England, and despondent as to the future of his country, is evident from several letters written by him at this time.

The account of Locke's life in Holland may be deferred to the next chapter. It will be convenient here to tell the story of his expulsion from Christ Church, which marks the issue of his connexion with Shaftesbury, and of the part which he had so far taken in English politics. We have already seen that he was suspected of having written a number of political pamphlets against the government. This suspicion was not unnatural, Locke being a literary man and a well-known friend of Shaftesbury. After his retirement to Holland, the suspicion of his having written various pamphlets, supposed to have been printed in that country and surreptitiously conveyed into England, was one which very naturally occurred, and, according to Prideaux, he was now specially suspected of having written 66 a most bitter libel, published in Holland in English, Dutch, and French, called a Hue and Cry after the Earl of Essex's murder." But the government had no proof of these surmises, and therefore no right to take action upon them. Their suspicions were, however, probably sharpened by the malicious reports of their spies in Oxford, and by the not unlikely supposition that Locke was taking part in the intrigues, on behalf of Monmouth, now being carried on in Holland. For the latter suspicion, as for the one with regard to the authorship of the pamphlets, it happens that there was no justification, but it is impossible to deny that there was some primâ facie ground for it. Compared with other arbitrary acts of the reigns of Charles II. and James II., the measures taken against Locke do not seem exceptionally severe, utterly abhorrent as they would doubtless be to the usages of a constitutional age.

About fourteen or fifteen months had elapsed since his disappearance from England, when, on the 6th of November, 1684, Lord Sunderland signified to Dr. Fell, Dean of Christ Church, who was also Bishop of Oxford, the pleasure of the king that Locke should be removed from his studentship, asking the Dean at the same time to specify "the method of doing it." "The method" adopted by the Dean was to attach a moneo to the screen in the college hall, summoning Locke to appear on the 1st of January following, to answer the charges against him. After admitting that Locke, as having a physician's place among the students, was not obliged to residence, and that he was abroad upon want of health, the Dean, in his reply to Sunderland, proceeds to show his readiness to accommodate himself to the requirements of the court: Notwithstanding that, I have summoned him to return home, which is done with this prospect, that if he comes not back, he will be liable to expulsion for contumacy; if he does, he will be answerable to your lordship for what he shall be found to have done amiss." Ingenious, however, as the "method" was, it was not expeditious enough to satisfy the court. A second letter from Sunderland, enjoining Locke's immediate expulsion, was at once despatched. This curious document is still shown in the Christ Church library, and, as I have never seen an exact transcript of it, I here subjoin one :

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"To the Right Reverend Father in God, John, Lord Bishop of Oxon, Dean of Christ-Church, and our trusty and wellbeloved the Chapter there.

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'Right Reverend Father in God, and trusty and well-beloved, we greet you well. Whereas we have received information of the factious and disloyall behaviour of students of that our Colledge; we have thought fit hereby to

Lock, one of the

signify our will and pleasure to you, that you forthwith remove him from his said student's place, and deprive him of all the rights and advantages thereunto belonging. For which this shall be your warrant. And so we bid you heartily farewell. "Given at our Court at Whitehall, 11th day of November, 1684, in the six and thirtieth year of our Reigne.

"By his Majesty's command,

"SUNDERLAND."

On the 16th of November the Dean signified that his Majesty's command was fully executed, whereupon Lord Sunderland acquainted him that his Majesty was well satisfied with the college's ready obedience.

Thus the most celebrated man, perhaps, that Oxford has sheltered within her walls since the Reformation was summarily ejected at the dictation of a corrupt and arbitrary court. The Dean and Chapter might have won our admiration, had they resisted the royal command, as was done in the next reign by the Fellows of Magdalen College, but it was hardly to be expected that they should risk their own goods and liberties in attempting to afford a protection which, after all, would have been almost certainly attempted in vain. Moreover, as Lord Grenville (Oxford and Locke) has pointed out, Christ Church being a royal foundation, the Dean and Chapter might well regard the king as having full power either to appoint or remove any member of the foundation, and themselves as only registering his decree. The same power, as we have already seen, had been exercised in Locke's favour by the dispensation from entering holy orders accorded by the crown in 1666.

After the Revolution, Locke petitioned William the Third for the restitution of his studentship, but “finding," according to Lady Masham, that "it would give

great disturbance to the society, and dispossess the person that was in his place, he desisted from that pretension."

In Fell's first letter to Sunderland, he speaks of Locke's extreme reserve and taciturnity. As this seems to have been one of his distinguishing characteristics, and as the passage is otherwise remarkable, as showing the vigilance with which Locke was watched at Oxford, I give it at length:

:

"I have for divers years had an eye upon him; but so close has his guard been on himself that, after several strict inquiries, I may confidently affirm there is not any one in the College, however familiar with him, who has heard him speak a word either against or so much as concerning the Government; and although very frequently, both in public and in private, discourses have been purposely introduced to the disparagement of his master, the Earl of Shaftesbury, his party and designs, he could never be provoked to take any notice or discover in word or look the least concern; so that I believe there is not in the world such a master of taciturnity and passion."

This account of Locke's reserve, as well as the illustration here incidentally afforded of the abominable system of college espionage which then prevailed in Oxford, is amply confirmed by Prideaux's letters to Ellis. In the Thoughts on Education parents and tutors are recommended to mould children betimes to this mastery over their tongues. But the gift of silence was exercised by Locke only in those matters where other men have no right to be inquisitive or curious-matters of private concernment and of individual opinion. In conversation on general topics, he seems always to have been open and copious. His taciturnity, though the effect of prudence and self-control, was certainly not due to any lack of geniality or any want of sympathy with others.

LOCKE must have landed in Holland in one of the autumn months of 1683, being then about fifty-one years of age. We are not able, however, to trace any of his movements till the January of 1683-4, when he was present, by invitation of Peter Guenellon, the principal physician of Amsterdam, at the dissection of a lioness which had been killed by the intense cold of the winter.

Through Guenellon, whom he had met during his stay in Paris, he must have made the acquaintance of the principal literary and scientific men at that time residing in or near Amsterdam. Amongst these was Philip van Limborch, then professor of theology among the Arminians or Remonstrants. The Arminians (called Remonstrants on account of the remonstrance which they had presented to the States-General in 1610) were the latitudinarians of Holland, and, though they had been condemned by the Synod of Dort in 1619, and had been subjected to a bitter persecution by the Calvinist clergy for some years following, were now a fairly numerous body, possessing a theological seminary, and exercising a considerable influence, not only in their own country, but over the minds