picion of being connected with Monmouth, or abetting his expedition. It was during this seclusion that his Letter on Toleration was finished, in 1685: it was first printed in Latin, and afterwards translated into English, and printed in London after the Revolution. William Penn, who enjoyed the favor of James II. offered to obtain from the king a pardon for Locke, who nobly refused to accept it, being conscious of having committed no crime. The same offer was also made by the Earl of Pembroke.

During his abode in Holland he was occupied in various scientific pursuits. He formed a small society which met weekly at each other's houses, to discuss such questions as had been proposed at a previous meeting. The society consisted of Limborch, Le Clerc, Guenelon, and a few others.

The Revolution of 1688 enabled Locke to return to his native country, and he arrived in the same fleet that brought the Princess of Orange to England. It was almost immediately after his arrival that an offer was made him to be employed as envoy at one of the great German courts; an appointment which he modestly refused. He now endeavored to be reinstated in his studentship at Christ Church, for which purpose he presented a petition to the king as visitor; but finding that he could only be received as a supernumerary, he determined to press his claim no farther.

The Essay on the Human Understanding, which had been finished during the author's retirement in Holland, and the English version of the Letter on

Toleration, were now published on his return to his native country. The Essay, soon after its publication, excited considerable attention. Lord Shaftesbury was one of the first who sounded the alarm against what he conceived to be the drift of that philosophy, which denies the existence of innate principles.

About four years after the publication of the Essay, that is, towards the end of the year 1694, the new philosophy began to excite some attention at Oxford. Mr. Wynne, fellow of Jesus College, was the first who recommended the Essay in that University. With the approbation of the author, whom he consulted on the subject, this gentleman published an abridgment of the work.

After the first objections had been overcome, the success of the Essay must be considered to have been very great, as its several successive editions during the life of the author, as well as an excellent translation by M. Coste into the French language, sufficiently attest. If, however, the Essay received the approbation of enlightened men, not only in England, but on the continent; yet, after an interval of several years from its first publication, when time had been allowed to sift its merits and decide its character, it excited the disapprobation of the heads of houses at Oxford, who at one time took counsel to banish it from that seat of learning.

It may be here necessary to give some account of the attack which Dr. Stillingfleet made on the Essay,

as also on the principles of the author. Toland had published a book called Christianity not Myste→ rious,' in which he endeavored to prove that there is nothing in the Christian religion contrary to reason, or even above it; and in explaining his doctrines, had used several arguments from the Essay on the Human Understanding. It happened also that some Unitarian treatises, published nearly at the same time, maintained that there was nothing in the Christian religion but what was rational and intelligible; and Locke, having asserted in his writings, that revelation delivers nothing contrary to reason; the bishop of Worcester, defending the mysteries of the Trinity against Toland and the Unitarians, denounced some of Locke's principles as heretical, and classed his works with those of the above writers. Locke answered the bishop, who replied the same year. This reply was confuted by a second letter of Locke, which produced a second answer from the bishop in 1698. Locke again replied in a third letter, wherein he treated more largely of the certainty of reason by ideas, of the certainty of faith, of the resurrection of the same body, and the immateriality of the soul. He showed the perfect, agreement of his principles with the Christian religion, and that he had advanced nothing which had the least tendency to scepticism, with which the bishop had very ignorantly charged him. The death of Stillingfleet put an end to the controversy.

Locke's literary employments at this period were

the Treatises on Government, written in defence of the Revolution against the Tories: and in the year 1690, he published a Second Letter on Toleration.

In 1691 he published the first of his treatises on the subject of the coin, and the Farther Consideration on raising the Value of Money,' in 1695, for the purpose of correcting the false ideas then universally prevalent. In the latter work, addressed to Sir John Somers, he endeavors to strip the question of hard, obscure, and 'doubtful words, wherewith men are often misled and mislead others.' He condemns the nefarious project of raising the denomination and altering the standard, as a fraud on all creditors, and justly considers it as the means of confounding the property of the subject, and disturbing affairs to no purpose.' The advice of Locke was followed, and the great recoinage of 1695 restored the current money of the country to the full legal standard. In the same year he was appointed to a seat at the council of trade, which, after a short time, his increasing infirmities made him wish to resign.

In the following year King William ordered Locke to attend him at Kensington, desirous to employ him again in the public service; but the state of his health prevented him from accepting the honor that was designed him. Having refused the employment which the king had intended for him, he now determined to resign that which he for some years held, and for the

same reason.

The asthmatic complaint, to which he had been long subject, making a continued residence in London, par

ticularly during the winter season, very distressing to him, he had for some years taken up his abode with Sir F. and Lady Masham, at Oates, near Ongar, in Essex, where he was perfectly at home, and enjoyed the society most agreeable to him; as Lady Masham, the daughter of Cudworth, is said to have been a woman of great sense and of most engaging manners.

During the last four years of his life, increasing infirmities confined him to the retirement he had chosen at Oates; and although laboring under an incurable disorder, he was cheerful to the last, constantly interested in the welfare of his friends, and at the same time perfectly resigned to his own fate. His literary occupation at that time was the study of and commentary on St. Paul's Epistles, published amongst his posthumous works.

In October, 1704, his disorder greatly increased: on the 27th of that month, Lady Masham, not finding him in his study as usual, went to his bedside, when he told her that the fatigue of getting up the day before had been too much for his strength, and that he never expected to rise again from his bed. He said that he had now finished his career in this world, and that in all probability he should not outlive the night, certainly not be able to survive beyond the next day or two. After taking some refreshment, he said to those present, that he wished them all happiness after he was gone. To Lady Masham, who remained with him, he said that he thanked God he had passed a happy life, but that now he found that all was vanity; and exhorted her to consider this world only as a