Et. 61.

Laudabridis stayed so long in Huntingdonshire that her "faithful servant" had, four weeks afterwards, to write her another playful letter:

66

Though I wish mightily for your company, and I see you could be content with mine, yet I could be pleased you should relish the cream of the country you are in, and to heighten the gusto I wish you strawberries to it. For those who have the goodness not to dislike me when they are with me, and to think on me when absent, I would not have uneasy when they are out of my sight. Let my Laudabridis therefore be as merry as she can every day, and know that I partake in it; but now and then mix a kind thought of her Joannes. So he does here on his side of her to preserve himself the better for her sake, since she thinks him worth the taking care for. Pray, when you return, bring a little summer with you, if you intend to do anything in the garden with your John. For we have had nothing but winter weather since you went, and I write this by the fireside, whither the blustering wind and rain like December has driven me. I hope for a new spring when you come back, and to be as merry as the birds then are when they have their mates; only I desire to be excused from singing-that part shall be yours.

"Had you been at our church 1 yesterday, there was one would have put you to it to have kept pace and time with him. He sang the poor clerk out of his beloved Behold and have regard,' and made him lose both voice and tune. Would you had been here to have stood up for the credit of our parish which gave up to a stranger.

"Everybody here is in health, but wants you. In the meantime you are kindly remembered by all.

66

"I am perfectly your most affectionate and most humble servant,

"JOANNES.

Pray my service to Sir Robert, my lady, and the rest of your good company."

Locke was in London when Esther returned to Oates, and he wrote to her again at the beginning of October.

1 High Laver church, a mile south of Oates, and then connected with it by a carriage drive.

Letters from Relations and Friends, pp. 10-12; Locke to Esther Masham, 20 August, 1694.

"I take it amiss of my stars that they should order me to be out of the way when my Laudabridis, whom I had so long languished for, returned. I will not say whether it was because you made too little haste, or your Joannes too much. But this I know, it had been much more to my satisfaction and advantage if you had stole home and caught me napping, than, by leaving me forlorn so long, exposed me to a journey that looked t'other way. This yet ought not to make you suspect that anybody has stolen me, or, if they have, you need not much be troubled at it whilst you have my heart with you at Oates; for, without that, what a purchase they will have, in such a carcase as mine, you may judge. If you value your John so much as you say, and I cannot but believe you sincere, he is not such a fool as to change you for the Indies. For that has nothing that can purchase love, especially such as yours is, which can have no temptation but the great esteem and affection I have for you. You may believe then that I shall make all the haste I can to even our long account of absence, and compare thoughts and wishes and sighs, and having quitted that score, begin a new one of mirth and laughing and kind words one to another, with now and then a song amongst.

I hope you are not much troubled that you have not your full foddering as you used to have. As to singing, there be those in the parish will tell you you lost the perfection of that by your wandering. Had you been at home when I wished, you had had something beyond the ordinary strain of 'Behold and have regard.' But you must be gadding and make us sad under those heavenly strains, for they were heavenly too.

66

To be serious, I am extremely glad that you are safe and well returned, exceedingly obliged to you for the favour of your letter, and shall make haste to Oates to tell you how much I am your obedient

"JOANNES.

"If you had been charitable, you would have sent me some commission or other." 2

A few days after writing thus Locke found himself obliged to hasten back to Oates, before whatever business

This alludes to Mr. Low, then minister of our parish, who had taken a fancy he should die in the pulpit, therefore left off preaching, and for a considerable time got his neighbouring clergymen to give him a sermon only in the afternoon."-E. M.'s note.

2 Letters from Relations and Friends, pp. 12-14; Locke to Esther Masham, 2 Oct., 1694.

3

Et. 62..

he had to do was completed, not merely to tell his sweetheart how he was, but to be nursed by her. "I thank God," he wrote to Edward Clarke soon after his return, "the country air begins a little to relieve me from those impressions that were made on my lungs by the London smoke, which I perceive I must not make too bold with at this time of the year." 99 1 Business forced him back to town again for a week in December, however; and though ill and harassed there, he found opportunity for writing this short letter to Laudabridis.

"A little house and a little furniture must serve young beginners as you and I are, dear Laudabridis. Besides, my stock will not reach to much, being not furnished with compliment or history to fill out a large spread of paper. And you know there needs not many words to express a great deal of affection, respect and esteem, where it is as real as mine is, and affects not to make a show. I saw the Major 2 to-day. He told me Mr. Masham 3 was well, and that he should not go to the West Indies. This, I thought, would be welcome news to you, and so could not forbear to put it into my letter; but leave it to his to explain to you the particulars more fully, for I reproached him for not writing to you, and made him promise me he would do it this night. Pray give my humble service to all at Oates and Matching Hall, and let Totty 5 know I expect he should say something to me by you in your next. I am, madam, your most humble and obedient servant, 66 J. LOCKE." 6

Locke was not able to run away from his friends at Oates for some time after getting back to them in Decem

1 Additional MSS., no. 4290; Locke to Clarke, 15 Oct., 1694.

"My brother Henry."-E. M.'s note.

3 "My brother William."-E. M.'s note.

4 'Twas said the regiment my brother Henry belonged to was commanded to the West Indies."-E. M.'s note.

5

Totty was a nickname was given to my brother Francis Cudworth Masham, when he was a boy."-E. M.'s note.

6 Letters from Relations and Friends, pp. 15, 16; Locke to Esther Masham, 2 Dec., 1694.

ber. "This cold winter," he wrote in the following March to Molyneux, "has kept me so close a prisoner within doors that, till yesterday, I have been abroad but once these three months, and that only a mile in a coach.”1 It was chiefly, if not altogether, during those months of confinement that he wrote The Reasonableness of Christianity.'

For some portion of the time he had for a guest the brother of his little "wife," Betty Clarke, the same lad in whose interests he had written long before the letters that were expanded into Some Thoughts concerning Education.' "I hope," he wrote to Clarke a fortnight after Christmas, "this airing of your son, these holidays in the country, will be convenient for his health, and no prejudice to his learning. He was welcome to everybody here, and particularly to me; and I am glad to find him such a proficient in the Latin, from which I conclude that in a little time now he will be master of that tongue. But schools I see still are schools, and make schoolboys. say this to make you observe whether it be not to be apprehended that the main benefit of a dancing-master will be lost, though he dance constantly two or three times a week, if those who ought to have the constant care of him in every part do not look after and mind his postures, carriage and motions when he is out of the dancing-master's hands; for, without that, the steps and figures of dances I think of no value." 2

I

Locke had been expecting another visitor this Christmas time. Molyneux had already, it would seem, come to be almost a dearer friend to him than Limborch, but

1 Familiar Letters,' p. 98; Locke to William Molyneux, 8 March, 1694-5.

2 Additional MSS., no. 4290; Locke to Clarke, 11 Jan. [1694-5].

Æt. 62.

LETTERS TO WILLIAM MOLYNEUX.

303

they had never yet seen one another, and both men looked eagerly to the meeting, for which Molyneux had arranged to come to England in December. He, however, like Locke, had delicate health, and being unwell now, Locke urged him not to make the journey, although, as he said, he "coveted" it none the less. "A rational, free-minded man, tied to nothing but truth, is so rare a thing that I almost worship such a friend. I cannot but exceedingly wish for that happy day when I may see a man I have so often longed to have in my embraces."2

"You cannot think," Locke added in the same letter, "how often I regret the distance that is between us. I envy Dublin for what I every day want in London. Were you in my neighbourhood, you would every day be troubled with the proposal of some of my thoughts to you. I find mine generally so much out of the way of the books I meet with, or men led by books, that, were I not conscious to myself that I impartially seek truth, I should be discouraged from letting my thoughts loose, which commonly lead me out of the beaten track. However, I want somebody near me, to whom I could freely communicate them, and, without reserve, lay them open. I should find security and ease in such a friend as you, were you within distance; for your judgment would confirm and set me at rest, where it approved, and your candour would excuse what your judgment accused and set me right in."3

"I cannot complain," he said in another letter, "that I have not my share of friends of all ranks, and such whose interest, assistance, affection, and opinions too,

1 Familiar Letters,' p. 91; William Molyneux to Locke, 18 Dec., 1694. 2 Ibid., p. 98; Locke to William Molyneux, 8 March, 1694-5. 3 lbid.