he desired her to break off, and in a few minutes expired, on the twenty-eighth of October, 1704, in the seventy-third year of his age. He was interred in the church of Oates, where there is a decent monument erected to his memory, with a modest inscription in Latin, written by himself.

Thus died that great and most excellent philosopher John Locke, who was rendered illustrious not only by his wisdom, but by his piety and virtue, by his love of truth, and diligence in the pursuit of it, and by his generous ardour in defence of the civil and religious rights of mankind. His writings have immortalized his name; and, particularly, his Essay concerning the Human Understanding. In this work, "discarding all systematic theories, he has, from actual experience and observation, delineated the features, and described the operations of the human mind, with a degree of precision and minuteness not to be found in Plato, Aristotle, or Des Cartes. After clearing the way, by setting aside the whole doctrine of innate notions and principles, both speculative and practical, the author traces all ideas to two sources, sensation and reflection; treats at large on the nature of ideas, simple and complex; of the operations of the human understanding in forming, distinguishing, compounding, and associating them; of the manner in which words are applied as representations of ideas; of the difficulties and obstructions in the search after truth, which arise from the imperfections of these signs; and of the nature, reality, kinds, degrees, casual hinderances, and necessary limits, of human knowledge. Though several topics are treated of in this work, which may be considered as episodical with respect to the main design; though many opinions which the author advances may admit of controversy; and though on some topics he may not have expressed himself with his usual perspicuity, and on others may be thought too verbose; the work is of inestimable value, as a history of the human understanding, not compiled from former books, but written from materials collected by a long and attentive observation of what passes in the human mind." His next great work, the Two Treatises of Government, is also a performance which will render his memory dear to the enlightened friends of civil and religious freedom. But even in this country, the constitution of which is defensible only on the principles therein laid down, it has been violently opposed by the advocates for those slavish doctrines which were discarded at the Revolution in 1688; and by that class of politicians who would submit to the abuses and corruptions to which the best systems of government are liable, rather than encourage attempts after those improvements in civil policy, which the

extension of knowledge, and of science, might give men just reason to hope for, and to expect. And in our time, we have seen a formal attempt made to overturn the principles in Mr. Locke's work by Dr. Tucker, dean of Gloucester, in his Treatise on Civil Government, published in the year 1781. That gentleman was pleased to assert, that the principles of Mr. Locke" are extremely dangerous to the peace and happiness of all society;" that his writings, and those of some of the most eminent of his disciples, "have laid a foundation for such disturbances and dissensions, such mutual jealousies and animosities, as ages to come will not be able to settle and compose;" and, speaking of the paradoxes which he supposes to attend the system of Mr. Locke and his followers, he asserted, that "they rendered it one of the most mischievous, as well as ridiculous schemes, that ever disgraced the reasoning faculties of human nature." To the disgrace of the age, it was for a time fashionable to applaud his libel on the doctrines of our author. But his gross misrepresentations of the principles of Mr. Locke, his laborious attempts to involve him in darkness and obscurity, and to draw imaginary consequences from his propositions, which cannot by any just reasoning be deducible from them, were ably exposed in different publications; and by no writer with greater force and spirit, than by Dr. Towers, in his Vindication of the political Principles of Mr. Locke, in Answer to the Objections of the Rev. Dr. Tucker, Dean of Gloucester, published in 1782, in octavo.

Of Mr. Locke's private character an account was first published by Mr. Peter Coste, who had lived with him as an amanuensis, which was afterwards prefixed by M. des Maizeaux to A Collection of several Pieces of Mr. Locke never before printed, &c., published in 1720; from which, together with M. le Clerc's Bibliotheque Choisie, we shall present our readers with some interesting particulars relating to this great man. Mr. Locke possessed a great knowledge of the world, and was intimately conversant in the business of it. He was prudent, without cunning; he engaged men's esteem by his probity; and took care to secure himself from the attacks of false friends and sordid flatterers. Averse to all mean compliance, his wisdom, his experience, and his gentle manner, gained him the respect of his inferiors, the esteem of his equals, the friendship and confidence of those of the highest quality. He was remarkable for the ease and politeness of his behaviour; and those who knew him only by his writings, or by the reputation which he had acquired, and who had supposed him a reserved or austere man, were surprised, if they happened to be introduced to him,

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to find him all affability, good-humour, and complaisance. there was any thing which he could not bear, it was ill-manners, with which he was always disgusted, unless when it proceeded from ignorance; but when it was the effect of pride, ill-nature, or brutality, he detested it. Civility he considered to be not only a duty of humanity, but of the Christian profession, and what ought to be more frequently pressed and urged upon men than it commonly is. With a view to promote it, he recommended a treatise in the moral essays written by the gentlemen of Port Royal, "concerning the means of preserving peace among men ;" and also the Sermons of Dr. Wichcote on this and other moral subjects. He was exact to his word, and religiously performed whatever he promised. Though he chiefly loved truths which were useful, and with such stored his mind, and was best pleased to make them the subjects of conversation; yet he used to say, that, in order to employ one part of this life in serious and important occupations, it was necessary to spend another in mere amusements; and, when an occasion naturally offered, he gave himself up with pleasure to the charms of a free and facetious conversation. He remembered many agreeable stories, which he always introduced with great propriety; and generally made them yet more delightful, by his natural and pleasant manner of telling them. He had a peculiar art, in conversation, of leading people to talk concerning what they best understood. With a gardener, he conversed of gardening; with a jeweller of jewels; with a chemist of chemistry, &c. "By this," said he, "I please those men, who commonly can speak pertinently upon nothing else. As they believe I have an esteem for their profession, they are charmed with showing their abilities before me; and I, in the meanwhile, improve myself by their discourse." And, indeed, he had by this method acquired a very good insight into all the arts. He used to say too, that the knowledge of the arts contained more true philosophy, than all those fine learned hypotheses, which, having no relation to the nature of things, are fit only to make men lose their time in inventing or comprehending them. By the several questions which he would put to artificers, he would find out the secret of their art, which they did not understand themselves; and often give them views entirely new, which sometimes they put in practice to their profit. He was so far from assuming those affected airs of gravity, by which some persons, as well learned as unlearned, love to distinguish themselves from the rest of the world, that, on the contrary, he looked upon them as infallible marks of impertinence. Nay, sometimes he would divert himself with imitating that studied

gravity, in order to turn it the better into ridicule; and upon such occasions he always recollected this maxim of the duke de la Rochefoucault, which he particularly admired, "that gravity is a mystery of the body, invented to conceal the defects of the mind." One thing, which those who lived any time with Mr. Locke could not help observing in him was, that he used his reason in every thing he did; and that nothing that was useful seemed unworthy of his attention and care. He often used to say, that "there was an art in every thing;" and it was easy for any one to see it, from the manner in which he went about the most trifling things.

As Mr. Locke kept utility in view in all his disquisitions, he esteemed the employments of men only in proportion to the good which they were capable of producing. On this account he had no great value for those critics, or mere grammarians, who waste their lives in comparing words and phrases, and in coming to a determination in the choice of a various reading in a passage of no importance. He valued yet less those professed disputants, who, being wholly possessed with a desire of coming off with victory, fortify themselves behind the ambiguity of a word, to give their adversaries the more trouble; and whenever he had to argue with such persons, if he did not beforehand strongly resolve to keep his temper, he was apt to grow somewhat warm. For his natural disposition was irritable; but his anger never lasted long. If he retained any resentment, it was against himself, for having given way to such a ridiculous passion, which, as he used to say, may do a great deal of harm, but never yet did the least good. He was charitable to the poor, excepting such as were idle or profane, and spent their Sundays in ale-houses, instead of attending at church. And he particularly compassionated those, who, after they had laboured as long as their strength would permit, were reduced to poverty. He said, that it was not enough to keep them from starving, but that a provision ought to be made for them, sufficient to render them comfortable. In his friendships he was warm and steady; and, therefore, felt a strong indignation against any discovery of treachery or insincerity in those in whom he confided. It is said, that a particular person, with whom he had contracted an intimate friendship in the earlier part of his life, was discovered by him to have acted with great baseness and perfidy. He had not only taken every method privately of doing Mr. Locke what injury he could in the opinion of those with whom he was connected, but had also gone off with a large sum of money which was his property, and at a time too when he knew that such a step must involve

him in considerable difficulties. Many years after all intercourse had, by such treachery, been broken off between them, and when Mr. Locke was one of the lords of trade and plantations, information was brought to him one morning, while he was at breakfast, that a person shabbily dressed requested the honour of speaking to him. Mr. Locke, with the politeness and humanity which were natural to him, immediately ordered him to be admitted; and beheld, to his great astonishment, his false friend, reduced by a life of cunning and extravagance to poverty and distress, and come to solicit his forgiveness, and to implore his assistance. Mr. Locke looked at him for some time very stedfastly, without speaking one word. At length, taking out a fifty-pound note, he presented it to him with the following remarkable declaration: "Though I sincerely forgive your behaviour to me, yet I must never put it in your power to injure me a second time. Take this trifle, which I give, not as a mark of my former friendship, but as a relief to your present wants, and consign to the service of your necessities, without recollecting how little you deserve it. No reply! It is impossible to regain my good opinion; for know, friendship once injured is for ever lost."

Mr. Locke was naturally very active, and employed himself as much as his health would permit. Sometimes he diverted himself by working in the garden, at which he was very expert. He loved walking; but being prevented by his asthmatic complaint from taking much of that exercise, he used to ride out after dinner, either on horseback or in an open chaise, as he was able to bear it. His bad health occasioned disturbance to no person but himself; and persons might be with him without any other concern than that created by seeing him suffer. He did not differ from others in the article of diet; but his ordinary drink was only water; and this he thought was the cause of his having his life prolonged to such an age, notwithstanding the weakness of his constitution. To the same cause, also, he thought that the preservation of his eye-sight was in a great measure to be attributed; for he could read by candle-light all sorts of books to the last, if they were not of a very small print, and he had never made use of spectacles. He had no other disorder but his asthma, excepting a deafness of six months' continuance about four years before his death. Writing to a friend, while labouring under this affliction, he observed, that since it had entirely deprived him of the pleasures of conversation, "he did not know but it was better to be blind than deaf." Among the honours paid to the memory of this great man, that of queen Caroline, consort of king