own frock. It is very convenient that you take care in this affair, for I find the great desire I have to return again to the enjoyment of his and your good company will not let me be long away. Pray salute him with my most hearty and best respects, and be assured that I am, with perfect sincerity, your unfeigned friend and servant,

"J. LOCKE.

"Remember me kindly to the little ones, especially to my little friend. Bethink yourself if I can do you any service here, or for Mr. Van Helmont.1 I shall be glad of the occasion." 2

3

The other letter was written to William Charleton, whom Locke had known at Montpellier some ten years before, and had since corresponded with, and who was a great traveller, a great collector of curiosities of all sorts, and a friend and correspondent of nearly every contemporary who shared any of his tastes. But for

1 Franz Mercurius van Helmont, who was now residing for a time at Rotterdam, though often also at Amsterdam, and continuing the somewhat fantastic studies in medicine and chemistry which his father, Johann Baptista van Helmont, as a disciple of Paracelsus, had done much to promote. I cannot explain the allusions in this letter to "the baron" and "the English chemist." The "little friend" was Furly's younger son, Arent.

2. Original Letters,' p. 27; Locke to Furly, [20] 30 July, 1687.

3 Writing to Thoynard from Montpellier on 8 April, 1681, Charleton thanks him for certain things he has sent by instruction from Mr. Locke, "whom I shall not fail to inform of the care you have taken to serve me." Additional MSS. in the British Museum, no. 28728.

4 His real name was William Courten, which he abandoned as a means of escape from political and domestic troubles. "I carried the Countess of Sunderland," wrote Evelyn, on the 16th of December, 1686, "to see the rarities of one Mr. Charleton, in the Middle Temple, who showed us such a collection as I had never seen in all my travels abroad, either of private gentlemen or princes. It consisted of miniatures, drawings, shells, insects, medals, natural things, animals (of which divers-I think, a hundred-were kept in glasses of spirits of wine), minerals, precious stones, vessels, curiosities in amber, crystal, agate, etc.; all being very perfect and rare in their kind, especially his books of birds, fish, flowers, and shells, drawn and miniatured to the life. This gentleman's whole collection,

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this stray letter we should know hardly anything, however, of their acquaintance; and, as Locke may have maintained with a hundred other men of more or less note, whose connection with him cannot now be traced, as kindly an intercourse as is here indicated, it is important that we should observe its full significance as an illustration of his sympathetic nature and readiness to aid his friends in every way in his power.

"DEAR SIR,-I cannot but take kindly from Dr. Goodall1 any service that he has done you, and he cannot oblige me more than by putting it to my account, which is with great justice done, since there is nothing more nearly concerns me than your health. When I write to him I shall acknowledge it, and also recommend it to him as an interest so properly mine that he may assure himself that if he administers anything to the recovery of your health he truly takes care of mine. I have not had time since the receipt of your letter yesterday so to inform myself as to answer all the particulars of his so as I desire, for which I must beg you to excuse me to

gathered by himself travelling over most parts of Europe, is estimated at £8000. He appeared to be a modest and obliging person." (Evelyn, 'Diary and Correspondence,' ed. 1850, vol. ii., p. 260.) "I went again," said the same indefatigable sight-seer, on the 11th of March, 1689-90, "to see Mr. Charleton's curiosities both of art and nature, and his full and rare collection of medals, which, taken altogether in all kinds, is doubtless one of the most perfect assemblages of rarities that can be anywhere seen. I much admired the contortions of the tea-root, which was so perplexed, large, and intricate, and withal hard as box, that it was wonderful to consider." (Vol. ii., p. 306.) This remarkable collection, including Locke's contributions to it, became the property of Sir Hans Sloane after the death of its founder, and was ultimately lodged, along with Sloane's other treasures, in the British Museum.

1 One of Sydenham's most skilful and persevering disciples and fellowworkers. To him Sydenham dedicated the 'Schedula Monitoria' that he had lately published, and he lost no opportunity of commending his private virtues and his professional talents. (Sydenham, 'Opera Omnia,' ed. Greenhill, 1846, pp. 20, 278, 358, 362, 481.) Being Sydenham's friend, Goodall was Locke's friend.

VOL. II.

5

him, with the return of my thanks till I shall be in a condition to do it by an answer to what he demands. In the meantime pray do me the favour to inform him that I remember that a friend of mine, one Mr. Charleton, had, by the use of tobacco in snuff, contracted at Montpellier a continual headache, which upon the forbearing of snuff left him again. Whether this at all concerns your present case, I beseech you consider, and, if fashion has prevailed upon you to do yourself harm, to quit it again. I with the more importunity press this because I remember it was with great instance and violence I extorted that pleasure from you, which perhaps forgetfulness has suffered you to return to again.

"I have already spoke to a friend of mine to get for you any rarities that he can light on in the East India fleet which is now here every day expected. I the last week put into the hands of Mr. Smith, a bookseller, living at the Prince's Arms, in Paul's Churchyard, twenty-six draughts of the inhabitants of the world, especially the East Indies. They are marked thus: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, and the names of most of them writ on the back-side with my hand. Those whose names are not writ, if you know them not, I will get explained here. The Brazilian cannibals, of which there are one or two, are easily known, but since there was not the name of the particular nation from which they were taken, I would not add them myself. For the excellency of the drawing I will not answer, they being done by my boy, who hath faithfully enough represented the originals they were copied from, so that one may see the habits and complexion of the people, which was the main end they were designed for, and therefore you must excuse them if they be not excellent pieces of painting. I also put into the hands of the said Mr. Smith a little box filled with the seeds and husks of Foeniculum Sinense: the husks have a very fine aromatical taste, and are used by the Muscovites to be mixed with their tea, as I have been told; which is not I imagine the most sottish thing they are guilty of. If you think the seeds will grow and you find to spare, I would be glad you would send two or three of them, in my name, to Jacob Bobert, the gardener at the physic garden in Oxford, who may endeavour to raise plants from them. He is a very honest fellow, and will not be unwilling to furnish you with any curiosities of that kind. Moreri, I find, by your so often mentioning of it, lies heavy upon your hands, not that you are weary of the book, but are impatient till I have it. I tell you truly, if I had a better friend to whose care to commit it till I return, I should presently ease you of it; but, if you cannot be easy in your conscience till you find it wholly in my possession, I must entreat you yet to have the patience

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till I bethink myself how to dispose of it commodiously. You are one of those scrupulous friends that cannot be at rest till you have more than quitted scores, for so your exact putting them to account gives me reason to speak, with the kindness of your friends. In this respect Dr. Guenellon and you are well met, and I who am of a more loose and careless. temper am pleased to see that this nice humour has a little perplexed one or both of you, for I see that the doctor is in pains that he cannot find Gorlaeus and the other books you desired.

"I most earnestly wish you health, and am, dear sir, your most humble, most obedient servant,

J. LOCKE."

"I was told you promised to inquire of Serjeant Maynard for the herb which cures the leprosy. Give me leave to ask whether you have done it ? 'Tis not fit so useful a thing should be lost." 1

A sequel to that letter was written a fortnight later :

“DEAR SIR,—I lately gave you the trouble of a letter to let you know that I had sent you by Mr. Smith, a bookseller at the Feathers in Paul's Churchyard, twenty-six draughts of several foreign, especially Asiatic, people, and also a little box of the seeds of Foeniculum Sinense. What other commands I have from you in yours of 26th July, I shall take all the care I ean to give you satisfaction in.

"I herewith send you a letter and a little manuscript for my Lord Pembroke, which I beg the favour of you to deliver to his own hands if he be in town, and to send me what answer his lordship shall please to honour me with. If his lordship be at Wilton, I beg the favour of you to send the whole packet away by the next post to Dr. David Thomas, at Salisbury, with the letter here enclosed to him. If I make you not a long apology for this trouble, 'tis because I know with what pleasure and readiness you oblige your friends, which lays on me the greater obligation to be, as I am, dear sir, your most affectionate and most humble servant,

"J. LOCKE."2

Having spent his holiday at Amsterdam in hard work

1 Sloane MSS. in the British Museum, no. 3962; Locke to Charleton, [2] 12 Aug., 1687. Moreri's Dictionnaire Historique et Critique' (1671) and Gorlaeus's Thesaurus Numismatum' were probably the books referred to by Locke.

2 Ibid., Locke to Charleton, [16-] 26 Aug., 1687.

and in pleasant intercourse with his remonstrant friends, Locke returned to Rotterdam some time before the 1st of September, when he wrote to Limborch a letter of which the most curious part was its postscript :-" When I was in Amsterdam lately I met by chance with some paper which was better than any I can find anywhere else. I beg, therefore, that you will buy me a ream, and, when you send it, tell me what you have paid for it. This sheet on which I write will show you the size that I want. The place where it is to be bought you will learn from the sentence which I have written in the Dutch language. Every day I read some Dutch, and I hope soon to be able to express properly my thanks in all the sincerity that is natural to your own language." Then followed the sentence of Locke's Dutch: "In een kleyn wincheltie in der passer in de Warmoes-straat schuijnes over de lieswelthe Bijbel, een riem papier van de selve sort van desse brief."

Soon after returning to Rotterdam Locke fell ill. "Ever since I received the book you sent me," he wrote to Limborch, "I have been so unwell that I have not been able to read it; but as I am now mending every day, I hope I shall not much longer be deprived of that pleasure." "I beg you," he said in another letter, "to ask Dr. Veen to send me eleven or twelve bottles of laudanum, of the same strength as before, as I have exhausted all the stock I had, and now need more for my own use.

113

1 MSS. in the Remonstrants' Library; Locke to Limborch, [1-] 11 Sept., 1687. Next door to the old Bijbel Hotel, in the Warmoes-straat, there is still a bookseller and stationer's shop, which probably has retained the same business ever since the time when Locke sent to it for his ream of paper.

3

Ibid., Locke to Limborch, [17-] 27 Sept., 1687.

Ibid.; Locke to Limborch, [26 Sept.-] 6 Oct., 1687.