that I may, to a person whom you have an esteem or, pay some part of the respects I owe you. I had last week the honour of a visit from an ingenious gentleman, a member of your college at Dublin, lately returned from Turkey. He told me he was a kinsman of yours; and, though his other good qualities might have made him welcome any where, he was not, you may be sure, the less welcome to me, for being known and related to you. He seems to me to have been very diligent and curious in making observations while he has been abroad, and more inquisitive than most of our people that go into those parts: and by the discourse I had with him the little time we were together, I promise myself we shall have a more exact account of those parts, in what I hope he intends to publish, than hitherto is extant. Dr. Huntingdon, who was formerly at Aleppo, and is my old acquaintance, and now my neighbour in this country, brought Mr. Smith hither with him from his house: but yet I must acknowledge the favour to you, and desire you to thank him for it, when he returns to Dublin; for the friendship he knew you had for me, was, I take it, the great inducement that made him give himself the trouble of coming six or seven miles in a dirty country.

You do so attack me on every side with your kindness to my book, to me, to my shadow, that I cannot but be ashamed I am not in a capacity to make you any other acknowledgment, but in a very full and deep sense of it. I return you my thanks for the corrections you have sent me, which I will take all the care of I can in the next edition, which my bookseller tells me he thinks will be

this summer: and if any other fall under your observation, I shall desire the continuance of your favour in communicating them.

I must own to you, that I have been solicited from beyond sea to put my Essay into latin; but you guess right, I have not the leisure to do it. It was once translated by a young man in Holland into latin; but he was so little master of the English or latin tongue, that when it was shewed me, which he did not till he had quite done it, I satisfied him that it would be very little for his credit to publish it, and so that was laid by. Since that, my bookseller was, and had been for some time seeking for a translator, whom he would have treated with to have undertaken it, and have satisfied for his pains: but a little before the coming of your letter he writ me word, he had been disappointed, where he expected to have found one who would have done it, and was now at a loss. So that what you call a bold, is not only the kindest, but the most seasonable proposal you could have made. You understand my thoughts as well as I do myself, and can be a fit judge whether the translator has expressed them well in latin or no, and can direct him where to omit or contract any thing, where you think I have been more large than needed. And though in this I know you intend, as you say, some good to the world, yet I cannot but take it as a very particular obligation to myself, and shall not be a little satisfied to have my book go abroad into the world with the strokes of your judicious hand to it; for, as to omitting, adding, altering, transposing any thing in it, I "permit it wholly to your judgment. And if there

be any thing in it defective, or which you think may be added with advantage to the design of the whole work, if you will let me know, I shall endeavour to supply that defect the best I can. The chapter of Identity and Diversity, which owes its birth wholly to your putting me upon it, will be an encouragement to you to lay any the like commands upon me. I have had some thoughts myself, that it would not be possibly amiss to add, in lib. iv. cap. 18. something about Enthusiasm, or to make a chapter of it by itself. If you are of the same mind, and that it will not be foreign to the business of my Essay, I promise you, before the translator you shall employ shall be got so far, I will send you my thoughts on that subject, so that it may be put into the latin edition. I have also examined P. Malebranche's opinion, concerning "Seeing all things in God," and to my own satisfaction laid open the vanity, inconsistency, and unintelligibleness, of that way of explaining human understanding. I have gone almost, but not quite through it, and know not whether I now ever shall finish it, being fully satisfied myself about it. You cannot think 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. How

ever, 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, were it approved, and your candour would excuse what your judgment corrected and set me right in. As to your request you now repeat to me, I desire you to believe that there is nothing in your letters which I pass over slightly or without taking notice of; and if I formerly said nothing to it, think it to be, that I thought it the best way of answering a friend whom I was resolved to deny nothing that was in my power. There are some particular obligations that tie me up in the point, and which have drawn on me some displeasure for a time from some of my friends, who made me a somewhat like demand. But I expect to find you more reasonable, and give you this assurance, that you shall be the first that shall be satisfied in that point. I am not forgetful of what you so kindly put me upon. I think nobody ought to live only to eat and drink and count the days he spends idly. The small remainder of a crazy life, I shall, as much as my health will permit, apply to the search of truth, and shall not neglect to propose to myself those that may be most useful. My paper is more than done, and I suppose, you tired; and yet I can scarce give off. I am, dear sir, your most faithful humble servant.

LETTER XXX.

MR. LOCKE TO MR. MOLYNEUX.

I

SIR, Oates, April 26th, 1695. You look with the eyes and speak the language of friendship, when you make my life of much more concern to the world than your own. take it, as it is, for an effect of your kindness, and so shall not accuse you of compliment; the mistakes and over-valuings of good-will being always sincere, even when they exceed what common truth allows. This on my side I must beg yon to believe, that my life would be much more pleasant and useful to me if you were within my reach, that I might sometimes enjoy your conversation, and, upon twenty occasions, lay my thoughts before you, and have the advantage of your judgment. I cannot complain that I have not my share of friends of all ranks, and such whose interest, assistance, affection, and opinions too, in fit cases, I can rely on. But, methinks, for all this, there is one place vacant, that I know nobody that would so well fill as yourself; I want one near me to talk freely with, de quo libet ente; to propose to, the extravagancies that rise in my mind; one with whom I would debate several doubts and questions, to see what was in them. Meditating by one's self is like digging in the mine; it often, perhaps, brings up maiden earth, which never came near the light before; but whether it contain any metal in it, is never so well tried as in conversation with a know