his hand in the library at Oates, where he spent the last and most agreeable part of his life in the company of lady Masham, and where his own conversation must have proved no less agreeable and instructing to that lady, since by means of it, as well as from an education under the eye of her father, Cudworth, she appears to have profited so much as to compose a very rational discourse, entitled, Occasional Thoughts in Reference to a virtuous and Christian Life, published 1705, and frequently ascribed to Mr. Locke. [See particularly Boyer's Annals of Queen Anne, Vol. III. p. 262.] She was generally believed (as Le Clerc tells us) to be the author of another discourse on the Love of God, in answer to Mr. Norris; which has likewise been attributed to Mr. Locke, and has his name written before it in a copy now in the library of Sion College, but others give it to Dr. Whitby. Of the same excellent lady Mr. Locke gives the following character to Limborch: "Ejus [i. e. Historia Inquisitionis] lectionem sibi et utilissimam et jucundissimam fore spondet domina Cudwortha, quæ paternæ benignitatis hæres omnem de rebus religionis persecutionem maxime aversatur." Lett. June, 1691. "Hospes mea tyrannidi ecclesiasticæ inimicissima, sæpe mihi laudat ingenium et consilium tuum, laboremque huic operi tam opportune impensum, creditque frustra de religionis reformatione et Evangelii propagatione tantum undique strepitum moveri, dum tyrannis in ecclesiâ, vis in rebus religionis (uti passim mos est) aliis sub nominibus utcunque speciosis obtinet et laudatur." Id. Nov. 1691.

8. We cannot in this place forbear lamenting the suppression of some of Mr. Locke's treatises, which are in all probability not to be retrieved. His Right Method of searching after Truth, which Le Clerc mentions, is hardly to be met with; nor can a tract which we have good ground to believe that he wrote, in the Unitarian Controversy, be well distinguished at this distance of time; unless it prove to be the

following piece, which some ingenious persons have judged to be his; and if they are right in their conjecture, as I have no doubt but they are, the address to himself that is prefixed to it must have been made on purpose to conceal the true author, as a more attentive perusal of the whole tract will convince any one, and at the same time show what reason there was for so extremely cautious a proceeding. Part of the long title runs thus: "The Exceptions of Mr. Edwards in his Causes of Atheism, against The Reasonableness of Christianity as delivered in the Scriptures, examined and found unreasonable, unscriptural, and injurious, &c. London, printed in the year 1695," 47 pages, 4to.

It is uncertain whether he lived to finish that System of Ethics which his friend Molyneux so frequently recommended to him: but from a letter to the same person, dated April, 1698, it appears, that he had several plans by him, which either were never executed, or never saw the light.

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Among the late Mr. Yorke's papers, burnt in his chambers in Lincoln's-Inn, were many of Mr. Locke's letters to lord Sommers, but probably no copies of these remain; which must prove an irreparable loss to the public, many of them being in all likelihood written on subjects of a political nature, as that eminent patriot was well acquainted with, and seems to have availed himself considerably of, Mr. Locke's principles throughout his excellent treatise, entitled, The Judgment of whole Kingdoms and Nations concerning the Rights and Prerogatives of Kings, and the Rights, Privileges, and Properties of the People. A work which seems to be but little known at present, though there was a tenth edition of it in 1771. The conclusion is taken almost verbatim from Mr. Locke.

9. Thirteen letters to Dr. Mapletoft, giving some account of his friends, with a large description of a severe nervous disorder, and his method of treating it, and frequent intimations of his desire to succeed the

doctor in his professorship at Gresham College, &c. were very obligingly communicated by a grandson of the doctor's; but we have not room to insert them, as they contain very few matters of literature, to which our inquiries are chiefly confined at present; nor shall we be excused perhaps for taking notice of his letter to the earl of **, dated May 6, 1676, with a curious old MS. on the subject of Free-masonry, published in the Gentleman's Magazine for September, 1758.

We are informed, that there is a great number of original letters of Mr. Locke, now in the hands of the Rev. Mr. Tooke, chaplain to the British factory at Petersburgh; but have no proper means of applying for them*.

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10. Forty letters to Edward Clarke, Esq. M. P. are among Dr. Birch's papers in the Museum, but of like unimportance. Perhaps some readers think that the late editions of Mr. Locke's works are already clogged with too many of that kind; however I shall give one of these for a specimen, on raising the value of coin, as the same method which he there recommends, viz. of weighing it, has of late been practised. See the letter in Vol. x. of this edition, p. 320. The two letters from lord Shaftesbury and sir Peter King will speak for themselves.

11. It may likewise be observed, that our author has met with the fate of most eminent writers, whose names give a currency to whatever passes under them, viz. to have many spurious productions fathered on him. Beside those above-mentioned, there is a Common-Place-Book to the Bible, first published in 1693, and afterwards swelled out with a great deal of matter, ill digested, and all declared to be Mr. Locke's; but

* We have been indulged by Mr. Tooke with a sight of some papers, which came into his hands, reputed to be the productions of Mr. Locke. Some of them are evidently not his: and of those which have any importance we are not able just now to ascertain the authenticity. Amongst the latter is a tragedy entitled Tamerlane the beneficent.-Ed. of the present edition.

whatever hand he might be supposed to have in the original book itself, it is plain he had none in that preface, which is neither sense nor English. A puerile edition of Æsop's Fables has likewise his name prefixed to it, and was in all probability ascribed to him for no better reason than the frequent mention made of that book in his Thoughts on Education. The title runs thus: "Esop's Fables in English and Latin, interlineary, for the Benefit of those who, not having a Master, would learn either of those Tongues. The Second Edition, with Sculptures. By John Locke, gent. Printed for A. Bettesworth, 1723.”

12. But it is high time to conduct the reader to Mr. Locke's more authentic and capital productions, the constant demand for which shows that they have stood the test of time; and their peculiar tendency to enlarge and improve the mind must continue that demand while a regard to virtue or religion, science or common sense, remains amongst us. I wish it were in my power to give so clear and just a view of these as might serve to point out their proper uses, and thereby direct young unprejudiced readers to a more beneficial study of them.

The Essay on Human Understanding, that most distinguished of all his works, is to be considered as a system, at its first appearance, absolutely new, and directly opposite to the notions and persuasions then established in the world. Now as it seldom happens that the person who first suggests a discovery in any science is at the same time solicitous, or perhaps qualified, to lay open all the consequences that follow from it; in such a work much of course is left to the reader, who must carefully apply the leading principles to many cases and conclusions not there specified. To what else but a neglect of this application shall we impute it that there are still numbers amongst us who profess to pay the greatest deference to Mr. Locke, and to be well acquainted with his writings, and would perhaps take it ill to have

this pretension questioned; yet appear either wholly unable, or unaccustomed, to draw the natural consequence from any one of his principal positions? Why, for instance, do we still continue so unsettled in the first principles and foundation of morals? How came we not to perceive that by the very same arguments which that great author used with so much success in extirpating innate ideas, he most effectually eradicated all innate or connate senses, instincts, &c. by not only leading us to conclude that every such sense must, in the very nature of it, imply an object correspondent to and of the same standing with itself, to which it refers [as each relative implies its correlate], the real existence of which object he has confuted in every shape; but also by showing that for each moral proposition men actually want and may demand a reason or proof deduced from another science, and founded on natural good and evil and consequently where no such reason can be assigned, these same senses, or instincts, with whatever titles decorated*, whether styled sympathetic or sentimental, common or intuitive,-ought to be looked upon as no more than mere habits; under which familiar name their authority is soon discovered, and their effects accounted for.

From the same principles it may be collected that all such pompous theories of morals, however seemingly diversified, yet amount ultimately to the same thing, being all built upon the same false bottom of innate notions; and from the history of this science we may see that they have received no manner of improvement (as indeed by the supposition of their innateness they become incapable of any) from the days of Plato to our own; but must always take the main point, the ground of obligation, for granted: which

* See a very accurate explanation of Mr. Locke's doctrine on this head and some others, in a Philosophical Discourse on the Nature of Human Being, prefixed to some Remarks upon bishop Berkley's Treatise on the same subject. Printed for Dodsley, 1776.