. 45 and have their utmost extent, and when they approach that, like watches that have gone till their force is spent, we stand still, or move to little purpose, if not wound up again. And thus, after labour of mind or body, we have need of recreation to set us going again with fresh vigour and activity. "This is not all on this subject; but 'tis time to repose you till another season. "Tis enough to satisfy you that I am yours, "J. LOCKE." It certainly seems strange that Denis Grenville, a clergyman, should have gone to Locke, a layman, for advice on the subjects of those letters; and it is clear that he did not profit much by them. Having as soon as he left Oxford married a daughter of Dr. John Cosin, bishop of Durham, who died in 1674, we are told that he had "several spiritualities conferred upon him by that worthy bishop." One of these was a chaplaincy-in-ordinary to King Charles the Second. In 1684 he was made dean of Durham; but, like most other courtiers, he turned papist. For refusing to take the oaths of allegiance to William and Mary, he was ejected in 1691. His exiled monarch, James the Second, appointed him catholic archbishop of York; but he never got possession of his see.2 Locke left Paris, intending to go leisurely to Montpellier and thence on to Rome, at the end of June, 1678; this extension of his holiday being probably projected especially for the benefit of Sir John Banks's son, and at the rich merchant's charge. He reached Orleans about the 1st of July, and on the 1 Additional MSS., no. 4290; Locke to Grenville, [27 Nov.-] 6 Dec., 1678. 2 Wood, Athenæ Oxonienses,' vol. iv., col. 498; Fasti Oxonienses,' part ii., cols. 229, 326. 4th wrote a lively letter to Thoynard. "Truly, sir, though one may be out of reach of your guns," he said, in allusion to his friend's fondness for inventing new sorts of firearms, one cannot get free from obligations to you. After all the favours you conferred upon me in Paris, I find myself here in Orleans loaded with favours conferred upon me by your friends." He then named some of these friends, especially M. de Rebours, M. Perot, M. Godefroi, and the Abbé Gendron. "M. Godefroi did me the honour to invite me to sup with him; but, as my companion waited supper for me at our lodgings, I was obliged to excuse myself. M. l'Abbé Gendron, whom I think one of the greatest men of his age, was the last whom I had the honour to see, and, having been two or three times at his door without gaining access to him, I feared that, like the impotent man at Bethesda, I should remain inconsolable for want of some one to help me into that place of safety. I knew well that the garçon who came to the door was not a good angel, for he did not know you; he always told me his master was in the country. But at last your letter opened the door, and I entered with great joy." Locke halted more than a fortnight at Orleans. He was at Blois on the 27th of July, whence he wrote a letter to Boyle, repeating, among other matters, some scientific gossip which he had received, probably from Thoynard. "I have news from Paris, from an ingenious acquaintance of mine there, that a friend of his hath found out a very 1 Additional MSS. in the British Museum, no. 28728; Locke to Thoynard, [4] 14 July, 1678. There are the originals or copies of fifty-six of Locke's letters to Thoynard, written sometimes in French, sometimes in Latin. In translating I have taken the liberty of curtailing merely complimentary phrases, without, I hope, misrepresenting the real purport of the letters. 1678. Æt. 45 sensible hygrometer which, besides marking the moistness of the air, will also be improved to wind up a pendulum; which, if it succeeds, will be a kind of perpetual motion. And a watchmaker I know there sends me word that he is now at work upon a movement that the air will wind up; which, I suppose, is the execution of the design my friend, who is a very good mechanic, besides an admirable scholar, sent me notice of. He also mentioned to me the extraordinary goodness of a microscope Mr. Huyghens has brought with him out of Holland. But, these things having happened in Paris since I left it, I cannot give you so perfect an account of them as I desire. Amongst other things, I have a small quantity of a medicine given me, which I believe to be of great efficacy to certain purposes, whereof you will perhaps not be displeased to see the effects. I was extremely pleased to hear that the things sent to me from the Bahamas were put into your hands. They could not have been placed anywhere so much to advantage and to my desire."1 Travelling westward from Blois, along the banks of the Loire, Locke was disappointed by the poverty-stricken appearance of the country. "Many of the towns they call bourgs," he wrote in his journal; "but, considering how poor and few the houses in most of them are, would in England scarce amount to villages. The houses generally were but one story; and, though such low buildings cost not much to keep them up, yet, like grovelling bodies without souls, they also sink lower when they want inhabitants, of which sort of ruins we saw great numbers in all these bourgs, whereby one would guess that the 1 Boyle, ‘Works,' vol. v., p. 569; Locke to Boyle, [27 July—] 6 Aug., people of France do not at present increase; but yet the country is all tilled and cultivated. The gentlemen's seats, of which we saw many, were most of them bearing marks of decay than of thriving and being well kept, except the great Chateau de Richelieu, the most complete piece of building in France, where on the outside is exact symmetry, in the inside convenience, riches and beauty, the richest gilding, the finest statues."1 He entered Angers on the 9th of August, and next day he called on the Abbé Troger, with a note of introduction from Thoynard, to whom he wrote immediately after to report progress. "Truly your abbés are wonderful, and if all the abbés in France were as good as those with whom you have made me acquainted at Orleans, at Angers, and in Paris, none others would be so delightful as this sort of people. I expect to leave this in a week for La Rochelle. They speak in these quarters of Rochefort as a place better worth seeing than any other in France." 2 Two days later he wrote to ask the same friend's advice about the route that he should take. "I am anxious to use my journey in making a complete acquaintance with the districts through which I pass, and to neglect nothing curious or rare, as often happens to strangers ill-advised." Of his adventures and observations, however, we have not much information until, having passed southward through La Rochelle and Rochefort, he reached Bordeaux on the 5th of September. All along the road he saw marks of poverty and degradation, consequent on the 1 Lord King, p. 75. 2 Additional MSS., no. 28836; Locke to Thoynard, [10] 20 Aug., 1678. 3 Ibid.; Locke to Thoynard, [12-] 22 Aug., 1678. . 46 bad government of the country, and aggravated, of course, by the long warfare in which Louis. the Fourteenth was engaged. "We rode abroad a league or two," Locke wrote in his journal while at Bordeaux, "into the country westward, which they call Grave, from whence comes the Grave wine-all vineyard. Talking with a poor peasant, he told me he had three children, that he usually got seven sous, finding himself, which was to maintain their family, five in number. His wife got three sous, when she could get work, which was seldom; other times the spinning, which was for their cloth, yielded more money. Out of these seven sous they five were to be maintained, and house-rent paid, and their taille, and Sundays and holidays provided for. For their house (which, God wot, was a poor, one-room, one-story, open to the tiles, without windows) and a little vineyard (which was as bad as nothing, for, though they made out of it four or five tierce of wine, yet the labour and cost about the vineyard, making the wine, and cost of the casks to put it in, being cast up, the profit of it was very little), they paid twelve écus for rent, and for taille four livres-for which, not long since, the collector had taken their frying-pan and dishes, money not being ready."" Those statistics are worth analysing. Threepence halfpenny a day in English money, or, allowing for Sundays and holidays, about eighteenpence a week, say, eighty shillings a year; from which were to be deducted twelve half-crowns for rent and three and fourpence for taxes: say a net income of forty-six shillings for five human beings to feed and clothe themselves upon; barely more than nine shillings a head throughout the year; barely more than a farthing a day! Of course, a farthing two centuries 1 Lord King, p. 76. VOL. I. 26 |