Soon after my lord,

within a few days, followed him. returning to London, desired Mr. Locke that from that time he would look upon his house as his home, and that he would let him see him there in town as soon as he could."

Though these two accounts do not quite agree, they show beyond doubt that Locke's acquaintance with Lord Ashley began near the end of July, 1666, and suddenly issued in close and lasting friendship.2

1 MSS. in the Remonstrants' Library; Lady Masham to Le Clerc, 12 January, 1704-5.

As they are evidently based on Locke's own report to her of his opinion of his friend, though perhaps somewhat exaggerated therefrom, I shall also quote the panegyric on Lord Ashley with which Lady Masham supple"The conversation of men of mented her account of their first meeting. parts, bred with all the advantages which people of quality have, is not ordinarily more different from that of mere scholars than my Lord Ashley's was distinguished from that of other men of his own rank and condition by peculiar agreements. This great man, esteemed by all parties in his country to be the ablest and most consummate statesman in it, if not of the age he lived in, who had a compass of thought, soundness of judgment, and sharpness of penetration that, on some extraordinary instances of his sagacity, has been fancied almost more than merely human, was no less admirable in the qualities and accomplishments that fit men for society. He was very communicative in his nature; had conversed with books a good deal, but with men much more; and, having been deeply engaged in the public affairs of his time at an age when others were scarce thought fit to begin to meddle with them, he had whilst young acquired that experience of things and knowledge of men which few have till they are old; and though this permitted him not the leisure to be any great reader, yet, being able as he was presently to discover the strength of any argument and where the weight of it turned, having besides the advantage of an excellent memory, he always understood more of the books he read from a cursory reading of them than most other men who dwelt longer upon them. As he had every qualification of an excellent speaker (in which great endowment he was esteemed to surpass all who were his contemporaries in either house of parliament), there was in his wit as much vivacity as there was strength and profoundness in

However sudden and hearty that friendship was, however, it does not seem to have had any immediate effect upon Locke's scheme of work. Having spent the first fortnight of August with Lord Ashley at Sunninghill, he went back apparently more resolved than ever to work on as a doctor in Oxford. But in the following spring, after paying a visit to his friends in Somersetshire, it is probable that, on his way back, he spent a few weeks with Lord Ashley at Wimborne St. Giles's, his country house in Dorsetshire. On the 15th of June, 1667, he was at Exeter House, the London residence of Lord Ashley,' and "from that time," according to Lady Masham's his judgment, to which being added a temper naturally gay, unalloyed with melancholy even in age and under his greatest troubles, this happy conjunction gave ever to his most ordinary conversation a very peculiar and agree able mixture of mirth with instruction, which was still so much the more pleasing in that, as he himself was always easy, he loved that others should be so in his company, being a great enemy to formality, and having above all men the art of living familiarly without lessening anything at all of his dignity. Everything in him was natural, and had a noble air of freedom, expressive of the character of a mind that abhorred slavery, not because he could not be master, but because he could not suffer such an indignity to human nature; and these qualities, so far as they were capable of it, he inspired into all that were about him. In short, Mr. Locke, so long as he lived, remembered with much delight the time he had spent in my Lord Shaftesbury's conversation, and never spoke of his known abilities with esteem only, but with admiration. If those to whom the character of Mr. Locke is best known may from hence conceive a very high idea of my Lord Shaftesbury, it is certain that those who knew my Lord Shaftesbury did never represent Mr. Locke to themselves as a man more extraordinary than when they recalled to their remembrance the singular esteem my Lord Shaftesbury had of him. That two such persons should find an uncommon delight in the company of each other is not to be wondered at, though perhaps it has rarely been known that so firm and lasting a friendship, for so I must call it, has been so suddenly contracted."

1 Lord King, p. 26; Locke to Strachey, 15 June, 1667.

statement, "he was with my Lord Ashley as a man at home, and lived in that family much esteemed, not only by my lord, but by all the friends of the family.

1 MSS. in the Remonstrants' Library; Lady Masham to Le Clerc, 12 January, 1704-5.

145

CHAPTER IV.

EARLY WRITINGS.

[1660-1667.]

VC small specimens, more curious than important,

TWO

of the verse-writing with which Locke occasionally, but perhaps rarely, occupied stray fragments of his time while he was an Oxford student, and two small specimens, very crude but very significant, of the sort of notes that he appears to have been in the habit, then as well as afterwards, of making on philosophical questions, have been given in earlier pages.

In verse-writing he was not successful, and he probably never attempted to succeed in it. His humour, light and varied as it was, generally found expression only in playful conversation with his friends, or in the letters by means of which he maintained a lively intercourse with them when they were at a distance, or-and here he certainly employed it very often-in furnishing apt and homely and very effective illustrations to his serious. arguments in metaphysics and ethics, in politics, religion, and other great matters affecting the wellbeing of society.

He was pre-eminently a philosopher-that is, a lover of wisdom. Whether, till late in life at any rate, it ever occurred to him that he could teach much to the world may well be doubted. For a long while he was content to do all he could in teaching himself. With that object

he studied all that Oxford could provide for him; all that, in his student's quarters at Christ Church, in the society of friends outside of the university, and in the more bustling scenes that he occasionally visited, he could learn of the ways and thoughts of men, and the best means of helping them to lead worthy and happy lives. With that object he read all the books that came in his way, romances and travel-books as well as abstruse treatises of every sort, and applied himself with special eagerness, not only to the medical and kindred researches that were directly connected with the practical work to which he was anxious to devote his life, but also to every other scientific pursuit that he deemed useful in disclosing the secrets of nature and promoting the welfare of mankind. With that object, also, he accustomed himself to write down his thoughts on all kinds of subjects, not, it would seem, with the design of giving them to the world, but in order thus to be the better able to test their value, and see how much truth was in them.

In 1661 he began a series of common-place books, in which many of those thoughts were entered, sometimes in detached sentences, sometimes in lengthy arguments. Before 1661, moreover, he began to write elaborate treatises on very various subjects, as well as to set down on scraps of paper many notes and memoranda which occurred to him in the course of his reading or conversation. It is probable that a large number of these fragments have been lost, and perhaps the fuller essays that remain are only meagre representatives of the many that he prepared. Enough remain, however, to throw welcome light on his mental history, and some account of the more important of them, which can be referred with certainty, or by fair inference-many being undated-to the portion