foon as the third edition of my Effay, which is now in the prefs, is printed off. I am extremely glad to hear that you have found any good effects of my method on your fon. I fhould be glad to know the particulars; for though I have feen the fuccefs of it in a child of the lady in whofe houfe I am (whofe mother has taught him Latin without knowing it herself when she began), yet I would be glad to have other inftances; because fome men, who cannot endure any thing should be mended in the world by a new method, object, I hear, that my way of education is impracticable. But this I can affure you, that the child abovementioned, but nine years old in June laft, has learned to read and write very well; is now reading Quintus Curtius with his mother; understands geography and chronology very well, and the Copernican fyftem of our vortex; is able to multiply well, and divide a little; and all this without ever having one blow for his book. The third edition is now out I have ordered Mr. Churchill to fend you one of them, which I hope he has done before this. I expect your opinion of the additions, which have much increafed the bulk of the book. And though I think all that I have faid right, yet you are the man I depend on for a fair and free cenfure, not inclined either to flatter or quarrel. You know not of what value a knowing man, that is a fincere lover of truth, is, nor how hard to be found; wonder not, therefore, if I place a great part of my happineís in your friendship, and with every day you were my neighbour; you would then End what ufe I should make of it. But not to complain of what cannot be remedied, pray let me have all the advantage I can at this distance. Read the additions, and examine them firialy, for I would not willingly mislead the world. Prav let me know whether the Doctor, your brother, has any children; when he has, I count I owe him one of my books of Education. I Sir, LETTER LI. Dublin, August 24, 1695. HAVE already fo much experience of your method of education, that I fince you put me upon it (to whom I long to fee your third edition. And can refufe nothing in my power), I will give you a fhort account of my little boy's progrefs under it. of laft July. He was fix years oid about the middle When he was but just and on the globes could have traced out, turned five, he could read perfectly well; tries, and cities of the world, both land and pointed at all the noted parts, counand fea: and by five and an half, could perform many of the plaineft problems on the globe; as the longitude and latitude, the Antipodes, the time with them and other countries, &c. and this by way of play and diverfion, feldom called to it, never chid or beaten for it. About of figures, not exceeding fix places, the fame age he could read any number break it as you please by cyphers or zeros. By the time he was fix, he could manage a compaís, ruler and pencil, very Pretty, and perform many little geome and arithmetic; and has been about trical tricks, and advanced to writing three months at Latin, wherein his tutor obferves, as nigh as he can, the method preícribed by you. He can read a Ga zette, and, in the large maps of Sanion, he goes along, and turns to the proper fhews mot of the remarkable places as maps. He has been fhewn fome dogs of the grand traces of anzumy, diffected, and can give fome fire account And as to the formation of his mind, which you rightly obferve to be the mok vála able part of education, I do not believe that any child had ever as pallon more Pity at command. He is obedient and observant to the work parlor, and at the fame time inguly, paying and LETTI 2 L With my treatife of Education, I be titre to stery towne pality is lieve you will receive another little one concerning Intereft and Coinage. It is one of the fatherless children with the world lay at my door; but whoever be the author, I fall be glad to know your opinion of it. T yet your last letter, of the fecond inftant, makes me afraid of your coming. Your kindness and expreffion in my favour has painted me fo in your fancy, that I fhall unavoidably fall many degrees in your efteem, when you find me come fo much fhort of what you expected: Paratus eft mihi magnus adverfarius expectatio, as I remember Tully fomewhere fays. One thing only I have to fatisfy myfelf, viz. that whatever I may want of those qualities you afcribe to me, I have one that helps mightily to cover defects, and make one acceptable, without the recommendation of great perfections, I mean friendship, true and fincere. This I can boast of to you, this I can bid you expect, and tell you you fhall not be deceived. Come then, but come with this refolution, that you will be content; that hall make up to you all thofe fine things which you imagine before-hand, in a. man whom you will really find a plain, honeft, well-meaning man, who unbiaff edly feeks truth, though it be but a very Small part of it he has yet difcovered. I am very glad you approve of the additions to the third edition of my Education you are a father, and are concerned not to be deceived, and therefore I expect you will not flatter me in this point. LETTER LIII. is a melancholy thought to me, that I fince I have had the happiness of your correfpondence, there has hardly happened a year when both you and I have not made it an apology for our long filence, that we have been indifpofed in our health; yet it has pleafed God that fo it has been, and fo it is on my fide at prefent. About four years and an half ago I was firft feized by a violent cholic, which then fo weakened me, that to this time I lie fo far under the effects thereof, as upon any cold to be very apt to rePapfe into the fame. And fo it has been with me for a while paft; but now, God be thanked, I am again will recovered. I had not otherwife fo long deferred my afwer to yours of March the 30th, which, after a long filence, brought me the affurance of your health, and there with no fmall fatisfaction, having before that entertained fome painful thoughts of your indifpofition, from fome rumours I had heard. But I find Heaven is not yet fo angry with us, as to take you from among us. LETTER LIV. Mr. Locke to Mr. Molyneux. Sir, London, 2d July 1696. CANNOT without great trouble hear I of any indifpofition of yours; your friendship, which Heaven has bestowed on me, as one of the greatest bledings I can enjoy for the remainder of my life, is what I value at fo high a rate, that I cannot confider myfelf within danger of lofing a perfon every way fo dear to me without very great uneafinefs of mind. Thus far I got, when I fat down to write to you about a month fince, as you will fee by the date at the top; business, and a little excurfion into the country, has hindered me ever fince. Were you a man I only cared to talk with out of civility, I fhould fooner anfer your let ters: but not contenting myself with fuch a formal correfpondence with you, I can not find in my heart to begin writing to you, till I think I fhall have time to talk a great deal, and pour out my mind to a man to whom I make fure I can do it with freedom; his candour and friendship allows that, and I find I know not what pleafure in doing it. I promised myself abundance of pleasure this fummer in feeing you here, and the difappointment is one of the moft fenfible I could have met with in my private concerns; and the occafion that robbed me of that fatisfaction frights me. I have, I thank God, now as much health as my contitution will allow me to expect; but yet, if I will think like a reasonable man, the flattery of my fummer vigour ought not to make me count beyond the next winter at any time for the future. The lat fat fo heavy upon me, that it was with difficulty I got through it; and you will not blame me if I have a longing to fee and embrace a man I efteen and lote fo much, before I leave this filly earth; which, when the conveniences of life are moderately provided for, has nothing of value in it equal to the converfation of a knowing, ingenious, and large-minded friend, MODERN. Sect, III. truth. Though your cholic has done me no fmall prejudice, yet I am much more angry with it upon the account of thofe inconveniences it has made you fuffer. I know you are in skilful, as well as careful hands, under the care of your brother, and it could not be advisable in any one to draw you from them. The cholic is fo general a name for pains in the lower belly, that I cannot from thence pretend to make any judgment of your cafe; but it can be no harm to advite you to ak him, whether he does not think that the drinking of our Bath waters may be ufetal to you in your cafe. I know thofe waters mightily ftrengthen thofe parts. Your congratulation to me I take as you meant, kindly and foriolfy, and, it may be, it is what another would rejoice in; but if you will give me leave to whiper truth without vanity, in the ear which I of a frendy sa preferme ty, and I know not 395 what methought looked too much like 1 from the confideration that the q» z d dered to be s རྣམ་ར colours. I could lay a great deal of blame on bufinefs, and a great deal on want of health. Between these two I - have had little leifure fince I writ to you laft. But all that will bear no excufe to myfelf, for being three letters in arrear to a perfon whom I the willinglieft hear from of any man in the world, and with whom I had rather entertain myfelf, and pafs my hours in converfation, than with any one that I know. I fhould take it amifs if you were not angry with me for not writing to you all this while; for I fhould fufpect you loved me not fo well as I love you, if you could patiently bear my filence. I hope it is your civility makes you not chide me. I promife you I fhould have grumbled cruelly at you if you had been half fo guilty as I have been. But if you are angry a little, pray be not fo very much; for if you fhould provoke me any way, I know the first fight of a letter from you would allay all my choler immediately; and the joy of hearing you were well, and that you continued your kindness to me, would fill my mind, and leave me no other paffion: for I tell you truly, that fince the receipt of your letter in September lait, there has fcarce a day paft, I am fure not a poft, wherein I have not thought of my obligation and debt to you, and refolved to acknowledge it to you, though fomething or other has ftill come between to hinder me. For you would have pitied me, to see how much of my time was forced from me this winter in the country (where my illness confined me within doors) by crowds of letters, which were therefore indifpenfably to be anfwered, because they were from people whom either I knew not, or cared not for, or was not willing to make bold with; and fo you, and another friend I have in Holland, have been delayed, and put laft, because you are my friends beyond ceremony and formality. And I referved myself for you when I was at leifure, in the eafe of thoughts to enjoy: for that you may not think you have been paffed over by a peculiar neglect, I mention to you another very good friend of mine, of whom I have now by me a letter, of an ancienter date than the firft of your three, yet unanfwered. LETTER LVII. Oates, 10th Jan. 1697-3. your gentle and kind reproof of my filence has greater marks of true friendship in it, than can be expreffed in the mott elaborate profeffions, or be fufficiently acknowledged by a man who has not the opportunity nor ability to make thofe returns he would. Though I have had leis health and more bufinefs fince I writ to you laft than ever I had for fo long together in my life, yet neither the one nor the other had kept me fo long a truant, had not the concurrence of other caufes drilled me on from day to day, in a neglect of what I frequently purpofed, and always thought myself obliged to do. Perhaps the liftiefnefs my indifpofition conftantly kept me in made me too eafily hearken to fuch excufes; but the expectation of hearing every day from Monf. Le Clerc, that Ï might fend you his anfwer; and the thoughts that I thould be able to fend your brother an account, that his curious treatife concerning the Chafers in Ireland was printed; were at least the pretences that ferved to humour my laziness. Bufinefs kept me in town longer than was convenient for my health: all the day from my rifing was commonly fpent in that; and when I came home at night, my thortnefs of breath, and panting for want of it, made me ordinarily fo uneafy, that I had no heart to do any thing; fo that the ufual diverfion of my vacant hours forfook me, and reading itself was a burden to me. In this eftate I lingered along in town to December, till I betook myself to my wonted refuge, in the more favourable air and retirement of this place. That gave me presently relief again the conftant oppreffion of my lungs, while I fit itill; but I find fuch a weakness of them ftill remain, that if I ftir ever fo little, I am immediately out of breath, and the very dreffing or undreffing me is a labour that I am fain to relt after to recover my breath; and I have not been once out of my house fince I came laft hither. I wish nevertheless that you were here with me to fee how well I am; for you would find, that, fitting by the fire's fide, I could bear my part in difcourfing, laughing, and being merry merry with you, as well as ever I could in my life. If you were here (and if wishes of more than one could bring you, you would be here to-day) you would find three or four in the parlour after dinner, who, you would fay, paffed their afternoons as agreeably and as jocundly as any people you have this good while met with. Do not therefore figure to your felf, that I am languishing away my laft hours under an unfociable defpondency and the weight of my infirmity. It is true, I do not count upon years of life to come, but I thank God I have not many uneafy hours here in the four-and-twenty; and if I can have the wit to keep myfelf out of the fifiing air of London, I fee no reafon bat, by the grace of God, I may get over this winter, and that terrible enemy of mine may ufe me no worfe than the last did, which, as fevere and as long as it was, let me yet fee another fum mer. LETTER LVIII. From the jame to the fame. Dear Sir, Oxes, 6th Apr 1698. THERE is none of the letters that ever I received from you gave me fo much trouble as voar lat of March 15. I was told that you refolved to come into England early in the spring, and lived in the hopes of it more than you can imagine. I do not mean that I had greater hopes of it than you can imagine, but it enlivened me, and contributed to the support of my fpirits more than you can think. But your letter has quite dejected me again. The thing I above a things long for, is to fee, and embrace, and have time did courie with you before I go out of the world. I feet wit to the capable of truth, or worthy of a free conveniatike, fuch as become kom dark, that you cannot think in Enge I sit for fine Lime with you for the expoing, ffing, and rechiving of my cough. have gone at ng fanier is the d covery of truss 7121 12 pebiliked, is muz se br four encounte ment that I mak po sa no inh Khe things that I have a degut: and With you I hope de acer z wnser, .1 yet crude ne which, if there w mankind, if I pofited with you, I know them fafe lodged for the advantage of truth fome time or other: for I am in doubt, whether it be fit for me to trouble the prefs with any new matter; or if I did, 1 look on my life as fo near worn out, that it would be folly to hope to finish any thing of moment in the fmall remainder of it. I hoped therefore, as I faid, to have feen you, and unravelled to you that which lying in the lump unexplicated in my mind, I fcarce yet know what it is myfelf; for I have often had experience that a man cannot well judge of his own notions till, either by fetting them down in paper, or in difcourfing them to a friend, he has drawn them out, and as it were fpread them fairly before himself. As for writing, my ill health gives me little heart or opportunity for it; and of feeing you I begin now to defrir; and that which very much adds to my affliction in the cafe is, that you neglect your own health on confiderations, I am fure, that are not worth your health; for nothing, if expectations were certainties, can be worth it. I fee no likelihood of the parliament's rifing yet this good while; and when they are up, who knows whether the man you expect to relieve you, will come to you prefently, or at all? You mut therefore lay by that business for a walle which detains you, or get fome other body into it, if you will take that care of your health this fammer which you defigned, and it feems to require; and if you defer it till the text, who knows but your care of it may then come to late? There is nothing that we are fach spendthrifts of as of health; we fpare every thing fooner than that, thonga whatever we facrlice it to is woria dothing without it. Pardon me the liberry I take with you: you save gam me as kombiyle; and m is a flag of ton Eta male to me to box cody on wif you are rainy w ay sex. verence or danger, and fay notting. If that could be any fpur to you to make your yamar titer, I would l ya 1 艺考 a Aiver tady for the ***, when I bould be plat vo koska les fh it is too long, the c ́en dé ma the primar off. |