صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

it was to comment upon the apostolic writings: by taking the whole of an epistle together, and striking off every signification of every term foreign to the main scope of it; by keeping this point constantly in view, and carefully observing each return to it after any digression; by tracing out a strict, though sometimes less visible, connexion in that very consistent writer, St. Paul; touching the propriety and pertinence of whose writings to their several subjects and occasions, he appears to have formed the most just conception, and thereby confessedly led the way to some of our best modern interpreters. Vide Pierce, pref. to Coloss. and Taylor on Rom. No. 60.

I cannot dismiss this imperfect account of Mr. Locke and his works, without giving way to a painful reflection; which the consideration of them naturally excites. When we view the variety of those very useful and important subjects which have been treated in so able a manner by our author, and become sensible of the numerous national obligations due to his memory on that account, with what indignation must we behold the remains of that great and good man, lying under a mean, mouldering tomb-stone, [which but too strictly verifies the prediction he had given of it, and its little tablet, as ipsa brevi peritura] in an obscure country church-yard-by the side of a forlorn wood-while so many superb monuments are daily erected to perpetuate names and characters hardly worth preserving!

Books and treatises written, or supposed to be written, by Mr. Locke.

Epistola de Tolerantia.

The History of our Saviour Jesus Christ.

Select Books of the Old Testament and Apocrypha, paraphrased.

Introductory Discourse to Churchill's Collection of Voyages.

Exceptions of Mr. Edwards to the Reasonableness of Christianity, &c. examined.

[blocks in formation]
[ocr errors]

Pieces groundlessly ascribed, or of doubtful authority.

Occasional Thoughts in Reference to a Virtuous and Christian Life.

Discourse on the Love of God.

Right Method of searching after Truth.

Spurious ones:

Common Place-Book to the Bible.
Interlineary Version of Æsop's Fables.

P. S. Having heard that some of Mr. Locke's mss. were in the possession of those gentlemen to whom the library at Oates belonged, on application made to Mr. Palmer, he was so obliging as to offer that a search should be made after them, and orders given for communicating all that could be found there; but as this notice comes unhappily too late to be made use of on the present occasion, I can only take the liberty of intimating it along with some other sources of intelligence, which I have endeavoured to lay open, and which may probably afford matter for a supplemental volume, as abovementioned.

THE

LIFE OF THE AUTHOR.

MR. JOHN LOCKE was the son of John Locke, of Pensford, a market-town in Somersetshire, five miles from Bristol, by Ann his wife, daughter of Edmund Keen, alias Ken, of Wrington, tanner. He was born at Wrington, another market-town in the same county. John Locke, the father, was first a clerk only to a neighbouring justice of the peace, Francis Baber, of Chew Magna, but by col. Alexander Popham, whose seat was at Hunstreet, hard by Pensford, advanced to a captain in the parliament's service. After the restoration he practised as an attorney, and was clerk of the sewers in Somersetshire. This John the father was son of Nicholas Locke, of Sutton Wick, in the parish of Chew Magna, but a younger brother of the Lockes of Charon Court in Dorsetshire*. The late Mr. Locke's age is not to be found in the registers of Wrington, which is the parish church of Pensford; which gave umbrage to a report that his mother intending to lie in

* Dr. Birch's papers in the Museum. This account is there stated as coming from Mr. John Heal, a relation, and well acquainted with the family, a person studious in pedigree. On the back of it is this label : 'Mr. Locke's pedigree, taken from a Ms. at Chipley, June 23, 1737.' Frequent notice is likewise taken of Mr. Locke's wife, in his letters to Mr. Clarke, (for the use of whose son Mr. Locke drew up most of the Thoughts on Education) between 1692 and 1702, ibid.

at Wrington, with her friends, was surprized in her way thither, and putting into a little house, was delivered there. Mr. Locke had one younger brother, an attorney, married, but died issueless, of a consumption. By the interest of col. Popham, our author was admitted a scholar at Westminster, and thence elected to ChristChurch in Oxon. He took the degree of batchelor of arts in 1655, and that of master in 1658*. But though he made a considerable progress in the usual course of studies at that time, yet he often said, that what he had learned there was of little use to him, to enlighten and enlarge his mind. The first books which gave him a relish for the study of philosophy, were the writings of Des Cartes for though he did not always approve of that author's sentiments, he found that he wrote with great perspicuity. After some time he applied himself very closely to the study of medicine; not with any design of practising as a physician, but principally for the benefit of his own constitution, which was but weak. And we find he gained such esteem for his skill, even among the most learned of the faculty of his time, that Dr. Thomas Sydenham, in his book intitled,' Observationes medicæ circa morborum acutorum historiam et 'curationem,' gives him a high encomium in these words: You know,' says he, likewise how much my method has been approved of by a person, who has examined it to the bottom, and who is our common friend; I mean Mr. John Locke, who, if we consider his genius, and penetrating and exact judgment, or the purity of his morals, has scarce any superiour, and few equals, now living.' Hence he was very often saluted by his acquaintance with the title, though he never took the degree, of doctor of medicine. In the year 1664, sir William Swan being appointed envoy from the English court to the elector of Brandenburgh, and some other German princes, Mr. Locke

In 1672, among his college or university execrises, there is a thesis under his own hand on the following question: An Jesus Christus fuit verus Messias Patribus promissus. Aff.

attended him in the quality of his secretary: but returning to England again within the year, he applied himself with great vigour to his studies, and particularly to that of natural philosophy *. While he was

at Oxford in 1666, he became acquainted with the lord Ashley, afterward earl of Shaftesbury. The occasion of their acquaintance was this. Lord Ashley, by a fall, had hurt his breast in such a manner, that there was an abscess formed in it under his stomach. He was advised to drink the mineral waters at Astrop, which engaged him to write to Dr. Thomas, a physician of Oxford, to procure a quantity of those waters, which might be ready against his arrival. Dr. Thomas being obliged to be absent from Oxford at that time, desired his friend Mr. Locke to execute this commission. But it happened, that the waters not being ready the day after the lord Ashley's arrival, through the fault of the person who had been sent for them, Mr. Locke was obliged to wait on his lordship to make an excuse for it. Lord Ashley received him with great civility, according to his usual manner, and was satisfied with his excuses. Upon his rising to go away, his lordship, who had already received great pleasure from his conversation, detained him to supper, and engaged him to dinewith him the next day, and even to drink the waters, that he might have the more of his company. When his lordship left Oxford to go to Sunning-Hill, where he drank the waters, he made Mr. Locke promise to come thither, as he did in the summer of the year 1667.

*This appears from the journal which he kept of the changes of the air at Oxford, from June, 1656, to June, 1683; for the regular observation of which he used a barometer, thermometer, and hygroscope. This journal may be seen in The General History of the Air,' published by Mr. Boyle, in 1692. It occurs likewise in the 5th vol. of Boyle's Works, published by Millar, 1744, containing 27 pages, fol. together with a letter from Mr. Locke, in p. 157, containing expe. riments made with the barometer at Minedeep Hills, dated from ChristChurch, May 5, 1066. In the same volume there are several other letters of his to Mr. Boyle on the various points of natural philosophy, chemistry, and medicine.

« السابقةمتابعة »