of pub'lic liberty are the greatest engrossers of it too, and not unfitly 'called its keepers, I know not whether experience would not give us some reason to think, that were the part of freedom contend⚫ed for indulged in England, it would prove only a liberty for contention, censure, and persecution.' He then says, that liberty, in his view, is not a liberty for ambitious men to pull down 'well-framed constitutions, that out of the ruins they may build themselves fortunes, nor a liberty to be Christians, so as not to 'be subjects; but that all he can wish for his country or him'self is, to enjoy the protection of those laws which the pru'dence and providence of our ancestors established, and the happy return of his Majesty has restored.' The errors of such a man are to be treated with all tenderness, and respectfully to be pointed at for example's sake. Nothing, in truth, can be more natural, than to feel disgust at the extravagance, intolerance, and injustice of the men with whom you are agreed upon essentials. When you find them ready to persecute you, the moment they discover the least difference in your sentiments, it is almost unavoidable to call them the engrossers and keepers of 'liberty.' But the worst effect of their pretensions to infallibility, and the excesses to which it leads, is precisely, that it some

times tempts honest and conscientious men to fall into the error of Locke, and betray a disinclination towards the cause itself, because its most forward supporters demean themselves unbearably. This feeling, we see, actually makes him speak the language of the opponents of the Restoration; and overlook,' as his noble biographer and kinsman justly remarks, those more 'lasting evils which have almost always attended the return of 'exiled monarchs.' Indeed, a short time only elapsed before he was made fully sensible of this. The High-Church party finding themselves strong in the new Parliament, all notion of comprehension was abandoned; and, with far more intolerance than had been shown by the Presbyterians themselves, differences in all matters, however trivial, were to operate an absolute exclusion. This change, in truth, prevented the publication of the tract, by rendering its object unavailing.

In 1665, he accompanied Sir Walter Vane, as secretary, on a mission to the Elector of Brandenburgh; and some very excellent and entertaining letters from him to a friend, while upon this service, are given in this publication. On his return, he went back to Oxford, and refused two offers of diplomatic employment, in Germany and Spain, which were made to him at different times. He was also pressed by a friend, who had interest with the Duke of Ormond, then Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, to take orders, and accept of considerable preferment in the Irish church; and Lord King has given the letter in which, with a modesty only to be surpassed by the conscientious delicacy of his feelings, he declines this offer. Entirely agreeing with Lord King, that mankind have great reason to be thankful for the ‘narrow escape' which he seems to have had of being a professional diplomatist, and disposed even to think it fortunate that the clerical profession did not divert any portion of his attention from his philosophical studies; we yet can by no means admit, that, had he obtained preferment in the church, he would never have attained the name of a great philosopher, who has extended the bounds of human knowledge.' There seems, indeed, to be nothing in the peculiar duties of a divine which should incapacitate for scientific pursuits; and the annals, both of the English and other churches, abound in examples of philosophy successfully cultivated by their ministers. In referring to what he deems the inevitable consequences of preferment in the Irish Church, it was difficult, one should have thought, for Lord King to forget the case of Bishop Berkeley.

In the year 1666 began, by an accident, Locke's acquaintance with the famous Anthony, first Earl of Shaftesbury. His Lordship had repaired to Oxford, with the intention of taking some

mineral water for an abscess in the chest, under which he then laboured; and the physician to whom he applied, being absent, had requested Locke to receive the distinguished visitor. Locke was profoundly versed in medical science, although he had not practised it professionally; and the charms of his conversation, in which wit, sense, and learning, were most happily blended, could hardly fail to make a deep impression upon a person of Shaftesbury's taste and discernment. Locke, in his turn, could not but be captivated by the brilliant qualities of a man, whose genius, and exemption from all vulgar corruption, were sufficient to gloss over the most turbulent ambition, and the greatest sacrifice of principle and consistency that were, perhaps, ever made for its gratification. At the time when Locke's friendship with him began, he had, after serving the Parliament in the Civil Wars, and being a zealous partisan of Cromwell during the Protectorate, devoted himself to the cause of the Restoration, and become a courtier of the prince from whom he derived his nobility. Locke now accompanied him from Oxford; and, having engaged him to submit to an operation which saved his life, such an intimacy grew up between them, that Locke was the inmate of Ashley House during a considerable part of every year, with the exception of three years, which he spent abroad; and he was consulted by Shaftesbury upon his most important private concerns. Lord King has given two curious letters of Shaftesbury-One upon political matters, in which he most positively denies his having had any hand in advising the profligate measure of shutting the Exchequer, which, indeed, is now generally admitted to have been Clifford's scheme; the other, on private and trifling subjects, but which shows the writer's playful manner. It is short, and we shall extract it. 'London, March 20, 79-80. 'We long to see you here, and hope you have almost ended your travels. Somersetshire, no doubt, will perfect your breeding; after France and Oxford, you could not go to a more proper place. My wife finds you profit much there; for you have recovered your skill in Chedder cheese, and for a demonstration have sent us one of the best we have seen. I thank you for your care about my grandchild, but having wearied myself with consideration every way, I resolve to have him in my house; I long to speak with you about it. For news we have little, only our government here are so truly zealous for the advancement of the Protestant religion, as it is established in the Church of England, that they are sending the Common Prayer-book the second time into Scotland. No doubt but my Lord Lauderdale knows it will agree with their present constitution; but surely he was much mistaken when he administered the covenant to England; but we shall see how the tripods and the holy altar will agree. My Lord of Ormond is said to be dying,

< MR LOCKE,

rnguish, you make s "Lus. ecommending

anh an’Veus Trose trong

AV persisture entieman rows.

I took ever hat he been 10 tame, that the remote tos disma scenes, aves the ever: pretence for enarging with Ezen a very tui and regular Journal of de landed at Calais; and one of the teresting parts of the volume before us is, To make on men and things, extracted from it Tio are there any of these remarks more inwhich convey to us an idea of that state

the under the government of France, the loss of which bemented by a certain class of politicians in this country,while their brethren there are actually occupied in attempting to Thus, we find an estimate of the whole revenues of the church, which makes them amount to no less than twentyfour millions sterling a-yeur. Te exemption of the lands of the nobility from taxes, as well the ancient church lands, is another glory of the old system ich, doubtless, has in late times or Gabelle, and the abuses of its sadly faded away The of the laws relating to it, are farmers, as thus noted

from the étang by wheels, with wooden buckets. They cover the squares or tables, as they call them, five or six inches deep; and when the sun has exhaled almost all the moisture, they supply it with more salt water, and so continue all the heat of the year; at the latter end, they have a cake of salt four or five inches thick, according to the heat and drought of the year. They that are owners of the soil, are at the charge of making the salt, and sell it to the farmers for five sous the minot; a measure of seven inches deep, and twenty-three and a half diameter, weighs one hundred and twenty pounds. The salt which the owner sells for five sous, the farmer sells again for sixteen livres. For this favour, they say the farmers give two millions a-year to the King, and are at as much more charge in officers and guards employed, keeping constantly in pay 18,000 men. The defrauding the duty of the commodity is of such consequence, that if a man should be taken with but an handful of salt not bought from the farmers, he would be sent to the galleys.'

This observation relates to Languedoc; the following to Tours:

< They gave the King this year 45,000 livres, to be excused from winter quarters, which came to one-tenth on the rent of their houses. Wine and wood that enter the town pay tax to the King; besides, he sends to the several companies of the trades for so much money as he thinks fit; the officer of each corps de mestier taxes every one according to his worth; which, perhaps, amounts to one écu, or four livres, a-man. But a burgeois that lives in the town, if he have land in the country, and lets it, pays nothing; but the paisant who rents it, if he be worth any thing, pays for what he has, but he makes no defalcation of his rent. The manner of taxing the country is this: the tax to be paid being laid upon the parish, the collectors for the year assess every one of the inhabitants, according as they judge him worth, but consider not the land in the parish belonging to any living out of it; this is that which so grinds the paisant in France. The collectors make their rates usually with great inequality; there lies an appeal for the over-taxed, but I find not that the remedy is made much use of’

The administration of justice keeps pace with the equity of the financial system. Many murders,' says the Journal, é are 'committed here (Montpelier.) He that endeavoured to kill his 'sister in our house, had before killed a man, and it had cost his 'father five hundred écus to get him off;-by their secret distribution, gaining the favour of their Counsellors'

The conditi bored from su

the common people in France is to be ga ts as the following:

Pague or two into the country westward, which bence comes the Grave wine: all vineyard. It be told me he had three children; wat be inding himself, which was to maintain their wife got three sous when she would yet other times the spinning, which wwe lur