Et. 49. VERSES TO A YOUNG LADY." 467 James Tyrrell,' and as he was much with Tyrrell in 1681 and 1682, at his house in Buckinghamshire, as well as in Oxford and London, we may guess that it was written in or near one of those years. The string of verses was addressed "to a young lady that could never be kept at home." "Curse on the park, the plays, and business-too, Which call these out that have ought else to do; - "For dust and crowd sully a virgin's mind, "Wise, were our ancestors whose tender care 66 Shut up their daughters from the common air, Kept then conceal'd at home, the shades they knew "But when they wander'd out, and first began "The glorious sun, to every sight being shown, 1 The manuscript volume is now in the possession of Lord Houghton, who has kindly permitted me to inspect it and to publish the lines, to which is appended this note in Tyrrell's handwriting, "By my dear friend, Mr. J. Locke." "Jove lost his glory when he left 's abode : He that was god at home was beast abroad. We zealous votaries to their shrines may come ; "Then gad no more: the world is crowd and noise, Which with false shows would tempt you from your joys. Locke as a poet was certainly no match for his schoolfellow Dryden. Acquitted on the 24th of November, 1681, and soon afterwards released from the Tower, where he had been illegally imprisoned, Lord Shaftesbury was received by the London populace with so much enthusiasm, not feebly echoed throughout the country, that the hatred with which he had hitherto been regarded by the king and the leaders of the catholic party was greatly increased, and he himself was led to count too much on his influence over the people and on the strength of his anti-catholic supporters. The partisans of the Prince of Orange being almost idle, he resolved to lose no time, not merely in asserting the title of the Duke of Monmouth to the crown in succession to Charles the Second, but in actually placing him on the throne at once. Whereas Lord Russell and his other political friends had previously urged him to energetic action, they now had to complain of his too great impetuosity. All through the summer of 1682 he was plotting for an insurrection, and, though Monmouth, Russell, and the others did not hold aloof from the plots, their persistent desire that the crisis . 50 should be delayed until better chances of success were in sight, caused them to keep in the background. Thus it happened that when, in September, the secret was partly disclosed, Monmouth though arrested was soon discharged on bail, with Russell for one of his sureties, and Shaftesbury found himself almost alone. After hiding for some weeks in Wapping, he made his way to Harwich in the disguise of a presbyterian minister, and thence, on the 28th of November, he escaped to Holland. Reaching Amsterdam a few days later, he soon afterwards fell ill, the gout which had long troubled him attacking him now in a vital part, and he died on the 31st of January, 1682-3. "I'll give an unhappy instance which I had from the very person in whose arms the late Earl of Shaftesbury expired," wrote an opponent, twenty-three years later. "He said, when he attended him at his last hours in Holland, he recommended to him the confession of his faith and the examination of his conscience. The earl answered him and talked all over Arianism and Socinianism, which notions he confessed he imbibed from Mr. Locke and his tenth chapter of Human Understanding." 1 Locke had been in almost constant residence at Oxford from the 10th of February, 1681-2, till the 28th of May, and, with a week's interval when he was in London, and another week's interval when he was probably at St. Giles's, from the 14th of October till the 3rd of December." Instead of taking any part in Shaftesbury's ill-planned and unwise conspiracy on behalf 1 'Letters addressed to Thomas Hearne,' edited by Frederick Ouvry, (privately printed, 1874), p. 9; Thomas Cherry to Thomas Hearne, 25 July, of the Duke of Monmouth during that luckless year, there is good ground for inferring that he joined with others. in vainly endeavouring to dissuade Shaftesbury from his rash action, and that, when he found his advice was of no avail, he went down to live quietly in his student's quarters at Christ Church, and there pursue his literary and medical studies.1 There was no breach in his friendship for Shaftesbury, however, and no slackening of his 1 There can be no doubt, however, that already the government had begun to set spies upon him, and to seek some ground for implicating him in Shaftesbury's movements. Curious evidence of this appears in the letters of Prideaux to Ellis. Ellis, afterwards under-secretary of state, was already in the employ of the government, and Prideaux's unfriendly and spiteful gossip was clearly supplied in answer to his inquiries. It shows what animosity existed against Locke, but is of no other value. “John Locke lives a very cunning, unintelligible life here," Prideaux wrote from Oxford on the 14th of March, 1681-2,"being two days in town and three out, and no one knows where he goes, or when he goes, or when he returns. Certainly there is some whig intrigue a-managing; but here not a word of politics comes from him, nothing of news, or anything else concerning our present affairs, as if he were not at all concerned in them. If any one asks him 'What news?' when he returns from a progress, his answer is, ‘We know nothing.'" Where J. L. goes," Prideaux wrote again on the 19th of March, "I cannot by any means learn, all his voyages being so cunningly contrived. Sometimes he will go to some acquaintances of his near the town, and then he will let anybody know where he is; but other times, when I am assured he goes elsewhere, no one knows where he goes, and therefore the other is made use of only for a blind. He hath in his last sally been absent at least ten days; where, I cannot learn. Last night he returned, and sometimes he himself goes out and leaves his man behind, who shall then be often seen in the quadrangle to make people believe his master is at home; for he will let no one come to his chamber, and therefore it is not certain when he is there or when absent." ('Letters of Humphrey Prideaux to John Ellis,' pp. 129, 131.) Had Locke been now busy with Shaftesbury's plots, he could not have chosen a less suitable centre of action than tory Oxford, where he would be away from all his accomplices and more likely than anywhere else to have his secrets detected. efforts to render all the service in his power to the earl and to his family. In October Lady Shaftesbury addressed to him from St. Giles's a very pathetic little letter, none the less pathetic because it shows her anxiety about her grandson's minor ailments while her husband was hiding for his life in Wapping. "SIR,-Your great goodness and charity expressed to me and my good lord by your cares and kindness to our dear child at Clapham can never be enough acknowledged; and though I must confess I was mightily troubled yesterday at the first reading of your letter, because Balls had before sent us word he had had a swelled face, which I apprehend he ought to be otherwise treated for than usual in such complaints, he having been all this year subject to a sharp humour that has griped him many times, and relieved only by a natural looseness-as your assurance in your second letter, by the grace of God, of his being out of danger gave me great hopes and joy, because of your kind concernment for him, so I trust in God my comfort will be increased by the knowledge of his perfect recovery from your own relation personally here, suddenly, who am impatient to express how much you have again obliged "Your very faithful friend and servant, "M. SHAFTESBURY." 1 It would seem that Locke, on hearing of little Anthony Ashley's illness, had ridden up to London, where the boy was still under the care of Mrs. Elizabeth Birch, superintended by Locke himself, and, having put him in a fair way of recovery, went down to Dorsetshire on a visit to Lady Shaftesbury, probably to console her in the far heavier troubles by which she was now harassed, as well as to tell her about Anthony's health. The time had passed when she could have occasion to compliment him on his Cheddar cheeses; but perhaps she now found a 1 Christie, vol. ii., p. 450; Lady Shaftesbury to Locke, 27 Oct., 1682. |