1666-7.7 Et. 31. MEDICAL STUDIES. 133 instant, between ten and eleven in the morning, had some roots dug up, and am promised others to be dug up on the 30th instant before sunrising. If there be any advantage in the time of gathering, I owe the knowledge of it so much to you that I should be an unworthy reader of your writings, if I should not return you my thanks and offer you some part of these roots." In these and other letters from Locke to Boyle, and in later letters from Thomas to Locke, occur other passages referring to their drug collecting, as well as to their chemical experiments; but these are not now of much general interest, and the accounts given of some of their chemical experiments are rendered unintelligible to us by the use of special symbols to which no key exists. But the sentences already quoted will suffice to show with what zeal Locke was now devoting himself to at any rate some of the pursuits necessary to make him an efficient doctor. The influence that was exerted upon Locke by Boyle, the boldest and most successful chemist of his day, must not be lost sight of. The acquaintance between the two men, which had begun long ago, seems by this time to have ripened into friendship, and the friendship lasted till Boyle's death in 1691. Locke was now zealously preparing himself to be a competent doctor. But he was something more than an unfledged physician who had resisted all temptations to advance his own interests by becoming a clergyman, or to go into training for an ambassador. A stray letter that has come down to us furnishes much welcome illustration of his temper at this time. It was addressed from Christ Church to John Alford, a young gentleman of whom we only know that he was the son of Sir Edward Alford of 1 Boyle, 'Works,' vol. v., p. 568; Locke to Boyle, 24 March, 1666-7. Ossington Place, near Arundel, in Sussex, but whom we may assume to have been Locke's pupil while he was a student at Oxford. A more profitable letter of advice, more full of good counsel without pedantry, and of kindly interest without patronage, could not easily be written. SIR,-I have not yet quite parted with you, and though you have put off your gown, you are not yet got beyond my affection or concernment for you. 'Tis true you are now past masters and tutors, and it is now therefore that you ought to have the greater care of yourself, since those mistakes or miscarriages which heretofore would have been charged upon them will now, if any, light wholly upon you, and you yourself must be accountable for all your actions; nor will any longer any one else share in the praise or censure they may deserve. 'Twill be time, therefore, that you now begin to think yourself a man, and necessary that you take the courage of one. I mean not such a courage as may name you one of those daring gallants that stick at nothing, but a courage that may defend and secure your virtue and religion; for, in the world you are now looking into, you will find, perhaps, more onsets made upon your innocence than you can imagine; and there are more dangerous thieves than those that lay wait for your purse, who will endeavour to rob you of that virtue which they care not for themselves. I could wish you that happiness as never to fall into such company. But I consider you are to live in the world; and, whilst either the service of your country or your own business makes your conversation with men necessary, perhaps this caution will be needful. But you may withhold your heart where you cannot deny your company, and you may allow those your civility who possibly will not deserve your affection. I think it needless and impertinent to dissuade you from vices I never observed you inclined to. I write this to strengthen your resolutions, not to give you new ones. But let not the importunities or examples of others. prevail against the dictates of your own reason and education. I do not in this advise you to be either a mumbe or morose, to avoid company or not enjoy it. One may certainly with innocency use all the enjoyments of life, and I have been always of opinion that a virtuous life is best disposed to be the most pleasant, for certainly, amidst the troubles and vanities of this world, there are but two things that bring a real satisfaction with them, that is, virtue and knowledge. What progress you have made in the latter, you I will do well not to lose. Your spare hours from devotion, business, or recreation (for that, too, I can allow where employment, not idleness, gives 1666-7.7 Et. 34. A LETTER OF GOOD COUNSEL. 135 a title to it) will be well bestowed in reviewing or improving your university notions, and if, at this distance, I could afford your studies any direction or assistance, I should be glad, and you need only let me know it. Though your ancestors have left you a condition above the ordinary rank, yet it's yourself alone that can advance yourself to it; for it's not either your going upon two legs, or living in a great house, or possessing many acres, that gives you advantage over beasts or other men, but the being wiser and better. I speak not this to make you careless of your estate; for, though riches be not virtue, it's a great instrument of it, wherein lies a great part of the usefulness and comfort of life. In the right management of this lies a great part of prudence; and about money is the great mistake of men, whilst they are either too covetous or too careless of it. If you throw it away idly, you lose your great support and best friend. If you hug it too closely, you lose it and yourself too. To be thought prudent and liberal, provident and good-natured, are things worth your endeavour to obtain, which perhaps you will better do by avoiding the occasions of expenses than by a frugal limiting them when occasion hath made them necessary. But I forget you are near your lady mother whilst I give you these advices, and do not observe that what I meant for a letter begins to grow into a treatise. Those many particulars that here is not room for I send you to seek in the writings of learned and sage authors. Let me give you by them those counsels I cannot now. They will direct you as well as I wish you, and I do truly wish you well. You will therefore pardon me for this once playing the tutor, since I shall hereafter always be, sir, "Your faithful friend and servant, "JOHN LOCKE."1 That letter stands almost by itself in the extant correspondence of Locke; but nearly every one of the letters written by him that we have sparkles with humour, not discordant, if different. "Mr. Thomas presents his humble service to you," Locke wrote to Boyle in February, 1666-7. "He and I are now upon a new sort of chemistry; that is, extracting money 1 Gentleman's Magazine, vol. lxvii. (1797), part i., p. 97; Locke to John Alford, 12 January, 1666-7. The letter was there said to be "in the possession of Mrs. Francis Bridger, of Fowlers, in Hawkhurst, a lineal descendant of John Alford." out of the scholars' pockets, and if we can do that, you need not fear but in time we shall have the lapis; for he that can get gold and silver out of scholars cannot doubt to extract it anywhere else. The truth is, he and I are preferred to be accessories of poll-money; and if you do not make haste hither, I believe you will, at your next coming, find us both beaten out of the town for having had too good thoughts of our neighbours, it being now an injury to believe any one rich or a gentleman." A paragraph in Locke's next letter to Boyle shows that, though he was still intent upon his medical and scientific studies, he was making arrangements for a temporary, if not a permanent, removal from Oxford to London. "I intend," he said, "to go between this and Easter into Somersetshire, where, if I can do any service about Mendip or any other way, you will oblige me with the employment. It is so much my concernment to receive your commands, that I shall be sure to give you notice where I am and how I may receive the honour of your letters. After some little stay in that county, I hope to kiss your hands in London." 2 In July, 1666, occurred an incident that had a very important effect on Locke's career; his first meeting with Lord Ashley, afterwards the famous Earl of Shaftesbury, unfortunately most famous as the subject of the inimitable satire in which Locke's schoolfellow, Dryden, painted in colours nearly as untrue as they were brilliant the chief opponent of divine right monarchy in the days of the later Stuarts. 1 Boyle Works,' vol. v., p. 567; Locke to Boyle, 24 Feb., 1666-7. 2 Ibid., vol. v., p. 568; Locke to Boyle, 24 March, 1666-7. 1666. Et. 33. DRYDEN'S LORD ASHLEY. "Of these the false Achitophel was first; Pleased with the danger when the waves went high, Would steer too nigh the sands to boast his wit." 1 And in somewhat less familiar lines: "A martial hero first, with early care Groan'd, sigh'd, and pray'd, while godliness was gain- But, as 'tis hard to cheat a juggler's eyes, His open lewdness he could ne'er disguise. Power was his aim; but, thrown from that pretence, The wretch turn'd loyal in his own defence, And malice reconcil'd him to his prince. 1 'Absalom and Achitophel,' ll. 150–162. 137 |